论文总字数：31594字

摘 要

《暮光之城》是由美国女作家斯蒂芬妮梅尔所写的以吸血鬼为主题的五部哥特系列小说。它描述了一个搬家到福克斯的十几岁的女孩贝拉和一个吸血鬼相爱的故事。作者运用了恐怖场景超能力以及其他许多女性哥特小说特有的因素来表现贝拉的勇敢和勇气。现在，哥特式文学变得越来越让人接受。作为女性哥特小说的代表，由于其理性地处理了性与道德方面的问题《暮光之城》被高度称赞。这个故事独特而有趣，因此吸引了越来越多的人来阅读。近几年，《暮光之城》系列小说已经被改编成电影，并且带来了巨大的商业利益。通过研究我们发现女性哥特已经飞速发展，并成为了一种主流文学体裁。女性哥特作品的研究对当代受压迫的女性同样是有意义的。贝拉的反抗告诉我们女性要开始学会保护自己。作者希望当前的研究能够为关注女性哥特的人打开一扇窗户，并且激励他们对《暮光之城》做更进一步的研究。

关键词：女性哥特；暮光之城；贝拉

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 1

2.1 Development of gothic theory 1

2.2 Development of female gothic theory 3

3. Female Gothic Embodied in Twilight 4

3.1 Female gothic embodied in Bella 5

3.2 Female gothic embodied in environment and supernatural elements 6

3.3 Differences between female gothic in the novel and traditional female gothic 7

4. Contribution to Gothic Literature 8

4.1 Weakening of the horrible atmosphere 9

4.2 Contribution of its adaption 10

5. Conclusion 11

Works Cited 12

1. Introduction

Stephanie Meyer is an American young fiction writer and film producer, best known for her vampire romance series Twilight. The series includes five parts, Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, Breaking Dawn, and Midnight Sun. Twilight has been translated into different languages and gained recognition worldwide. Meyer was the best selling writer in 2008 in America, and her masterpiece Twilight was the best-selling book in 2008 in US bookstores and has sold over 100 million copies. “Meyer was one of the most worldwide influential figures in May 2008 and one of the most promising new authors of 2005"(Xu Zhenglin, 2007:126). Meyer ranked No. 49 on Times magazine"s list of the "100 Most Influential People in 2008"^.and ranked No. 26 in the Forbes Celebrity 100 list of the world"s most powerful celebrities in 2009.

In this paper, the author intends to analyze a gothic novel written by Stephanie Meyer. There is no doubt that the Twilight series reflects feminist brilliance through the portrait of a sensitive girl named Bella, the heroine of this novel, who is stubborn but persistent and independent. Among the novels of female writers, we can usually find their common ground in response to the man centered society, which lets dissatisfaction and counterstrike become the common sense of female literature, and then the women writers give their heroines much stronger ability at the end.

Up till now, domestic researches on gothic novels have gradually improved. Xiao Minghan completely concludes the development of gothic novel from the perspective of literary tradition in his book Gothic tradition in British and American Literature (2001). Many scholars interpret gothic novels from the perspective of aesthetics and study the origin of its theory. Most of the studies about female gothic are mainly about its origin, development and influence. However this research tries to analyze the difference between modern female gothic and traditional female gothic. The author chooses this study because female gothic novels become more and more popular among people with the development of feminist movement. And one of the most representative one is Twilight. According to the survey, we can find that the stimulation brought by horrible contents in female gothic novels can change into aesthetic pleasure.

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2. Literature Review

2.1 Development of gothic

Gothic novel originated in the latter half of the 17th century in England, and became a literature genre in the 1790s. Gothic novels had a tremendous impact on English literature. The term gothic originally referred to ethnic gothic tribes of Teutonic ethnicity. In the later period of 18th century, the word has become the name of a new literature genre. Artists in the Renaissance period used it to refer to a construction style of the medieval period they didn"t prefer. Gothic novels are usually on the background of castles, ruins and wilderness. The authors often describe some violent plots such as murder and revenge to reveal the horrible atmosphere. Gothic is always accompanied by ghost, vampires and other supernatural elements. It is also the name of an architecture style. As a result, Gothic has been endowed with cruelty, horror, mystery, darkness, and many other words. Gothic can be divided into several aspects according to the content including: “enlightening gothic, terror gothic, erotic gothic, historical gothic, and female gothic” (Kelly, 2002:45).

