In the Twilight of Patriarchal Culture: The Struggle for Female Identity in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Tracing Bella's Subjectivity: Ideal Love as the Only Way Out
• Edward and Jacob: Magnets with reversed polarities or two poles of Bella's existence?
• The Cullen Vampires: the ideal family and its enemies
  • Carlisle Cullen
  • Esme Cullen
  • Rosalie Cullen
  • Alice Cullen
  • The Cullens' Enemies
• Quileute Legends: re-affirming patriarchal myths.
• The Power of Abstinence
• The Dawn of Bella's Immortality
  • Bella's transformations: marriage, pregnancy, motherhood
  • Bella's new life: motherhood and other talents
  • Renesmee: link between binaries, threat to the patriarchal order
• Twilight as Modern Fairy Tale: patriarchal myths reflected in the saga
  • Little Red Riding Hood
  • The Little Mermaid
  • The Genesis
• Intertextuality: Twilight and Wuthering Heights

Objectives and Key Themes

This dissertation explores the depiction of female subjectivity and self-affirmation in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga, utilizing psychoanalytic and feminist perspectives. The study focuses on Bella Swan's character and her struggles within a patriarchal environment, highlighting the impact of societal expectations and binary oppositions on her development. The dissertation examines how Bella's relationship with Edward and Jacob influences her search for identity and self-realization.

• Female subjectivity and self-affirmation within a patriarchal setting
• Bella Swan's struggle for identity and self-realization
• The influence of societal expectations and binary oppositions on Bella's development
• The relationship between Bella, Edward, and Jacob as a representation of binary oppositions
• The portrayal of patriarchal myths and their impact on female characters in the saga

Chapter Summaries

The first chapter introduces the reader to Bella Swan, the protagonist of the Twilight Saga, and her initial situation marked by a lack of self-confidence and social marginalization. It argues that Bella's desire to become a vampire is driven by her need to escape her marginalized state and gain access to a "higher" realm represented by Edward and his vampire family. The chapter also explores how Bella's complete identification with Edward threatens her autonomy as a subject.

Keywords

The key themes of this work are female subjectivity, self-affirmation, patriarchal structures, binary oppositions, and the representation of female characters within a fictional narrative. The analysis draws on concepts from psychoanalysis and feminist theory to explore the complexities of Bella Swan's character development and her interactions with Edward and Jacob. The dissertation also examines the impact of patriarchal myths and societal expectations on female characters within the Twilight Saga.