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EDWARD CULLEN AND BELLA SWAN: BYRONIC AND FEMINIST HEROES . . . OR NOT
Abigail E. Myers
Tall. Pale. Handsome. Mysterious. All of these adjectives describe Edward Cullen from Twilight, but these descriptives also classify the traditional Byronic hero within the literary canon. Stephenie Meyer, who earned a B.A. in English from Brigham Young University, named Edward after the characters of Edward Ferrars in Jane Austen’s (1775-1817) Sense and Sensibility and Edward Rochester in Charlotte Brontë’s (1816-1855) Jane Eyre—both Byronic heroes. Rochester from Jane Eyre particularly provides an interesting parallel to the character of Edward.
Rochester has long been understood as a Byronic hero, an archetype first crafted by British poet George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824).
1 Lord Byron lived the early-nineteenth-century version of the personae he created in literary works such as
Don Juan (1818) and
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1824). Is Edward Cullen also a Byronic hero? And if he is, what do Jane Eyre’s reactions to her Edward teach us about Bella? The answers to these questions give insights into both characters, placing them in their respective literary traditions. Is Meyer attempting to recreate a Byronic hero for twenty-first-century audiences? Let’s find out.
You’re Only Young Once, but You Can Be Byronic Forever
The Byronic hero is defined by the
Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms as a “boldly defiant but bitterly self-tormenting outcast, proudly contemptuous of social norms but suffering for some unnamed sin.”
2 He’s intelligent, passionate, and usually above-average in almost every way (including good looks), but also tormented, mysterious, unpredictable, and scornful of authority. In other words, he’s a “bad boy,” the kind of guy your mom warns you about. Or, in our case, would have warned you about if she weren’t so busy chasing minor-league ballplayers. But never mind.
Lord Byron, described as “a complex man, and fond of describing his own complexity,” had a personality that tended to overshadow his accomplishments as an artist.
3 Getting a literary term named after you usually indicates that you were fairly innovative in your field, and his epic poems are universally considered to be classics of the form. Byron was a rebel known for his prowess as a lover, his adoration of lavish parties and beautiful women, and his somewhat bizarre decision at the end of his life to join the Greek War of Independence. But if you like that kind of thing,
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage is most often cited as the chief example of Byron’s eponymous hero, and it’s not hard to see why, given these lines from the poem:
Whilome in Albion’s isle there dwelt a youth
Who ne in Virtue’s ways did take delight,
But spent his days in riot most uncouth,
And vexed with mirth the drowsy ear of Night.
Ah me! In sooth he was a shameless wight,
Sore given to revel and ungodly glee,
Few earthly things found favor in his sight
Save concubines and carnal companie,
And flaunting wassailers of high and low degree.
. . .
Yet oftimes in his maddest mirthful mood
Strange pangs would flash along Childe Harold’s brow,
As if the Memory of some deadly feud
Or disappointed passion lurked below:
But this none knew, nor haply cared to know;
For his was not that open, artless soul
That feels relief by bidding sorrow flow;
Nor sought he friend to counsel or condole,
Whate’er this grief mote be, which he could not control.
4Hmm. Does that sound like anyone we know? Someone who likes to cause trouble at night and drive fast cars has self-control issues and some “deadly feuds”? The poem could easily be describing Meyer’s Edward Cullen, though it was written 180 years before Twilight ever hit bookshelves. There is an implied immortality to the figure of the Byronic hero; Meyer’s use of Byronic characteristics for Edward, immortal as both a vampire and a Byronic hero, show a deeper level of meaning to the book series that has swept the tween population in the United States.
Why Byronic Heroes Make Bad Bosses
Edward Rochester. The name alone evokes sighs from generations of readers of the immortal
Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë, first published in 1847 under the pseudonym Currer Bell. The story of a poor but passionate governess who falls in love with her dark, mysterious, tormented employer (are we seeing a pattern here yet?),
Jane Eyre is a hallmark of British Victorian literature that has inspired movies, graphic novels, and contemporary romances for nearly two hundred years.
5 Why is Edward Rochester a Byronic hero so worth imitating? You should read the book, but in case you just can’t get out of line for the
New Moon premiere long enough to run over to a bookstore, let’s take a look.
