Ein sonniger Sonntag, Zeit für einen guten Link. Vor ein paar Wochen hatte ich kurz darauf hingewiesen, dass Ana Mardoll eine Twilight-Dekonstruktion begonnen hat. Sie schreibt allerdings – wie ich zu Beginn – nur über wenige Seiten am Stück und kommt daher langsam voran. Aber nach den ersten Beiträgen muss ich sagen, dass mir das Resultat gut gefällt und ich mir überlege, nicht zumindest ab und zu selbst auch noch mal genauer auf einzelne Passagen einzugehen.

Hier ein Beispiel aus dem neuesten Beitrag – Bella sieht die Cullens zum ersten Mal.

One of the major problems with the mentality that aloofness is a sign of social standing and “alpha” status within a group is how incredibly isolating it can be. Taken to the extreme, the principle of self-isolation becomes a way of trying to exercise control on one’s surroundings by controlling one’s own behavior. If I can just exercise perfect self-control, the inner voice assures, then everything will be perfect. You too can be beautiful, aloof, mysterious, and desirable, as long as you never exhibit the slightest sign of your actual emotions – as long as you constantly maintain a perfect mask for the outside world to judge and praise.

The problem, of course, besides the fact that perfect self-control is a meaningless and impossible dream, is that the promise is a lie.
(…)
Obsessive TV Troping aside, I’m uncomfortable with the language used here. It may not be unusual for women in our society to compare themselves unfavorably to other women, but it’s not something I think is worth reinforcing or aspiring to. Here we see the first example of many where the Cullens’ beauty is placed in stark contrast to Bella’s – Rosalie is described as a statuesque model whose very existence hurts “every girl['s]” self-esteem. I find this particularly frustrating because “self-esteem” – literally the appraisal of self-worth – should not, in my opinion, be a relative thing.
(…)
It should be obvious by now, I think, that Forks doesn’t have a strong social welfare network – if a nice-but-strange doctor and his charming wife moved into the far outskirts of town with a passel of adopted teenagers that refused to socialize (either with themselves or the other kids in town), never ate lunch at school, kept strange hours and were pulled out of school entirely on nice days for “mountain hikes”, and constantly showed up at school with bruised faces and sleepless eyes, I would expect some kind of welfare investigation to occur.
(…)
Once again, no matter what you think about the Cullens or about this novel in general, I find this scene utterly tragic. S. Meyer would have us believe that this family cares about each other – four of the five featured here are officially coupled, after all – and that they live together out of love rather than need for survival or fear of being alone. So why are they so silent and avoiding each other’s gaze? I can imagine that maybe the Cullens would save the bulk of their conversation for home – no need to draw attention to their oddness further by discussing quantum physics at the lunch table, perhaps – but it seems deeply sad to me that they aren’t even communing with their eyes in silence. They’re not exchanging meaningful glances or enjoying each other’s company – they’re looking away from each other, not so they can look at anything in this utterly disinteresting lunchroom, but rather because they want to avoid their gaze.

What’s more interesting is how obviously impossible this charade is and how uncommitted they are to maintaining it: they’re not eating. Edward will later admit that they can eat human food but that the experience is intensely unpleasant; in the meantime, they daily go to school, buy food in the lunchroom, make no pretense of touching their food, and throw it away entirely as soon as possible. It seems like the Cullens are trying to stand out as odd – why wouldn’t they bring lunch bags from home where they could at least obscure the fact that they are openly not eating? For that matter, why don’t they go off the premises for lunch period – an option that I’m given to understand is perfectly acceptable nowadays for high schoolers? If Carlisle Cullen can get them permission to skip on sunny days, he can surely come up with some kind of “nutritional diet that can only be fixed at home” excuse to get the kids off the school campus every day at noon.

But, no, they buy the school lunches publicly where everyone can see exactly how much they’ve bought and exactly how much they aren’t eating.

Wie ich finde, lesenswerte Ansichten.