Conflict With Parents

1990. Choose a novel or play that depicts a conflict between a parent (or a parental figure) and a son or daughter. Write an essay in which you analyze the sources of the conflict and explain how the conflict contributes to the meaning of the work. Avoid plot summary.

      In Breaking Dawn, several characters have conflicts with their parents. Bella is forced to leave her parents to become a vampire, Renesme basically kills her mother then is imprinted on by her mother's best friend, and Jacob leaves his pack to protect Bella and her child. Parental conflict contributes to the meaning of the work by showing one of the major themes, sacrifice, and what each character must sacrifice to stay with the one they love.
     The first character that faces conflict with her parent is Bella. While she and her father actually get along, their relationship is very conflicted. Bella must lie to her father about Edward. She never told Charlie about the Cullens and then she tells her father she’s marrying one of them without telling him the truth about them. Her relationship with Edward creates conflict with Charlie because Bella spends all her time with Edwad and none with Charlie. Bella and Charlie’s adds to sacrifice being a major theme of the story because Bella must sacrifice her life with Charlie to stay with Edward and  become a vampire.

     Another character that has conflict with a parent is Reneseme. First, she has conflict with her mother before she is even born. While Bella is pregnant with Reneseme, she basically dies because Reneseme is eating her from the inside out. This creates conflict because she nearly kills her mother. This contributes to the theme of sacrifice because it shows how Bella would choose to die and give up her life with Edward just so her baby could live. Another example of parental conflict with Reneseme is when Jacob imprints on her. Bella becomes furious when she finds out that Jacob has imprinted on her daughter.  This is an example of sacrifice because Bella must not be selfish and  must choose to allow her daughter and Jacob to be together because it makes them happy.

     A third person who has conflicts with his “parents” is Jacob. In werewolf form, Sam is the Alpha male, or the father of the pack. He knows that Bella’s baby is a threat to them and that the Volturri will come to punish the Cullens and kill the pack while they are there. Jacob refuses his order and leaves the pack. This shows sacrifice because Jacob is willing to lose all of his friends in order to save someone he loves.

     Throughout the story, almost all of the main characters have one parental conflict or another. Bella must lie to her father about her new life and what she is. Renesme almost kills her mother, then infuriates her with her attachment to Jacob. Jacob leaves his pack. All of these characters sacrifice relationships through these parental conflicts. The parental conflicts contribute to the meaning of the story as a whole by showing that  the love that the characters have for each other is even stronger than the love they have for their families and parents.

     

Warning/Background Info

Breaking Dawn is the last of the four books of the Twilight Saga.
The series is about a human girl, Bella, who falls in love with a vampire, Edward.
Their love overcomes everything and there are never any obstacles too great for them.
Edward can read minds
Alice can predict the future
Jasper can interfere with peoples' emotions
Edward and Bella are engaged.
The vampires have leaders, the Volturri, who are very strict about rules.
Theres also Jacob.
Jacob is a werewolf
Werewolves and vampires are each other's mortal enemies
Jacob is also in love with Bella but she would never leave Edward for him
Vampires eat blood, but Edward's family are "vegetarians" and only eat animal blood, not human
Vampires glitter when exposed to sunlight
Vampires do not sleep
Real vampires do show up in pictures, are not repelled by garlic, can be seen in mirrors, and cannot be killed by a wooden stake to the heart (these are all myths)
They do not sleep in coffins
The Cullens (Edward's family) lives in Forks, Washington, the rainiest city in America, to avoid sunlight
They are all hundreds of years old and have graduated from high school many times
The brothers and sisters date each other
Bella's favorite book is Wuthering Heights
Bella is socially awkward, has no friends and is obsessed with Edward
Jacob fixes motorcycles and is awesome
Twilight is my life

Preface Sticks To Tradition

Every preface of every Twilight Saga book so far has opened with a preface in which Bella sees herself dying. Breaking Dawn continues the tradition. The book opens with Bella facing death at the hands of a killer, who this time is someone she loves. It doesnt tell us who it is, but it leaves us to assume that one of the vampires or Jacob will later kill her. In the preface, she decides that the only logical thing to do would be to sacrifice her life for whoever her killer is.
I think that this preface is foreshadowing Bella's death which will lead to her becoming a vampire because humans become vampires in near-death situations.

Twi-Hard Irony

In Chapter 2, Bella and Edward discuss their future after they get married. Bella wants to have sex while she is still a human but Edward is scared he will hurt her. Then they talk about how they can never have a child. Edward says that he should be "giving her things, not taking them away," and then Bella tells him to "stop moping." I have to pause and consider the irony of Bella's statement because Bella is famous for being mopey. All she does is complain. The first chapter is her complaining about her horrible life being engaged to the man of her dreams, driving a fancy car, having unlimited money, understanding parents, and going to college without having to pay for it (is this Breaking Dawn or the Diary of Anne Frank?) So it is ironic that the queen of moping is telling someone else to stop moping.

The Part Where Even True Twi-Hards Have to Yell At The Characters For Being Stupid

Edward and Bella get married and on their honeymoon, Bella gets pregnant. Vampire babies are said to be demons and are supposed to be killed (however this is just a legend. Real vampire babies can be brought up to act civil) They also develop at a much faster rate than human babies. Bella and Edward rush home from their honeymoon and Bella basically wastes away while the vampire baby kills her from the inside out by sucking all the nutrients from her body. The Cullen family cant seem to figure out what the vampire baby wants/needs to eat.... Like come on Carlisle you've been a doctor for 700 years,  you should be able to figure this out!
 Meanwhile Carlisle does some research about vampires and discovers that they have two extra chromosomes. They are immortal, super fast, super strong, can read minds, predict the future and  glitter in sunlight because they have two extra chromosomes.
This is the part of the novel which makes me realize that I have to accept some of the jokes i get about Twilight because it is pretty dumb that it takes the family so long to realize what the HALF VAMPIRE fetus would eat (blood, logically.) Also because the author got lazy and just made up the two extra chromosome thing. I do understand why Twilight is sometimes not taken seriously.

The Moment That True Twi-Hards Have Been Anticipating Since The Beginning: Bellas Transformation

Book 2 ends with Bella in a near-death state after giving birth to her daughter. This fulfills the vision Bella had in the preface of someone she loved (the baby) killing her. Since she is about to die, she must be transformed into a vampire. Edward bit her all over her body, but the reader still doesnt know if she will survive. Book 3 begins when Bella wakes up and notices everything with her new hyper-perceptive vampire senses. She describes the pain of being transformed.
From the very beginning of the series Bella has had two unusual characteristics: first, she is repulsed by blood (passed out when blood typing in Twilight) and second, she can withstand the other vampire's super powers. I think Meyer used these specific characteristics to foreshadow or use later in the series (now). Newborn vampires are known for being extremely thirsty and uncontrollable, so Meyer made Bella squeamish around blood to hint that she would make a smooth transition from human to vampire.

Intertextuality in Alice's Clue

In Chapter 29, Alice and Jasper disappear, leaving nothing but a note on a piece of paper torn out from the book "The Merchant of Venice."
This is symbolic because in "The Merchant of Venice," a character goes and pleads with the authorities to spare her friend.
Alice leaves the note on the page from this book to represent that this is what she and Jasper are going to do for Bella with the Volturri.
At the end of "The Merchant of Venice," the army leaves defeated, just as the Volturri do at the end of "Breaking Dawn."