The author Horace Walpole created the first novel of gothic一The Castle of Otranto in 1764 and the Subtitle of this novel is "A Gothic Story". It was not only the beginning of gothic novel, but also set up the basic pattern of gothic novel. The Celtics had created many interesting folktales which often describe the breathtaking battles between the heroes and monsters. Those folktales not only provided plenty of materials and inspiration for the development of gothic novels, but also made it easier for the readers in England to accept the gothic fictions. The Bible and Christian legends, especially legends about hell, were also important sources of gothic novels.

Gothic novel took a root in literature from the 1790s to the early 19th century. Especially in the 1790s, it is the most important decade for the development of the gothic novel, some literary critics called this period the "Gothic decade"(Xiao Minghan, 2001:94). During that time, Anne Radcliffe published The Mysteries of Udolpho and The Italian and other works, and she was seen as the master of gothic novels. Especially The Mysteries of Udolpho and The Italian are usually put together with Lewis"s The Monk as classic gothic novels. Realistic novels often cannot fully meet the needs of readers. In addition to seeing the shadow of the reality in the story, people also need to obtain pleasure from surreal and even bizarre stories. Gothic novel has just adapted to this requirement of the readers.

In the mid-19th century, with the development and strengthening of realistic literature the status of the gothic novel had declined. But as popular novels it still had a large number of readers, and affected many realistic writers including Dickens and the Bronte sisters. Wuthering Heights was one of the most prominent representatives in this period. For example, Heathcliff was a villain hero from the gothic tradition. "villain hero is the creation of the gothic genre and the genre tends to use villain hero to seduce others, the theme is both fascinating and evil”（Marie, 1998:111）.

From the 20th century to the present, gothic novels began to show great vitality and novels of high artistic achievement appeared, such as British writer JK Rowling’s Harry Potter and Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight. Gothic literature is likened to “a beautiful and touching fairy tale in the ugly world "（Fang Long, 1989:232）.

2.2 Development of female gothic

If early comments still put female gothic works as a part of the development of the gothic literary history, the contemporary feminist critics are increasingly inclined to separate them from this reference system. They see female gothic literature as an independent literary genre to study and think that it has its own unique characteristics and aesthetic ideology. American feminist theorists Ellen Moers firstly take feminist theory into the field of gothic research. Subsequently, Sandra Gilbert, Susan Gubar, Claire Kahane and Elaine Showalter and many other feminist critics have committed to explore the exiled female gothic works then give them a new interpretation. They become an organic part of feminist literature revolution since the 1970 s because they overthrow patriarchy literature tradition and fully developed the potential values of gothic literature.

The term "female gothic" firstly appeared in Ellen Moers’s book Literary Woman (1976). In Moers"s view, the so-called "female gothic" was literary work of female writer. She found that “in a long and complex female gothic tradition, women were placed in the female"s eye as a young girl, sisters, and mothers” (Moers, 1976:90). From the beginning, the definition of female gothic paid more attention to the realistic characteristics of works, and weakened the supernatural factors in traditional gothic. Moers pointed out that female gothic novel reflected the female writer"s own pain and helplessness through closed space imagery. We can see dark castles together with mirrors, oil paintings and closets in female gothic works. Women writers intentionally used them to define their real social life and convey their anxiety in interpersonal relationships. In summary: “Female gothic is a literary genre to express women’s inner thoughts and fear. It"s basically invisible, unless it"s seen as a search process "(Fleenor, 1987:112).

Female gothic firstly appeared in 1778. Since the 18^th century, the female gothic already had a history of more than two hundred years. The most famous female writer in the 18^th century is Anne Radcliffe and her masterpiece is The Mysteries of Udolpho. In the 19th century, Bronte sisters had created many popular gothic novels, such as Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. From the 20th century to the present, gothic novel became more and more popular. There are many famous female writers during this period, such as Joyce Carol Oates, Toni Morison, Anne rice, and Stephenie Meyer.

