Breaking Dawn:Reading Bella's Change Through Nietzsche And The Ecstasy Of St. Teresa

You must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame: how else could you become new, if you had not first become ashes? - Thus Spake Zarathustra

Stephenie Meyer wrote Bella's change scene in thrilling, frighteningly seductive, seductively frightening language. Following Baudrillard  she is not the authorial subject describing it to the reader. No, the reader is the object where all the power, interpretation, resonances and emotions lie. Meyer has thrown the challenge to the reader, the literate reader, who seems non-existent, reading the Twilight books.

For the first time, with the dimming shadows and limiting weakness 

of humanity taken off my eyes, I saw his face.

I gasped and then struggled with my vocabulary, 

unable to find the right words.

I needed better words.

Bella Cullen, Breaking Dawn

Bernini's Ecstasy of St. Teresa
The wiki link describes the sexually erotic aspect of St. Teresa's Ecstasy

All mystics, and Saint Teresa as much as any of them, complain of a want of new words (nuevas palabras) with which to praise the works of god as they experience these in spirit. (LITWW p. 161)


To die of not being able to die - Saint Teresa 

The screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg, the director Bill Condon, and the Scummit suits are completely unaware of any resonances in the novel or in any of the scenes. Just nope nope nope from the 3 dopes. Bella's internal change is shown through blood red CGI of venom slooshing through her veins and Bella is shown lying on a slab lab table, like an insect with a pin through it, wearing an ugly short blue dress, with her legs parted like the proper specimen, her arms at her sides, shot from above for a bird's eye view. Very very clinical and informative, eh?

How did producer Stephenie Meyer permit this? Does she have no integrity concerning her work? Maybe it's the green stuff - $$$$$$$$$? Is she unconscious about the real power of her work? Mebbe.


Meyer has been clear all along in her writing that Bella is a mystic. All reviews, discussions, arguing, defending, criticizing her have been in the clinical psychological camp. That is not where she belongs. Bella is in the Order of Seduction, not the Order of Production and this is where all the difficulty begins. The films are primarily in the Order of Production and Bella swaying down the aisle in her $30,000 wedding dress designed for provocative back interest with its curved cut out, is for the audience of males who have come with their wives, daughters, girl friends, sisters, mothers, etc. to watch Kristen Stewart undulate down the aisle.  


I'm not even gonna go there to discuss the birth scene, the wolves and the rest of the mess.


This is the dirty, nasty, cynical secret of the movie. It is also very boring.