The Sadness of Edward in MS

[momimouse]

Wow, what a joy to read all these theories. If I were thinking straight today, I might be able to add alot more. :/ But my thinking cap isn't on today...its Monday. So, my only thought was this:

This malcontent that Edward has cloaked himself in, I feel is something of a defense mechanism. He clings to it, not only because he believes it:

In reading Midnight Sun we get to see with great clarity why Edward's emotions are so volatile and hard for Bella to predict; why no happiness can come to him unless he grasps it by its thorny stem and bleeds without a whimper. He would give anything to be able to be human and love Bella with neither guilt nor shame, but this cannot be. All he can do is to be militantly honest and always leave an exit door open so she can leave him, as he sincerely thinks she should.

but because if he doesn't believe it, it means(before he has met Bella) that its possible he has no other to bond with-that there is no one for him, so he clings to the reality of what he is.

Don't know, maybe I'm rambling a bit...I am off today.

[Shimmerskin]

that Bella Swan has come to him to lead him out of his own private Hell and save him.

As Beatrice guided Dante into Heaven??

It's serendipitous that you bring this up, Scoundrel, because I'm thinking about Dante Alighieri as a proto-Malcontent: exiled, unorthodox, a minority of one inveighing against the religious norms and political status quo. Why not? We have always seen the strong connection between the TS and La Commedia Divina di Dante.

If Edward was the Malcontent always standing outside the charmed circle, he metamorphoses into the hero at the center, the successful defender staving off disaster. Not only does he NOT destroy Bella, he helps SAVE her, their family, and their community. The very fact that he is the reason Bella becomes a vampire--the only one impervious to the Volturi's best weapons--means he has ensured the extended preservation of the Cullen Clan. (Don't you think it was a matter of time before Aro manufactured a cause to act against them, in his long game to acquire Alice? Where would the family find themselves, without Bella's shield?).

Edward becomes an agent of his own salvation when he surrenders to Bella. Once he admits he can't resist her pull, it initiates all the events that lead him, like Dante, out of Hell and through Purgatory, until he finally finds his Heaven.

~Edward was already in his own Hell before Bella moved to Forks, the Lion in the Inferno, never hoping to gaze at the sun behind the mountain.

~Enter Bella in TW, his Virgil who makes him look at the sun before they descend into the Underworld, where he expects judgment for his actions.He already condemns himself for the three Vices from which all sins derive: Incontinent Spirit, Fraud, and Violence.

~After surviving the lessons there, he follows his conscience in NM to his personal Mt. Purgatorio, where motive, even more than action, is the besetting sin.* (Incidentally, Dante placed Mt. Purgatorio at the far southern end of the earth....). Continuing the process of Purgatory, penance occurs in EC as Edward learns to submit to Absolute Will (Fate/God/Destiny) and its design for him and Bella.

~Then, finally, following Bella's lead, he enters Paradise where he is called on to display to the utmost the cardinal virtues (Temperance, Prudence, Fortitude, Justice); passing the ultimate test, he is rewarded in the embrace of Faith, Hope, and Perfect Love.

*Notice how SM "fractures the fairy tale" here. She makes motive the mitigator rather than the actual sin. This comparison with The Divine Comedy wouldn't work without her trademark fractures!

[redlipstick]

I'se a gonna pop some popcorn, me't some buttah, and sit on the couch and watch ya'll's'folks made genius lit'r'ry points. Boy hidey, this is some good show!

nothing to add. just very happy to watch.

rls

[sandie23]

Wao you are allso profound in this study of Edward sadness that i'm perplexed by some of your points. There is this blog that finishes MS in the mind of other writer i would love to see if u all agree with her ending and her pov of edward's side of the story.

