Love as the pursuit of the laudable
An Eclipse review argues that Twilight Eclipse is a character study of the immature:
Why does Team Jacob always have to lose? Because Eclipse is a movie about rejecting adulthood, not just as a person but also as a culture. It’s about rejecting adult relationships between men and women…
My response:
You had me up to here for the most part. Ignoring the race and boundary cards, I can see willfully translating Edward-I’m a 19th century gentlemen-Cullen as controlling, limiting and asexual. I’ll go with that even though the books and movies disagree vehemently, if not loudly. He is overly polite, self-sacrificing to a fault, and values virtue above desire. The proposal (the one she actually accepts) is where he makes this argument rather clear, explaining his “lack” of desire by stating that his wants shouldn’t come before her virtue. But no, no, people that protect you even when you don’t want them to are controlling; the Superman as subverting humanity’s free will argument. Alright.
However, the conclusion still seems off to me here. Eclipse is not a story of rejecting adulthood, it’s about making adult decisions in the midst of desire. It’s interesting to me that many people discussing the book won’t juxtapose desire and love without invalidating one side or the other. Controlling yourself (resisting desire) does not create a loveless environment (hard to get anyone?), usually it inspires the opposite actually (more desire). Jacob represents warmth and desire, but also easy virtue (“I’ll love you above all else if you’re with me, just ignore that I haven’t imprinted on you and probably will with someone else and leave you, exactly like these two did over there”) Jacob’s selfishness is revealed when his “sacrifice” is revealed to be nothing more than an empty ploy to fulfill his desire. He even calls his fight for Bella a game, and laments being unable to “play it as well as Edward.” This is the moment when Bella realizes that Jacob is still a child, and moves on, emotionally and literally. It is a realization for Bella that she really is an adult, and not simply making a foolish childhood mistake like her Mother did.
On the other hand, Edward’s sacrifices are consistently revealed to be focused on protecting Bella’s freedom to choose (When faced with the dilemma of caging her or allowing her the freedom to make choices that could result in her being hurt or killed, Edward chooses the latter after the Florida trip), to travel where she wants (again, Edward starts unable to let her go, then changes. Hey, growth from the undead thing!), to be with who she wants (the tent scene), and finally the choice to love who she wants. If he is a father figure in this movie, he ultimately lets her go out on her own and make her own choices, confident in the knowledge that if she does return to him as a free willed adult, it will be as an emotional equal.
In this movie, giving in to your desire is not automatically a Bad Thing (it is a choice), but it does have real consequences. What I personally enjoy about the books is that they make a loss of virtue a real sacrifice with everyone’s talk of protecting the possibility of a soul. The fact that those ideas of a soul and virtue are archaic does not invalidate them, the entire argument hinges on protecting the possibility.
This book to me, and it did come through rather well in the movie in spite of the fact that “I love you more” isn’t a good justification for cheating, defines adulthood as a time when you make choices that determine your destiny. Easy virtue is revealed as justification for the selfish; love as desire without the need for fulfillment. Desire is only sanctified when coupled with restraint and expressed rightly in the eyes of God. Only then will it result in true happiness.
I’m not saying I agree or disagree with that, but the message is there. Jacob as an option doesn’t invalidate it, he proves it.
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