Twilight

Let me first say that I am not a fanatic of the Twilight books. I had never really paid much attention to them until recently. They were just a series of books that some people liked, no big deal. But one day a friend saw me reading Dracula, and tore me from the book into an intense discussion about vampire stories. Then she asked the question, “Isn’t Edward so dreamy?” and I, like a fool, answered “Edward who?” I was then constantly surrounded by people telling me I needed to read Twilight until I finally gave in and got the book. I thought, another vampire book, it can’t be much of a variation from the tried and true formula. I was wrong. Twilight appeals to Americans because it takes some of the classic elements of vampire stories, and sets them in a modern realistic teenage book.

For anyone who hasn’t jumped on the bandwagon, I’ll tell you the basics of Twilight giving away any spoilers. It centers on a high school girl named Bella who moves to Forks, WA to live with her father after her mother gets remarried. She misses her hometown of Phoenix and hates the wet and dreary weather of the Olympic Peninsula. But to her surprise, she fits in well at school. Everyone seems to like her, except for Edward Cullen. One day, Bella is nearly hit by a car and Edward saves her. From then on, Bella can’t stop thinking about him, and when he finally does talk to her, they fall in love. Bella later finds out that Edward is a vampire, but still can’t stay away from him. The rest is history.

Edward is certainly not Dracula. He doesn’t live in a haunted mansion, sleep in a coffin, turn into a bat, burn in the sun, or flee from crosses and garlic. He does, however, thirst for blood. But he isn’t the flat, heartless monster that we think of when we think vampire. He has normal human emotions and is disgusted by what he is. Therefore, he and other vampires like him, drink the blood of animals instead of attacking humans. This, I believe is a good part of the reason Edward is so appealing. He is, on a certain level, like you and me. We may not be able to associate with his desire to drink blood, but we have all had to resist temptation at one point or another, and we can relate to this and others of his more human qualities.

Bella is also not the norm for vampire stories. In all of the classics, the female star is some poor damsel in distress caught in a trance by an evil vampire, waiting for some hero to come in and save her at the last minute before the vampire sucks her blood. Bella definitely doesn’t fit this archetype. She is independent, free thinking, and not sitting around waiting for someone to save her. Most Americans can relate to her type better. Even though we may not be just like Bella, we can identify with some of her thought processes and probably know someone who is just like Bella. This makes the book more approachable because we can get into Bella’s head before we have to think about all the vampire stuff. This, however, is what initially turned me off to the book. I like to get into the world of a fantasy story. Twilight is quite boring in this way. It takes place in a real town, which most of us have been to, or at least driven through, and the only part that couldn’t actually happen is the actual vampire. However, due to Twilight’s immense popularity, my opinion appears to be with the minority.

I think I have figured out the other reason why so many teenage girls are obsessed with Edward. It isn’t necessarily Edward himself, but it is more about the relationship that he has with Bella. He spends just about all of his time thinking about her. He is completely devoted to making sure she gets through every situation unscathed. This is definitely not the norm for high school boys. So girls pine over Edward because he is, other than his vampirism, the perfect guy that they will never have.

These differences are essential to the popularity of Twilight. But I fear this continuing pattern of the relateable vampire. It’s not just these books, but many other modern vampire stories are taking the same turn. In Moonlight, the vampire drinks blood from the blood bank, works as a private detective, and falls in love with a news reporter. In The Little Vampire, an entire clan of vampires drinks the blood of cows in local farms. Twilight is just an extreme of this trend. It’s a far cry from the original Dracula, and the classic counterparts. While change isn’t always bad, if these new stories become the vampire norm, people won’t know what to make of the classic vampire.