3. Female Gothic Embodied in Twilight

Twilight is praised as one of the most successful contemporary novels among modern vampire fictions which expresses feminist theme in female gothic style. It reflects the feminist spirit of the heroine Bella in a gothic environment, inhabited by both human and vampires. The image creation in gothic novel has a certain model. In Twilight the Cullens family was a group of vampires and their appearances are different from the normal people, “I know what you are. You"re impossibly fast and strong. Your skin is pale white.Your eyes change color and you never eat or come out into the sun”(Meyer, 2005:98). At the same time they all have strong supernatural abilities. The author also created the image of the werewolf. Their appearances also had strong visual impact. Those images in Twilight mixed classic gothic characters’ appearance and personality in traditional gothic novels. The story can be viewed as a combination of both gothic theme and feminism factors. The whole set of the story develops in line with the love between Bella Swan and Edward Cullen, involving entanglement between human and vampire. Before they began to get acquainted with each other, Bella is just a high school student. However, Edward is a vampire, and he constantly repeats to attend high school to keep the secret of being immortal, for his face is too pale and never grows old. So does his family. Terror is the salient feature of gothic novels. However female gothic novel focuses more on describing the natural and beautiful scenery. Meyer also described many beautiful forests and cottages in the novel，such as the somber rainy weather of Forks.

3.1 Female gothic embodied in Bella

The author herself unconsciously verifies the thought that she expects to get the protection from man, Edward is strong and powerful but Bella is helpless and weak. She seems to imagine herself to be Bella, enjoying the protection from Edward. So this story partly indicates that man and woman have never been equal. A dream indicates the internal fear of Be11a. She is afraid of becoming an old woman. Bella is bounded to be exposed to misfortune because of Edward"s different identity. Being pressed by the unequal identity, the sense of struggle comes up with Bella. This power comes from her inner will. The more unfortunate she feels, the more rebellious she would have. This kind of rebellion consciousness is an important feature of female gothic.

Edward worries about that Bella would be tortured to death by the half blood baby created by a human kind and a vampire. But Bella opposed to Edward"s opinion that will not allow her to give birth to a half blood baby, although it"s a protective way for her body. In fact, during the process of birth, the baby broke Bella"s ribs which impaled her lung by great strength from the hybrid embryo. Fortunately, she was saved by Edward. The adventurous spirit of a mother is a symbol of female rebellion awareness, which symbolizes the mastering consciousness in their own destiny according to their own wills. She has the same personality with Jane Eyre. They all have the courage to go through difficulties alone. Bella Swan is tenacious in this story, as stubborn as the famous independent woman Jane Eyre. There are really some similar points between Bella and Jane Eyre. In the classic story, Jane Eyre ran away from Rochester. Similarly, Bella can risk her life to love Edward. Jane Eyre is a short and plain girl without any outstanding feature in appearance, so as Bella. Jane Eyre fights for a spiritual equality with her husband Rochester, regardless of the wealth and social status of Rochester. It is similar that Edward under the pen of Stephanie Meyer has abundant accumulation of wealth and power. Thus Jane Eyre can be said to be the archetype of Bella. Jane makes every endeavor to escape from Rochester, where she feels shameful and unequal. And Bella makes her best effort to get Edward back, when Edward wants to protect Bella by keeping away from her.

Vampires’ physical function of human has been changed when becoming vampires so they may not have their own descendents. However, a human and a vampire can have a half blood baby. But the process of birth will be very dangerous and harmful to its mother. In Breaking Dawn, the birth of their daughter turned Bella seriously ill, even breaking several bones of her ribs. Female gothic novels just reflect inner misfortune, helplessness and fearful feeling came from the domain which is difficult to understand via image of isolated space. Love between a vampire and a human appears to be a very complicated problem. Such a love must be kept with fearlessly pursuit and persistent efforts.

