Twilight and Philosophy E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 367

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2009

Beschreibung

twilight and Philosophy What can vampires tell us about the meaning of life? Is Edward a romantic hero or a dangerous stalker? Is Bella a feminist? Is Stephenie Meyer? How does Stephenie Meyer's Mormonism fit into the fantastical world of Twilight? Is Jacob "better" for Bella than Edward? The answers to these philosophical questions and more can be found inside Twilight and Philosophy: Vampires, Vegetarians, and the Pursuit of Immortality. With everything from Taoism to mind reading to the place of God in a world of vampires, this book offers some very tasty philosophy for both the living and the undead to sink their teeth into. Whether you're on Team Edward or Team Jacob, whether you loved or hated Breaking Dawn, this book is for you! To learn more about the Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture series, visit www.andphilosophy.com

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Introduction

PART ONE - TWILIGHT

one - YOU LOOK GOOD ENOUGH TO EAT: LOVE, MADNESS, AND THE FOOD ANALOGY

“Sorry about the Food Analogy”—What’s Your Pleasure?

“What I Knew Was Right . . . and What I Wanted”

The Vampire Socrates

Lambs and the Predators Who Adore Them

“Other Hungers . . . That Are Foreign to Me”

“A Moonless Night”

NOTES

two - DYING TO EAT: THE VEGETARIAN ETHICS OF TWILIGHT

Scene 1. In Which a Reasonable Ethic Is Proposed

Scene 2. In Which a Classmate Brings Up an Unpleasant Scenario

Scene 3. In Which Edward Says No to the Kosher Option

NOTES

three - CAN A VAMPIRE BE A PERSON?

What Is a Person (Other Than Vampire Food)?

What Humans, Vampires, and Animals Have in Common

If Animals Are Human Food, Are We Vampire Food?

Naughty Vampire! No People for You!

NOTES

four - CARLISLE: MORE COMPASSIONATE THAN A SPEEDING BULLET?

Carlisle’s Theory of “Gifts”

Carlisle’s Super-Compassion

Is Compassion a Feeling?

Compassion of a Saint?

Compassion, Caring, and the Cullen Family

The Power of Connections

NOTES

PART TWO - NEW MOON

five - VAMPIRE-DÄMMERUNG: WHAT CAN TWILIGHT TELL US ABOUT GOD?

Evil’s Not a Problem, Because Evil Doesn’t Exist

Evil’s Not a Problem, Because Evil Indicates Ignorance

Evil’s Not a Problem, Because It’s the Necessary Cost of Good

Evil, Transcendence, and Natural Goodness

NOTES

six - TO BITE OR NOT TO BITE: TWILIGHT, IMMORTALITY, AND THE MEANING OF LIFE

More Love and Death

On Losing One’s Soul

I’m Bored . . .

It’s Complicated

NOTES

seven - MIND READING AND MORALITY: THE MORAL HAZARDS OF BEING EDWARD

Does Power Corrupt or Reveal Moral Character?

Benevolence and Mind Reading

Privacy and Mind Reading

Love and the Inequality of Mind Reading

God and Morality

One Last Thought before Dawn

NOTES

eight - LOVE AND AUTHORITY AMONG WOLVES

What’s Free Will, Anyway?

The Wolves, Free Will, and Authority

Wolf Love and Free Will

A Final Worry

Here Jacob Stands: He Can Do No Other

NOTES

PART THREE - ECLIPSE

nine - BELLA SWAN AND SARAH PALIN: ALL THE OLD MYTHS ARE NOT TRUE

Having It All

All of the Myths Are True

Consider Sarah Palin

A Lesson for Serious Feminists

Who Are the Real Elitists?