6Jane, who narrates the book, attends a school for orphaned girls and is, upon leaving, hired by an elderly housekeeper to be the governess to a single child, Adele, at the magnificent manor of Thornfield. (Note: Bookish young lady starts a new life far from home, with no friends and a sense of both adventure and trepidation. Sound familiar?) The master, she is told, is home infrequently, and she spends most of her time with Adele and the household help. She meets Edward Rochester, Adele’s father and the man who owns Thornfield, after he has a riding mishap while Jane is out for a walk. Almost immediately she finds herself confused by and attracted to Rochester: “[H]e looked preciously grim, cushioning his massive head against the swelling back of his chair, and receiving the light of the fire on his granite-hewn features, and in his great, dark eyes, and very fine eyes, too—not without a certain change in their depths sometimes, which, if it were not softness, reminded you, at least, of that feeling.”
7But wasting no time, Edward Rochester also cautions Jane about himself:
I am a trite common-place sinner, hackneyed in all the poor petty dissipations with which the rich and worthless try to put on life. . . . I could reform—I have strength yet for that—if—but where is the use of thinking of it, hampered, burdened, cursed as I am? Besides, since happiness is irrevocably denied me, I have a right to get pleasure out of life: and I
will get it, cost what it may.
8Of course, this little speech sets Jane’s heart a-fluttering, and eventually our hero and heroine declaim their undying love for each other. Here’s the problem: Jane is a good girl and Rochester is a bad boy.
A very bad boy. Without spoiling the story for those of you camping outside the multiplex, Jane eventually discovers Rochester’s nasty little secret (every good Byronic hero has at least one), and tells him, in no uncertain Victorian terms, to shove it.
9 She wants him to get the message so badly that she lights out from Thornfield with just about nothing and no plan beyond seeing how far a carriage will take her on the little bit of money she has. She leaves Thornfield before sunrise with this thought: “[He] was waiting with impatience for day. He would send for me in the morning; I should be gone. He would have me sought for: vainly. He would feel himself forsaken; his love rejected: he would suffer; perhaps grow desperate. I thought of this too. My hand moved towards the lock: I caught it back, and glided on.”
10Cold, huh? What kind of sweet, innocent girl is Jane anyway to run off like that? Aren’t nice girls supposed to stand by their man, longing for them à la Bella Swan in New Moon? Not this girl.
Jane Eyre: Gritty Governess, Runaway Bride, and Feminist Hero
Sandra M. Gilbert’s and Susan Gubar’s introduction to
Jane Eyre says that in the book “a determined female narrator spoke with what was in 1847 surprising authority about a woman’s desire for liberty.”
11 Indeed, Jane herself has long been understood as a revolutionary character in literature, a game-changer, a prototype for the sort of hero we would call “feminist” today. Or would we?
Jane works as a governess after leaving a strict, conservative girls’ school, a fairly typical feminine occupation during the nineteenth century. Her narrative meets a rather conventional ending for women in 1847. She is accomplished in the genteel arts of women—drawing, playing piano, sewing, and the like. When contemporary readers imagine feminist heroes, we might imagine Agent Scully, Hermione Granger, President Laura Roslin, even Bridget Jones or Carrie Bradshaw, but probably not a nineteenth-century governess. Today, we want our feminist heroes to be tough, gun-packing, no-nonsense types or even career women with shoe and weight obsessions, but probably not a prim, perfectly collected young woman for whom a bonnet was a must-have.
But we’d be wrong. Jane can be understood as a feminist character for her determination to stick to her moral guns (no matter what nonsense some man tries to sell her), her belief in her ethics and academic education, her ability and willingness to support herself, and her loyalty to her friends. For example, when Edward Rochester tries talking Jane into staying with him despite her knowledge of his terrible secret, she refuses. If only Bella were as wise. Jane knows that staying with Rochester would mean compromising her deeply held principles of morality, though she also knows that she will find it difficult to leave the man she has come to love:
I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself. I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by man. I will hold to the principles received by me. . . . Laws and principles are not for times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour; stringent are they; inviolate they shall be. If at my individual convenience I might break them, what would be their worth? They have a worth—so I have always believed.
12As well, when Jane finds that she must start over with nothing, she calmly prepares to use whatever experience and education she possesses to support herself. “Yes, very,” she says, when asked if she is “book-learned”; “I was at boarding-school eight years.”
13 But when asked what kind of work she can do, she says, “Show me how to work, or how to seek work: that is all I now ask; then let me go . . . I will be a dressmaker: I will be a plain work-woman; I will be a servant, a nurse-girl, if I can be no better.”
14 When she is offered a position as a teacher at a small country school for girls, she comments, “In truth it was humble—but then it was sheltered, and I wanted a safe asylum: it was plodding—but then, compared with that of a governess in a rich house, it was independent; and the fear of servitude with strangers entered my soul like iron: it was not ignoble—not unworthy—not mentally degrading.”