In female gothic novels, we may find the author"s desire and mutual reflection between tyrants. In New Moon, the second book of Twilight, Bella had repeatedly demanded a proper identity to match her boyfriend, but Edward refused her for many times. While Edward is out of a good purpose, their relationship is really difficult to maintain due to the continuing aging of Bella and the vampires’ blood-sucking nature. Although the family members of Cullens do not drink human blood, the unintentional cut of Bella"s finger nearly made her death by Jasper. Such an unconscious tiny cut strengthened the nature of vampires that they could hardly control it. For this reason, Bella thought that she must have an equal identity so that she could stay with Edward forever. This is a sign of her rebellious consciousness. The target she resists is the unequal social status and identity.

3.2 Female gothic embodied in environment and supernatural elements

When speaking of gothic novels, it is easy to find that the background of the stories can be attributed to supernatural factors. This is one of the reasons that horrible fictions are usually called gothic ones. "Style is the physiognomy of the mind, and a safer index to character than the face"(Rebekah, 2009:25). Gothic novels attached more importance to creating a mysterious, dark and horrible atmosphere when describing the environment. Apart from supernatural style, Meyer creates a general atmosphere of gloom, such as the somber rainy weather of Forks reflecting the whole background of the story, as well as the mood of the heroine throughout the whole development of the plot. That is to say, female writers tend to express scenes in a quite implicit way, which is adaptable for female audience to read with a peaceful and happy ending.

Such unique style of female gothic may not be found in the works of male writers. From the perspective of psychology, when female face terrible factors they always express more timid than male. However, when facing general misery they may have more endurance. It is because that the psychological distinction caused the difference in aesthetic appeal. The literature of female authors does not always focus on the scenes of horror. Male writers pay more attention to portraying a scene with their language, while females tend to focus on their feeling.

Vampire fiction is a female gothic literature genre which was instilled with human being"s imagination and desire. Adding the extraordinary way of expression, the gap between Edward and Bella is double enlarged. The magical miracles in this style are easier for an author to establish an environment to lure the curiosity of the readers. Through the centuries, vampires in people"s minds are very evil and horrible. However, in this book, the writer intends to express her kind mind through a group of kind vampires and other unnatural elements. Usually, people express their feelings by portraying imaginary figures with extraordinary super-ability, especially the writers.

The author uses nightmare to express the scare of Bella. She dreams that she is in the forest and killed by someone. As is already mentioned, the gothic plot usually involves a woman being hunted, and this is exactly what happens to Bella in her nightmare. This dream reflects female suffering in the female gothic environment. Before their wedding day, Bella also had a nightmare. She dreamt that on their wedding ceremony, all the guests, including her parents and close friends were all dead. However, Edward has blood around his mouth with a smile on his face. Bella feels afraid and she was upset about Edward and their marriage. She feels that she cannot see the future of their marriage. She dreamt her friend Jacob turned into a vampire, which meant she cannot forget Edward even with a substitute at the hardest time.

The creation of Twilight involves in a large number of supernatural elements, it is no surprise that the story of Twilight came from a dream of Meyer. She acknowledged that one night she suddenly dreamt that she had a vampire boyfriend and wondered on a lawn enjoying the romantic love with him. She reduces the heavily frightening atmosphere of primary gothic novel into the acceptable scenes which are likely to be loved by female readers. She uses dreams to express Bella"s ardent love for Edward, and in another way to create the horrible atmosphere of female gothic.

3.3 Differences between female gothic in the novel and traditional female gothic

With the development and the change of the society, female gothic novels have changed a lot. For the reader"s sake and the time of the author living in, the novel reflects the feature of the time unexceptionally. Now vampires are developed to be more humane and more fashionable through evolution of centuries. In previous gothic novels they can only appear at night to hunt for human blood. As a consequence, vampire changes with modernized tendency.

However, in Twilight the Cullens not only walk in daytime, they also drive fashionable cars and wear beautiful clothes. Because they live in human society, their living standard and dressing style changes with the development of human society. And they are gradually melting with human culture just like the melting of different races of the world.

