H01 – Larissa’s Midterm Post 4/4: The Twilight Saga

Breaking Dawn

 

Breaking Dawn is broken down into two movies. The first is concerned with Bella’s turning into a vampire. Here’s what happens:

Now, Bella has always been very conscious of aging. She does not want to celebrate her birthday. She does not like being reminded of her age. Cicero thought we should recognize that old age does not make life unbearable and Seneca thought you should make the most of the time that you have. No one lives forever: dying is inevitable. Besides, according to Epicurus, you should not fear death because you will not be there when it happens. However, Bella does not want to exist without Edward, and vice versa.

Basically, Bella views growing old as a very bad thing because she is slowly coming closer to dying. She likes the idea of forever, of the infinite. She wants to be with Edward forever.

This won’t happen if Bella stays human. She must become a vampire. Moreover, she will actually be there when she dies, unlike what Epicurus said. Apparently, the process of transforming into a vampire is very painful.

Bella: The Vampire

Vampires have heightened senses. When Bella wakes up, everything she saw before is now completely different. It’s like she views everything through a different pair of eyeglasses, similar to how Kant viewed reality. The phenomenal world is the world we experience. For Bella, her phenomenal world changed. The noumenal world is what reality actually is: what hides behind the appearance of reality. Is what Bella now perceives as reality the noumenal world?

Similarly, Schopenhauer thought that the World as Representation is how reality is constructed in our minds, which is determined by experience, but it is not true reality. You cannot deny, however, that Bella’s reality changed. Is this because her experience changed? Or, is this because Bella is now capable of seeing more of what reality really is?

Hegel thought that reality is our experience: it just is reality. In order to experience reality, you have to rely on your senses, yet Pyrrho thought that you cannot trust your senses. If you apply this to our view of the world, you cannot trust your experiences or what you see because senses aren’t trustworthy. However, the senses of vampires are pretty crazy. If you look at everything you do, how is it not real in its own sense? Even if there is a noumenal world, does that make what you experience any less real? It seems that Bells is more aware of her surroundings, but the basic principles behind everything she experiences stay the same.

Now that Bella is a vampire, the only thing missing is a baby. Breaking Dawn: Part II (the movie) consists of saving the half-vampire baby from being killed by the Volturi (the vampire authorities). Afterwards, the Cullens and the wolves live happily ever after.

 

The romance is part of the appeal of The Twilight Saga. The use of vampires and werewolves may seem childish, but it helps answer important questions that the novel asks. The everlasting quality plays a big role as well. Humans like the idea of forever. It makes life less scary. By including infinity and all of the aspects that go along with vampirism, you gain insight into what humans are, what humans value, but most importantly, the human experience.

Total Word Count: 2,415