15 These statements show that while Jane is proud of her education, her foremost goal is to be self-supporting and independent. Bella shares some of these qualities as well, like not wanting Charlie, her father, to purchase a car for her when she first arrives in Forks, and flying to Washington on her own to live with Charlie and then back to Arizona when being pursued by James. Even her interest in Edward suggests Bella’s intent on becoming independent, if not self-supported.
Finally, like all feminist heroes worth their salt, Jane Eyre is intensely loyal to her friends, as is Bella ( Jacob—need I say more?). When Jane is shocked by the news that she has inherited a large fortune from an uncle she has never met, she is far more excited by the information that the Rivers family, with whom she lived after fleeing Thornfield, is also related to her. She chooses to share the fortune with the other members of the family, despite their insistence that she keep the money for herself: “I could not forego the delicious pleasure of which I have caught a glimpse—that of repaying, in part, a mighty obligation, and winning to myself life-long friends. . . . [Y]ou . . . cannot at all imagine the craving I have for fraternal and sisterly love. I never had a home, I never had brothers or sisters; I must and will have them now.”
16So, while Jane’s most formidable weapon might be her drawing pencils with an educational equivalent to today’s ninth or tenth grade, it’s not hard to see why critics and readers have understood her as a feminist hero, a fascinating and unusual foil for the Byronic bad boy of Edward Rochester. Though he considers the vacuous and spoiled belles of the various balls like Blanche Ingram, the modest yet self-possessed, strong-willed Jane wins his heart. Nice girls finish first in all conceivable ways in Jane Eyre, gaining material wealth, familial connections, romantic love, as well as moral and intellectual satisfaction.
But what does it all have to do with the Twilight saga? You’ve seen the superficial parallels to Edward and Bella. Let’s see how those two crazy kids from Forks really measure up to these timeless characters.
The Byronic Hero: Now Available in Marble-like, Sparkly Perfection
Edward becomes Bella’s love interest fairly early in Twilight. It’s pretty hard to miss that dude who broods but never eats in the high school cafeteria with his extremely attractive family, driving a sports car to school when most of the other boys have pickup trucks with gun racks. Does he fit the mold of the Byronic hero? Well, do vampires drink blood?
We learned earlier in this chapter that Byronic heroes are not without their good qualities. They’re usually smart, and Edward flashes his knowledge of biology early on in his and Bella’s initial pairing as lab partners.
17 Byronic heroes are brave, as Edward shows when he saves Bella from the car crash.
18 And when a Byronic hero decides to focus his interest on something, he is passionate, as Edward admits to Bella:
[Bella:] “Why didn’t you want to leave?”
[Edward:] “It makes me . . . anxious . . . to be away from you.” His eyes were gentle but intense, and they seemed to be making my bones turn soft.
19 “I wasn’t joking when I asked you to try not to fall in the ocean or get run over last Thursday. I was distracted all weekend, worrying about you.”
20But Byronic heroes are dangerous, too—so dangerous that they like to
come right out and tell you how dangerous they are. Just like Childe Harold and Edward Rochester! They do not hide how messed up they are; they revel in it, talk about it, write about it, sparkle in a field about it. Edward Cullen certainly fits in here: “‘Don’t you see, Bella? It’s one thing for me to make myself miserable, but a wholly other thing for you to be so involved.’ He turned his anguished eyes to the road, his words flowing almost too fast for me to understand. . . . His voice was low but urgent. His words cut me. ‘It’s wrong. It’s not safe. I’m dangerous, Bella—please, grasp that.’”
21 He totally cribbed that from Edward Rochester.
And since no Byronic hero is without his terrible, dreadful secret, Edward Cullen has a big one: He’s a century-old vampire. He unburdens himself of his secret somewhat earlier than Rochester, and you have to give Bella props for figuring it out long before Jane Eyre did:
“I did some research on the Internet.”
“And did that convince you?” His voice sounded barely interested. But his hands were clamped hard onto the steering wheel.
“No. [. . .] I decided it didn’t matter,” I whispered.
“It didn’t matter?” His tone made me look up—I had finally broken through his carefully composed mask. His face was incredulous, with just a hint of the anger I’d feared.
“No,” I said softly. “It doesn’t matter to me what you are.”
A hard, mocking edge entered his voice. “You don’t care if I’m a monster? If I’m not
human?”
22Of course, Edward’s secret is softened quite significantly by his “vegetarianism”; he and the rest of the Cullen family live on the blood of animals, obtained during their “hunting” trips in the forests surrounding Forks. But that doesn’t mean that he and his vampire family have totally lost their interest in human blood. Being around humans is a struggle for the whole clan on occasion, except for Carlisle Cullen, the “father” and the most superbly self-controlled of the veggie vampires, as he explains when Bella cuts herself at her birthday party in
New Moon.
