On Twilight, Post-Modern motherhood, and the Lure of the Gothic Heroine, Part One

I have long contemplated an essay on the difficulties of modern motherhood. While this is the first of three parts, I will state up front that this is far from my final word on the subject, and that this essay grew out of my written response to a scholarly article written by a good friend, Dr. Lori Branch of the University of Iowa. The article is entitled “Carlisle’s Cross: Locating the Post Secular Gothic,” and you can find Dr. Branch’s article published as part of The Twilight Mystique: Critical Essays on the Novels and Films. The book was released last year and you can purchase a copy of it HERE. The central points of the article are that Bella is part of the larger tradition of Gothic heroines (and why she fits there), and also that Carlisle Cullen represents a pre-modern utopia that is both appealing and fantastical to the post modern mind.

Two summers ago, I found myself in the middle of a life crisis. I turned 30 that summer, and so can hardly call it a “midlife” crisis, but it rather felt that way. Everything about my life seemed out of whack to me. At the time, we were in a parish that was spiritually unhealthy for our family, and my religious isolation was fairly intense. I was not spiritually isolated (for one cannot truly be isolated from God), but I didn’t feel surrounded by a community of like-minded believers who would support me in the Faith. It was exceedingly difficult to remember why I had to make the often hard decisions to live differently from the world and to remember the higher purpose of my life (the journey of salvation). About that time, I stumbled upon the Twilight book series. I am a fast reader normally, but I raced through them in record time. I felt lost and mourned for the years of my youth. Even though I didn’t consciously want to be 17 again (I didn’t like being 17 when I was!), I felt I had missed something crucial in those years. The books seemed to address something inside me that cried out for a voice. I couldn’t quite articulate all the aspects of my unease until I read Lori’s article.

While I didn’t identify the Twilight series as addressing religious isolation, Lori’s article makes clear that it is a primary theme of the book, and I couldn’t agree more. I find myself living in Caputo’s post-secular religious hope—someday our parish situation will improve, perhaps I will discover some forgotten corner of the city that holds a community of like-minded people, perhaps I will be able to shed the darkness that surrounds me and shine forth light, etc.—and the Twilight series made me ache for all that is impossible, both religiously (although not spiritually, and I think most of you will know the difference) and culturally. The books present a kind of stylized religion, in which difficult things are asked of its followers (vegetarian vampirism, restraint, conscious consumerism—at least to a point), but these things are quite surmountable within the family community that Carlisle Cullen has created. You might even say that Carlisle has created religion within his family unit, for they have mysteries (such as confession of “sins”—Jasper’s struggles with vegetarianism for example), they have rituals, they have faith, and they seek salvation. Their faith is admittedly a faith in the power of their love bonds, but it is faith of a sort, nonetheless. At the same time, this religion has already transformed them by the very fact they are vampires—in much the way that we hope for transfiguration along our path of salvation, by denying the passions to become more like Christ and to enter into his saving Resurrection, and becoming a new creature, Meyers’ vampires are made new with their perfect bodies, sparkly skin and enhanced senses.

END PART ONE