Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™
Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 1 of 1
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
"Is That What You Dream About? Being A Monster?": Bella Swan And The Construction Of The Monstrous-Feminine In The Twilight Saga, Amanda Jayne Firestone
"Is That What You Dream About? Being A Monster?": Bella Swan And The Construction Of The Monstrous-Feminine In The Twilight Saga, Amanda Jayne Firestone
USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations
ABSTRACT
This dissertation argues that Bella Swan is a representation of Barbara Creed's monstrous-feminine which serves to reinforce ideologies that insist women are abject, inherently dangerous to men, and threatening to a patriarchal status quo. Through close-textual analysis of The Twilight Saga, I demonstrate how the monstrous-feminine frames the hysterical teenage body, hypersexuality, and eternal motherhood as simultaneously unacceptable and unavoidable. These negative women's stereotypes continue to persist in dominant popular culture, and this doublebind is overcome only by the impossible perfection of vampirism. The monstrous-feminine invites constructions of teenage bodies as unstable and unreliable, women's sexuality as dangerous and …