23Bella is the biggest challenge of all for Edward. Though he wants to protect her and love her in a human way, his desire for her blood (and, by extension, her death as a human and eventual transformation into a vampire herself ) never goes away. He explains to Bella in chapter 14 of
Twilight, titled appropriately enough “Mind Over Matter,” how he teaches himself control around her so that they can enjoy something that resembles a typical human relationship.
24 But the Byronic hero is always fighting his past, figuratively and literally, a flaw that shows itself most stunningly in
Twilight when Edward takes on the decidedly-not-vegetarian vampire crew of James, Laurent, and Victoria, and dispatches James, Victoria’s partner, to be finished off by his “brothers,” Emmett and Jasper.
25 Edward may be the picture of gentlemanly restraint around the all-too-human Bella, but his superhuman strength and ruthless efficiency as a killer reveal themselves to Bella with crystalline clarity by the end of
Twilight.
So clearly we have a somewhat flawed (to say the least) hero in Edward without even getting into his control-freak tendencies where Bella is concerned.
26 But what of Bella, the intrepid lover of vampires and eventual vampire-wife-and-mama herself ? Is she a feminist hero in the tradition of the imitated-but-never-replicated Jane Eyre? Well, let’s examine the evidence.
Can You Still Be a Feminist If You Become a Bloodsucking Vampire for Your Husband?
Bella is a puzzle for feminists. On one hand, we have a hero who is literate, is independent, and goes after what she wants, just like our friend Jane. She reads Wuthering Heights! She hauls off to the middle of sweet nowhere alone despite the love of a kind, if somewhat flaky, mother. And despite the many good reasons for not getting involved, she remains devoted to Edward to the point of going under the fang and transforming into a beautiful and fearsome vampire. These seem like reasonable arguments for Bella being a fierce and fabulous feminist hero, a model of steely determination, stolid independence, and undying passion for young women of the iPod generation.
But critics, bloggers, fans, and this author have a lot to say about Bella’s suitability as a feminist role model for the millions of teenage girls (and, let’s be honest, adult women) who have picked up the saga. One of the most cogent (and hilarious) is blogger Cleolinda Jones, whose retellings of and commentaries on the saga have received thousands of hits in just under a year. For example, in
New Moon, Bella begins to spend time with Jacob Black after Edward’s disappearance, an event that makes her morose and eventually suicidal. When Jacob shows off some motorcycles they plan to restore (unbeknownst to Jacob, so Bella can attempt suicide-by-Harley), Bella comments, “I figured I’d have to have a Y chromosome to really understand the excitement.”
27 Jones responds, “Because
girrrrrlllllls [
sic] can’t enjoy awesome things like motorcycles. Unless they’re trying to kill themselves.”
28This pithy observation highlights the central conflict with Bella and feminism: Edward eventually becomes the only raison d’être for Bella. She seems to have few interests or passions outside of Edward. The kindness and affection shown to her by Jacob are cast aside when Edward returns at the end of
New Moon.
29 Her friendships with some of the girls at school are superficial and easily forgotten; only two of her friends from school are guests at her wedding in
Breaking Dawn, and we never see them again after that. Even her relationship with her well-intentioned and loving, if not awkward, father, is a casualty of her relationship with Edward. Unlike Jane Eyre, Bella does not share the spoils of fortune with her friends and family; Edward becomes all that matters.
Most troubling, Bella unquestioningly accepts all of Edward’s worst qualities. Sure, there’s not much he can do about being a vampire, and he does control himself pretty admirably in that department. But, as Jones and others have commented, Edward’s attention to Bella mirrors disturbingly a relationship that would be called abusive in the real world. His sneaking into her bedroom at night to watch her sleep—initially, unbeknownst to her—is the kind of thing that would make most of us call the cops and report a stalker, if we didn’t whack him with the Louisville Slugger next to the bed first. He doesn’t encourage her to pursue other friendships or interests outside of him (indeed, he is intensely jealous of even conversations she has with other boys), apart from his vague warnings that he is “dangerous,” and insists on following her and accompanying her almost everywhere. And when Edward eventually confesses the lie that drives most of the plot of
New Moon, he seems offended that Bella has a hard time believing his story. Jones snarks, “Also, it’s kind of pissing me off that Edward’s mad that she won’t believe him now. ‘What? I just told you a gigantic, sadistic lie that rendered you catatonic for six months! Why are you not believing a single word I say
now?’”
