Mrs. Meyer uses a host of similes repeatedly to drive home Bella’s emotional barrenness in New Moon after Edward departs, from the darkness of a ‘new moon’ to the void of an ‘empty house.’
The workhorse metaphor, though, which will be hard to film I have to think, is a chest without a beating heart; I counted 37 different passages leaning on this “painfully empty” image.
Thirty seven. Do the math: in a 24 chapter book with epilogue, we get this image, on average, one and a half times per chapter. The author is trying to make a point and relentlessly bring it to our attention. My bet is that the heart here is not a Hallmark valentine but a story-stand-in for the lebh and kardia of scripture, the interface of God and Man (cf., Psalm 51:10, Matthew 5:8).
When Edward-God is gone, “a huge hole had been punched through my chest;” when Edward-God returns, “my heart inflated like it was going to crack right through my ribs. It filled my chest and blocked my throat so that I could not speak.” She describes her realization that Edward-God loves her as an “epiphany,” religious-speak less for “revelation” than for a “theophany” or appearing of God.
Twilight introduced us to the God-Man love story in the romance of Edward and Bella. New Moon continues this love-story parable in its allegorical (and satirical) representation of the zombie-like existence of human life without belief in God’s presence and His love. Bella without Edward is a human heart without the God-shaped piece to fit its God-shaped hole. She goes to a zombie film (”Dead End”) and is reading Orwell’s Animal Farm, and, assuming that the movie is a hat-tip to the Romero “Living Dead” classics, both are satires of unthinking, mechanical life. Seeing these, Bella begins to snap out of her borderline comatose existence and live as well as she can, even if without her God-man.
A stretch? The Hebrew and Greek words for “heart” in the Bible are the fourth most common occurring nouns (after God, Man, and Lord or King) in scripture. Man meets and knows God in his heart, according to Jewish and Christian tradition (and most other revealed faiths as well). That Mrs. Meyer gives Bella a heart that jumps whenever Edward is present and that is empty when he is gone is all but transparent story-speak for her spiritual condition and the core allegory of these books.
Your comments and corrections, please!
-
Not only is Bella “lifeless” until meeting Edward, but Edward’s own life was rather flat and empty until meeting her. I noticed this in my last readthrough, which included Midnight Sun. Bella’s living heart springs to life with him, his immortal heart springs to life with her. They each seem to “charge” each other into full life, if that makes sense.
-
Deuteronomy 6:5: Love the LORD with all your heart…
So does Edward represent Jesus Christ, or Joseph Smith?This idea of the centrality of the heart also connects with the transformation from human to vampire, where the heart is the last and most important organ to change.
With regard to Bella’s heart and the central role it plays in elucidating her religious journey, I don’t agree with the interpretation you quoted from Arnaudin in one of your posts about Breaking Dawn. Arnaudin argued that the replacement of blood with venom was indicative of a baptismal initiation into the Mormon church. The idea being that human blood was replaced with venom that represented “the Blood of Jacob” (ie, Mormonism). If you read that passage in Breaking Dawn, you see that afterwards, Bella doesn’t have venom, its presence felt as fire, in her veins; she has nothing. The blood is completely “burned” up.
“The fire was doomed, having consumed everything that was combustible; my heart galloped towards it’s last beat.
The fire constricted, concentrating inside that one remaining human organ with a final, unbearable surge.” (p385)[A side note: Perhaps, from the perspective of Jacob's pack, their multiple crossings through the river as they circle the Cullen house serve the purpose of their baptisms. This would explain why Jacob is allowed (by the Cullens) to get so close to Renesmee in response to his imprinting.]
I think the moment when Bella becomes a Mormon must be earlier in the books. Although when exactly I haven’t yet worked out – there are several contenders. Perhaps when she is bitten by James and venom first enters her veins, leaving her with a permanent cold scar. Or perhaps when the Carlisle family council agrees that they will make her a vampire some time in the future. Surely Bella’s conversion has to happen before she and Edward can be allowed to marry, from a Mormon perspective?
The way I see it, the moment when Bella is transformed into a vampire, when her wayward “hungry” heart finally stops beating, is the moment when she is (in Mormon terminology) exalted into her celestial resurrection body.
The Mormon Bible Dictionary online says this about resurrection (http://scriptures.lds.org/en/bd/r/28):
“The resurrection consists in the uniting of a spirit body with a body of flesh and bones, never again to be divided. … a resurrection means to become immortal, without blood, yet with a body of flesh and bone.” [my emphasis] This body is “celestial, exalted”.
The fact that this resurrection occurs as Bella imagines herself gripping a “stake” (the Mormon translation for the Greek word for cross/crucifix) would, I think, lend credence to this interpretation.
“But for me, as I struggled to keep the screams and thrashing locked up inside my body, where they couldn’t hurt anyone else, it felt like I’d gone from being tied to the stake as I burned, to gripping that stake to hold myself in the fire.” (p379)
“The fire flared up at the center of my chest, sucking the last remnants of the flames from the rest of my body to fuel the most scorching blaze yet. The pain was enough to stun me, to break through my iron grip on the stake.” (p385) -
After watching New Moon, I realised Bella’s dive off the cliff, driven as it is by her desire to be with Edward in whatever way she can, is probably the baptismal moment. It is significant that it is immediately after this that Alice (in her Holy Spirit-Counsellor mode) returns to Forks to reconnect with Bella. Also the beginning of the end for Bella’s relationship with Jacob, whom she now realises is close – but not close enough – to the perfect mate (or religious representative).
The main problem with this interpretation is the lack of a Vampire/Mormon priest there to initiate Bella properly. Unless Edward’s voice in her head is considered sufficient.
-
Long as you are going down this path, perhaps you should revisit:
“Bella Swan, all-too-human girlfriend, paper cuts a finger at her birthday party in the veggie-vampire Cullens’ home and Edward’s ‘brother’ Jasper attacks. Gallant young man that Edward is, at well over 100 years old if forever a teenager boy, he saves Bella’s life but decides he and his family must leave for her long term safety. Bella experiences the world without Edward, however, as the loss of “life, love, and meaning.” She is only rescued from her heart-break by a Native American friend, Jacob Black, who teaches her how to ride a motorcycle and revives her from her inner-Zombie.”
In other words, It is the story of the LDS concept of “Great Apostasy” where faith in G-d has been banished. If the love of Edward means “G-d-Man love,” and Jacob represents The Book of Mormon, then Jacob rekindles and redirects Bella’s heart as The Book of Mormon redirects and rekindles faith in G-d. She decides to do something about it rather than wait for it as a passive memory.
4 comments
Comments feed for this article
Trackback link: http://fhsprofessor.com/wp-trackback.php?p=347