Their lifestyle has changed into the modern one, they no longer preserve traditional lifestyle. Now, they live in modern building, driving modern cars and use modern cosmetics. They never view people as a grandma or grandpa, they feel they are a part of human society or they are young people. They are originally human before being transformed into immortal forms in essence. Returning to the human routine brings them back to human beings, contributing to community of mankind. It is true that they cannot be parted from the majority of the world, as an inseparable part of human society, who can be viewed as another kind of creature similar to human beings.

Living with people rather than being isolated from the real world indicates that they need a sense of belonging. However, the Cullens have learnt how to control their desire to drink human blood. Therefore we can find that it is less horrible to step into the vampire family, which is another modernized feature. The living style of vampires is up to the living background of the author and the things they want to express.

The author uses scripture in The Bible to establish the theme of the conflict between the good and the evil. She focuses more on the choice between the good and the evil. Bella and Edward’s choice embodied the good aspects of human nature. This tells us that we can believe in others, trust even exist in difference races. Traditional theme of love becomes no longer dark, instead, it becomes more warm-hearted and romantic. Also the traditional furious passion has been replaced by rational thinking.

The female position has changed both in family and society as time goes on, women started to have their own career and went out to work. Their demand for reading and writing also has made some differences in this time compared with the past feudal period. They are calling for equality in different domains, for example, housework, social interpersonal relationship, and working opportunities.

In current modern gothic fictions, people are no longer living in tenebrous houses. Instead, they live in bright and modernized buildings. Therefore, gothic novel has changed a lot in its horrible atmosphere and it gradually reduces the gloomy factors. Therefore, Meyer used vampire fiction to display female"s inherent ideology with different style to some extent.

4. Contribution to Gothic Literature

4.1 Weakening of the horrible environment

In Twilight, the horror factors of the environment are quite different from the traditional gothic. There are nothing of castles and horrible environmental elements. The environment appears relatively quiet and harmonious. The background of the novel is very romantic and beautiful, intending to express the positive emotion of characters, which is less gloomy than the traditional gothic vampire novels, such as Interview with a Vampire.

Horrible factors have always been the typical feature of female gothic novels. In Twilight, the scary elements go another way under the pen of the female writer. In Twilight, the violent scenes are limited, the author put more emphasize on an environment of love rather than the evil characters of vampires. If the story happens in daytime, the audience may feel less fear, and less psychological strike. For example, vampires can walk under the sun as ordinary human, which weakens the evil aspects of vampires. Edward"s skin looks like blue diamonds under sunshine, and it beautifies vampires rather than pointing out the evil of them. The nature of the Cullens is kind. We can find that their appearance is similar to ordinary people. And they don’t kill people or drink people’s blood. On the contrary, they are very helpful and have strong ability to control themselves.

For another example, there is a battle scene in the fourth part of the series. The Cullens and their close friends the werewolves are confronted with a battle. At the end, they choose to avoid the fierce battle. The author shows the good nature of the vampire family instead of expressing the evil aspects, which is a very implicit way to take care of the reader"s feelings. The frightful and somber traditional gothic elements do not show themselves much. The theme is expressed in a relatively cozy gothic atmosphere.

Stephanie Meyer has developed the story in a mild way, by using gentle words. Dangers may be always testified to be false alarms. In the end, the results are always cheerful. We can see from that, female novelists focus more on horrible experience In return, the false alarm may also illustrate a problem that female writers cannot accept the existence of real supernatural phenomena because they are not inclined to believe rather than they do not believe. Moreover, the unwillingness derives from a kind of eagerness for a sense of safety. However, the horrible gothic novel is just a pattern that people usually use to seek physical comfort. We can find that expressing horror, darkness and evil is neither only a kind of inferiority, nor simply seeking organic thrill.

On the contrary, we may convert actual pain into comfort because of these elements. Therefore, such convention-breaking and adventurous spirit may not only liberate people from insipid reality, but also can slowly foster a firm strength of personality, when such aesthetic and interest object become a sort of aesthetics rather than sheer entertainment. The gloomy climate in Forks is designed by the author in accordance with gothic setting, but it is much weakened compared with traditional gothic. In some classic female gothic works such as Wuthering Heights, the origin of pressure on women is always from men and human society.

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