Perhaps one of the things that annoys me most is the insistence that Meyer's books are based off of good books by great authors, like Jane Austen, Will Shakespeare, and Emily Brontë. I admit, I've never read Wuthering Hights, and all I know of it comes from a) the Wikipedia article I just read two minutes ago or b) from the Monty Python version of Wuthering Hights in Semaphore Code. However, I have read Pride and Prejudice and "Romeo and Juliet," so I can say with certainty that Mrs. Meyer completely missed the point of both of these works.
Twilight is supposedly based on Pride and Prejudice. I can sort of see this. Lizzy and Darcy don't like each other at the beginning of their novel. Edward pretends to not like Bella because he wants to feast on her blood so damn bad, so she thinks he doesn't like her. So, yeah, that's completely the same. And at the end, Lizzie and Darcy love each other, and Bella and Edward love each other. Clearly, same story, right?
No.
The point of P&P is not, "These characters didn't like one another and now they do." Lizzie and Darcy both grew as characters, they got over their personal PRIDE and PREJUDICES against one another and realized that once they put petty differences aside, they were compatible. With Darcy and Lizzie, it was a true marriage of spirit and mind. They were not in love because he is SO SUPER HOT OMG!!!111ONE111! and she smells good.
The second book, New Moon, is meant to be based on Romeo and Juliet. Just in case the whole "forbidden love" part hadn't sunk in enough for you.
Meyer actually mentions something that could have been interesting if she had talent as a writer - the idea that perhaps Juliet would have loved Paris if she had never met Romeo. But thank god she has no talent, because it's so much easier to hate a book with absolutely no redeeming qualities, yes? Aside from another guy vying for Bella's affections (which now brings our grand total up to five...not bad for a "plain" girl who's only lived there a year) the resemblance to Shakespeare is only in Meyer's head.
The way I think of Romeo and Juliet (which is by no means the "right" way to read it, but I like it) is that their love was intense and life-altering, but it simply couldn't last. We don't live in a world of perfect loves like that. Cole Porter said it best in the song, "Just One of Those Things":
If we'd thought a bit about the end of it
When we started painting the town
We'd have been aware that our love affair
Was too hot not to cool down
In Shakespeare's story, the lovers die at the end. Their love was ultimately destructive. And let's face it, that's a helluva lot more exciting than what we all know would have happened if they had led long, happy, married lives: their love would have faded. At best, to a sustainable, boring, everyday kind of love; at worst, it would have faded completely.
In Meyer's version, the two not only manage to sustain the initial "OMG I LOVE YOU SO MUCH I WANNA DIE" feeling for a normal lifespan, they both become immortal in the end.
So please, Ms. Austen and Mr. Shakespeare, stop rolling in your graves. That bitch just crazay.
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