Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Page 3 - Chapter 1. First Sight

On page three, Bella begins to talk about her physical trip to Forks. Most of the text discusses the weather. Bella wore her favorite shirt as a "parting gesture", while bringing a parka on the plane as her carry-on item.

Bella describes Forks as an "inconsequential" town, but one particular line bothers me.

"It was from this town and its gloomy, omnipresent shade that my mother escaped with me when I was only a few months old. It was in this town that I had been compelled to spend a month every summer until I was fourteen."

Wow, poor Bella had her arm twisted into a pretzel until she agreed to travel to a prison cell disguised as a town to spend some time with her father occasionally. Don't we feel sorry for her?

One could argue that this attitude could be attributed to adolescent angst, but I wonder how stung Bella's father would have been if he had known how she felt about the situation. The very wording implies that Bella agrees that her mother was absolutely right to "escape" from her life and while we don't know enough about the marriage of Bella's parents to form intelligent opinions, it's fairly clear that her father is not abusive, and therefor the use of the word "escape is disrespectful and unnecessary.

Bella's mother is later described as "erratic" and "harebrained", and the fact that she had been unable to remain in Forks and keep her family together supports her flighty personality. Bella's description of Forks on page three strongly implies that her feelings about the town and the situation are the same as her mother's. What does that say about Bella?

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