Volu m e II - Purdue University Calumet

harrowing tasks and solving complex problems, Romances focus more on woman‟s ability to interact with
and learn the quirks of the male mind in order to ultimately civilize him with marriage. These books are
preparing girls for the roles they are supposed to play in real life and because of that it is easy to over
exaggerate the role identifiers in order to simplify them. In other words, qualities associated with a
particular sex will become central to that character‟s personality. And as with any adventure, it begins by
leaving the comfort of familiarity.
The Twilight series is told primarily from Bella‟s point of view, who describes herself as unable to
relate to people her own age (10), having difficulty expressing emotions out loud (7), and generally as an
outcast (10). This establishes Bella as an „every-girl,‟ someone that any person first picking up the novel can
relate to because the feeling of being different from adults and peers is a common experience, most notably
in adolescence. Bella is still a child at this point and is only just becoming aware of the rules of becoming a
woman. It is important to note that adolescence is a period in life that is marked by insecurity and
separation in order to test separate identities from those formed by others‟ assessment of the child.
Mary Pipher calls adolescents “travelers” because of their necessity to constantly reevaluate their
core identity. Bella has exiled herself to a new home, separating herself from places she knows and people
that comfort her in order, she claims, to give her mother and her mother‟s new husband private time. It is
time for her to branch out to create her own home in place of the one her mother is building. Besides the
specifics of her reason for moving from Phoenix, Arizona, to Forks, Washington, a reader can relate to the
feeling of being „set adrift as they are required to leave the family.
Bella‟s excursion to the misty forests of Forks can be read as a girl‟s first journey into awareness
about her sexual self, a part of her identity that had hitherto largely consisted of lessons that were variations
of „ladies don‟t sit that way‟ and good girls do X. These half-truths exchanged between friends and collected
through the grapevine do not offer a strong foundation for this girl to be able to construct a sexual self that
is whole and healthy. Bella is an inexperienced girl that will learn to be a woman only when she can decode
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