[annibell]

Hi ...l have just finished reading MS and l thought it was fantastic...l didnt think it sad at all...l thought Edward went through the motions we all do when confronted by love...l enjoyed reading his thoughts and how he felt...making excuses why he couldnt leave Forks..then why he should...always searching through the pros and cons...and still finding himself there...where he belonged...and the realisation he felt when Bella excepted HIM ....for HIM...not the monster he always thought he was...altho l thought whilst reading this some of timelines seemed a little out of whack....and probley this is due to thinking of the movie not the book..(sorry just had that thought) l would love to try and envelope these 2 stories together as one entity...but that might ruin it too..and l'm no author...but l loved reading Edwards thoughts and yeah thumbs up

[drJ@twilight]

Hi - I haven't read MS yet, but plan to very soon - I don't think i can hold out much longer!
I have been visiting the MS threads regularly with interest and love.
I wanted to ask TMs how reading MS has transformed their views and feelings about The Twilight Saga books and its characters.
How did reading MS change you as a person?
For example:
- After reading MS, do you believe more stongly that Ms Meyer is a good writer?
- How has your views of the main characters changed?
- Did MS offer anything really unique on top of the other books?
I am yet to find out what I will think and how I will feel after reading MS, but I just wanted to explore the minds and hearts of other TMs first.
Look forward to your reflective comments!

[havera_7]

- How has your views of the main characters changed?

Edward in TW was just as much of an enigma to me as he was to Bella . He was very charismatic, but I couldn't always understand his motives and his behavior. His sudden mood swings, his mysterious comments made me want to know more. Thankfully, after MS it was all very clear, and I was happy to find out that many times I guessed right . The one thing I could have never guessed was the intensity of Edward's feelings for Bella. I had no idea how quickly and how hard he fell for her...

[apharion]

I'se a gonna pop some popcorn, me't some buttah, and sit on the couch and watch ya'll's'folks made genius lit'r'ry points. Boy hidey, this is some good show!

nothing to add. just very happy to watch.

rls

This is, without a doubt, my favorite comment in the whole Twilightmoms collection of forums. I absolutely laugh out loud every time I read it. Touche!

[YAFASHELLI]

I thought that was hysterical too! My husband looked up, I guffawed so loud!!

[scoundrel]

I think the two go hand-in-hand, although Edward couldn't have known the difference in their personalities before Alice and Jasper found each other.

He talks in Midnight Sun and in BD (and in another place, too...TW, I think?) about the permanent alteration in a vampire's whole being when they find their mate. This is never more clearly manifested than in BD when he says,

I am purely full of joy, because I am missing nothing. No one has more than I do now.

And the reason Edward can be purely full of joy is because Bella is so perfectly and completely happy. Nothing else could have the power to change him from his naturally melancholic persona than the sublime realization that his beloved mate, his "reason for existing," as he tells it, is happy...and happy with him...and because of him.

If ever we were in doubt, we have Jasper, arguably the second-saddest character in the series, to lend proof to Bella's state of happiness. Edward explains to her that Jasper can't resist a positive emotional environment, and since Bella is so radiantly blissful in her vampire life, Jasper constantly gravitates toward her presence. Edward can't read Bella's mind but he can read Jasper's, and the suffusion of emotional lightness-of-being that Jasper picks up on from Bella.

Long is the way
And hard, that out of Hell leads up to Light.
~ Paradise Lost Book 2: John Milton

There are a number of the Cullen family members who are in a position to know what is happening to Edward. Carlisle never gave in to his demons as Edward once did, but he knows the alienation and the sense of being accursed which Edward knows. Carlisle has designed his entire life as a vampire as a strategy to break the curse; uniquely, he is the one strong enough to do it and to win his personal fight, but that fight is like the alcoholic's fight. It is not important that he has lived 450 years and never fed on a human being. What matters is that he has not fed on a human being today. Carlisle was the loneliest of them all before he created Edward, Esme, Rosalie and Emmett. His decision to create them was out of compassion for their wasted human lives, not self-interest; but they rewarded him for his generosity and care by giving him love and companionship.