30Just like your garden-variety Byronic hero, Bella has her good qualities; but, again like the Byronic hero, she’s not necessarily someone you’d want your kid to emulate or fall in love with. It’s hard to compare Bella with Jane Eyre and still find Bella to be a feminist hero; if any character from that time period comes to mind when discussing Bella it is Cathy Earnshaw, the destructive antagonist in Emily Brontë’s (yes, that would be Charlotte’s sister) Wuthering Heights. Is it any wonder that Wuthering Heights, rather than Jane Eyre, is Bella’s favorite book by a Brontë sister?
Self-Exiled Harold Wanders Forth Again; or, Basically, Bella and Edward Deserve Each Other
The key difference between Edward Rochester and Edward Cullen is that Rochester learns his lesson. Because Jane has ovaries enough to show him that she won’t put up with his crap—and backs up her statements with a predawn escape that confounds him and breaks his heart—Edward Rochester truly understands how selfish and short-sighted he is. He also goes through an unbelievable punishment that involves death, destruction, and disability, directly caused by his lack of understanding, compassion, and foresight.
31 She only returns to him when the circumstance that caused her to leave in the first place is resolved and she has proof that he truly reformed. It is her faith, her education, and her self-reliance (and, okay, a convenient inheritance that would make her a modern-day “Real Housewife of Northern England”) that allows her to support herself without Edward and also allow her to have a relationship with him based on equality and mutual respect.
Bella, on the other hand—well, not so much. A feminist response to Edward Cullen might have been, “Look, you seem like a really nice vampire, but if being with you means giving up my family, my friends, and my hopes for higher education, I think I’m going to seek out a relationship that allows me to have romantic and sexual love as well as all that other stuff.” And a nonabusive vampire would have really meant it when he said that the beautiful mortal girl was better off without him, and would have allowed that being mortal, human, and young includes making your own mistakes and not being insulated from every possible threat, real or imagined.
But that doesn’t cross Bella and Edward’s minds. The ending they find is truly a fairy tale, not because it seems happily ever after but because it lacks cause and effect, moral responsibility, and real relationships. And if that’s Stephenie Meyer’s idea of a fairy-tale ending, maybe we’d all better make sure that we take the
Twilight saga for what it is: a fairy tale, no more worthy of emulation than
Sleeping Beauty. The test? Ask yourself if Sleeping Beauty is a role model. I’m guessing the answer is no. Well, then, is Bella a feminist hero? Maybe we can answer that with another question: Will vampires ever get over their taste for blood?
32
NOTES
1 George Gordon became Lord Byron at the age of ten, inheriting the title from his father. He dropped the “Gordon” from his name, generally, after that point, as was the custom of the day. See Frank D. McConnell, ed.
Byron’s Poetry (New York: Norton and Company, 1978).
3 McConnell,
Byron’s Poetry, p. xi.
7 Charlotte Brontë,
Jane Eyre (New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1993), p. 131.
9 Spoiler alert! The secret is that Rochester’s first wife is not only alive and still married to him, but insane and locked up in the attic in Thornfield. Jane finds out not during a quiet, rational discussion with her husband-to-be, but—get this—at the “Are there any objections?” part of her wedding ceremony. Now, that’s a reason for a woman to turn into a Bridezilla.
10 Brontë,
Jane Eyre, p. 328.
11 Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, eds.,
The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women, 2nd ed. (New York: Norton and Company, 1996).
12 Brontë,
Jane Eyre, p. 325.
17 Stephenie Meyer,
Twilight (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2005), p. 45.
19 A heretofore unrealized unifying trait of Byronic heroes: intense eyes. I’ll take that Genius Grant now, MacArthur Foundation.
20 Twilight, pp. 188-189.
23 Stephenie Meyer,
New Moon (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2006), pp. 33-36.
24 Twilight, pp. 293-311.
30 Jones, “Twilight II: Vampiric Boogaloo.”
31 Yet another spoiler alert! Rochester’s crazy wife eventually commits suicide after setting the fire that burns Thornfield to the ground and blinds Rochester. I’d say that’s sufficient punishment for attempting bigamy and then trying to convince a nice gal like Jane to be his mistress.
32 I would like to dedicate this essay to Dr. Laurie Sterling at King’s College, without whom I never would have given
Jane Eyre a second thought after my disastrous attempt at reading it as a fourteen-year-old. Her lucid and passionate teaching of
Jane Eyre could surely convince even Meyer’s teenage audience to pick up this thick but rewarding classic.