Teanna Silveira American Lit Comp Blog: November 2012

1. Briefly summarize the plot of the novel you read, and explain how the narrative fulfills the author's purpose (based on your well-informed interpretation of same).

Breaking Dawn is the fourth and final book in the Twilight saga by Stephanie Meyer. In the beginning Bella Swan and Edward Cullen get Married and go on a honeymoon. Bella gets pregnant and the baby is killing her. The whole book goes through both Bella and Jacobs perspectives. A baby vampire is illegal in the vampire world and the volturi comes to kill the Cullen's. In the end Bella becomes a vampire and the volturi decides not to kill Renesme (their daughter).

2. Succinctly describe the theme of the novel. Avoid cliches.

Many characters in Breaking Dawn believe that it's worth sacrificing their lives for what they believe. Jacob is prepared to fight against his own werewolf brothers because he believes that the Cullens are not his enemies. Many of Cullen friends are ready to die for their belief that the Cullens are innocent of breaking any of the Volturi laws. The werewolves are willing to sacrifice their lives to fight the Volturi, because they believe that it's their mission to protect their land and their loved ones from vampires. All of these characters' willingness to sacrifice themselves make them noble as compared to the Volturi, who are mostly concerned with power.

3. Describe the author's tone. Include a minimum of three excerpts that illustrate your point(s).

Throughout Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse, we've come to know Bella Swan as our narrator. We see the world through her eyes and experience her emotions. In Breaking Dawn, Meyer chose to let Bella narrate the first part of the book, and then switched to the narrative voice of Jacob, only to return to Bella as the narrator in the last part of the book. Why?

Here's how Meyer explains her choice:

In the first rough draft, it was Bella throughout the entire story. There's this section of the story where Bella's pretty much stuck on a couch and is not part of anything that's going on, and she's just hearing about it from the outside, and it's boring! [...] So when I went back to do this, I realized that where the action was, was something we can only get through the first-person perspective of Jacob. And once I made that decision, I was really glad I had, because that was the most fun section to write out of the whole story. (source)

So the main reason for the point of view shift was not to bore us. Very considerate. Did it work? Does Jacob's perspective add to the story? Or does it take away from us being inside Bella's skin, feeling her pain and her fear for her baby and for her own life? At any rate, Jacob's narration makes us insiders when Jacob imprints on Renesmee, even before Bella learns the news in the last section of the book, which arguably builds suspense about how she'll react.

Also, Jacob's change of heart from wanting to kill Renesmee to devoting his life to her would probably never have been as powerful if narrated by Bella.

Other reasons to consider are that not knowing Bella's perspective could makes us feel more helpless to watch her because we care about her. Or did Meyer think it was too painful for us to experience it with Bella? Or did we need to feel, like Jacob, hostile toward that "monster" that was going to kill "our" Bella, only to fall in love with her, like Jacob?

Meyer's other reason to switch to Jacob is, as she says, the simple fact that she loved writing Jacob. But does she, as an adult woman, do a good job of portraying a teenage werewolf boy? How successful was she at taking on this new personality? Did she make Jacob more real for you?
Source:http://www.shmoop.com/breaking-dawn/narrator-point-of-view.html