One mustn't forget Rosalie. Until she found Emmett, her situation was just as bad as Edward's. She actively wanted to die alone and uncared for in that alleyway, where her devastating rape had left her broken beyond repair. But Carlisle repaired the physical damage by changing her, leaving the emotional wreckage in the hands of Esme and Edward; I suspect there's an awful lot we haven't seen or heard which concerns the improvised therapy given to Rosalie by Esme especially. Rosalie's estrangement and disgust for the vampire state of being unquestionably influences Edward whenever the subject of changing Bella comes up; yet it was the love of her husband and of her family which gave Rosalie a reason to persevere with the fate she never chose and would gladly renounce if she ever could. Love has been her way out of Hell back into light.

We see a similar phenomenon in Jasper Hale, who has been crushed and almost obliterated by his evil servitude in Maria's loveless coven. Jasper really was once as evil as Edward thinks he once was. Jasper renounced his evil servitude and ran away. He got clean away from Maria but you can't run away from yourself. I pay roughly £1,000 to British Airways; I get on a plane at Heathrow; twenty four hours later, I stumble off the plane at Auckland, New Zealand...but I'm still there, I haven't escaped from my own company.

Mephistopheles: Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed
In one self-place; for where we are is hell,
And where hell is, there must we ever be.
~ Doctor Faustus: Christopher Marllowe.

Love was also the way out of Hell for Jasper Hale. Alice Cullen stood before him and offered her hand; the hand of love,the hand of guidance, the hand which said in the ancient language of non-verbal communication, Come with me. Thanks to his strange gift of sharing emotions, Jasper could know that Alice's heart was bursting with joy, simply because she had finally claimed him, and he knew the die was cast and that he would have to go with her. Alice truly was Beatrice. She was there to save Jasper and Jasper knew that too, that he was being saved.

Jasper sees Alice in Bella, in the way Edward's is full of music, in the way he laughs when Bella laughs, in the sheer gaity of his demeanour whan she is with him. It is in this fragment, Midnight Sun, that we can see the emotional transformation which all this represents, and of all of them, Jasper is the one who can know what has happened to Edward

Remember Jasper's enigmatic and vaguely sinister presence in the background while Carlislle, Esme and Alice make the running in greeting and welcoming Bella on her first visit to their house? He's scary alright, and the whole occasion is frightening. Jasper helps Bella out by calming the worst of her fear-response, but he is also the only one there who knows just exactly how frightened she is and how brave she is. I do believe he really admires her from that moment and that he adopts her as his new sister because she is exceptional. She is as brave as any lion; and she takes away from Edward the pain of his eternal curse. From Jasper's point of view, what's not to like about Bella Swan?

[Shimmerskin]

I do believe he really admires her from that moment and that he adopts her as his new sister because she is exceptional. She is as brave as any lion; and she takes away from Edward the pain of his eternal curse. From Jasper's point of view, what's not to like about Bella Swan?

You've just demonstrated how valuable a factor Jasper must be in Edward's impressions of Bella. Edward can't know Bella's thoughts, and he's not initially astute at reading her signals, either. When he takes her to meet his family, he has his own assumptions about what she's thinking and feeling, but it's only after he reads Jasper's thoughts and interprets Jasper's sense of Bella's emotions that Edward gets the most accurate depiction of the situation.

I'm sure Edward is grateful to have this resource available to him, but I wonder if it also saddens him that Jasper reads her better than he, himself, can?

[scoundrel]

You've just demonstrated how valuable a factor Jasper must be in Edward's impressions of Bella. Edward can't know Bella's thoughts, and he's not initially astute at reading her signals, either. When he takes her to meet his family, he has his own assumptions about what she's thinking and feeling, but it's only after he reads Jasper's thoughts and interprets Jasper's sense of Bella's emotions that Edward gets the most accurate depiction of the situation.

I'm sure Edward is grateful to have this resource available to him, but I wonder if it also saddens him that Jasper reads her better than he, himself, can?

I imagine that it does, whenever he considers it. But what a small price to pay in order to have Jasper relaying Bella's emotions to him; its even better than the heart monitor in the hospital in Phoenx.

That's going to be embarrassing...
~ Bella.