A Lesson for Feminists

Having It All in Real Life

NOTES

ten - VAMPIRE LOVE: THE SECOND SEX NEGOTIATES THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

Back in Time

The Second Sex in the Twenty-first Century

A Feminist Subtext

The Price of Existence

NOTES

eleven - EDWARD CULLEN AND BELLA SWAN: BYRONIC AND FEMINIST HEROES . . . OR NOT

You’re Only Young Once, but You Can Be Byronic Forever

Why Byronic Heroes Make Bad Bosses

Jane Eyre: Gritty Governess, Runaway Bride, and Feminist Hero

The Byronic Hero: Now Available in Marble-like, Sparkly Perfection

Can You Still Be a Feminist If You Become a Bloodsucking Vampire for Your Husband?

Self-Exiled Harold Wanders Forth Again; or, Basically, Bella and Edward Deserve ...

NOTES

twelve - UNDEAD PATRIARCHY AND THE POSSIBILITY OF LOVE

The Control Issues of Edward Cullen

Bella’s Mixed Reactions

Edward’s Progress

Talked into Love

Risk and Transformation

NOTES

thirteen - THE “REAL” DANGER: FACT VS. FICTION FOR THE GIRL AUDIENCE

Just the Facts, Ma’am

Bella and “Generation Me”

Twilight in the Desert of the Real

New Moon Rising?

NOTES

PART FOUR - BREAKING DAWN

fourteen - TWILIGHT OF AN IDOL: OUR FATAL ATTRACTION TO VAMPIRES

An Undying Wish

Deadly Transformations

Unbreakable

Bloody Special

Lone Wolves

Tortuous Thirsts

The Not-So-Guilty Pleasures of Twilight

Once Bitten, Twice Shy: Grave Concerns about Vegetarian Vampires

NOTES

fifteen - BELLA’S VAMPIRE SEMIOTICS

The Signs around Tyler’s Blue Van

The Philosopher of Oneness, Twoness, Threeness

The Sign of the Cross

The Signs of a Good Vampire

Vampire Semiotics Are No Guarantee . . .

The Semiotic Waltz: One, Two, Three, One, Two, Three, One, Two, Three

NOTES

sixteen - SPACE, TIME, AND VAMPIRE ONTOLOGY

Kantian Space and Time

Kant, Dracula, and Twilight’s Vampires

Abilities beyond Space and Time: Alice, Edward, and Aro

When Worlds Collide

NOTES

seventeen - FOR THE STRENGTH OF BELLA? MEYER, VAMPIRES, AND MORMONISM

What’s Religion Got to Do with It?

Meyer’s Religion and Its Philosophical Context

Eternal Covenants, Binding Promises

Eternal Union in Body and Spirit

Close but Not Too Close: The Erotics of Abstinence

Returning the Gaze

Nice Mormon Girls and Sexy Vampires

NOTES

eighteen - THE TAO OF JACOB

It’s Always Darkest before the Dawn

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

Bend So That You Don’t Break

The Dawning of a New Era

NOTES

CONTRIBUTORS

INDEX

The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series

Series Editor: William Irwin

South Park and Philosophy

Edited by Robert Arp

Metallica and Philosophy

Edited by William Irwin

Family Guy and Philosophy

Edited by J. Jeremy Wisnewski

The Daily Show and Philosophy

Edited by Jason Holt

Lost and Philosophy

Edited by Sharon Kaye

24 and Philosophy

Edited by Richard Davis, Jennifer Hart Week, and Ronald Weed

Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy

Edited by Jason T. Eberl

The Office and Philosophy

Edited by J. Jeremy Wisnewski

Batman and Philosophy

Edited by Mark D. White and Robert Arp

House and Philosophy

Edited by Henry Jacoby

Watchmen and Philosophy

Edited by Mark D. White

X-Men and Philosophy

Edited by Rebecca Housel and J. Jeremy Wisnewski

Terminator and Philosophy

Edited by Richard Brown and Kevin Decker

Heroes and Philosophy

Edited by David Kyle Johnson

Final Fantasy and Philosophy

Edited by Jason Blahuta and Michel Beaulieu

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Copyright © 2009 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Twilight and philosophy : vampires, vegetarians, and the pursuit of immortality / edited by Rebecca Housel and J. Jeremy Wisnewski.

p. cm.

Includes index.

eISBN : 978-0-470-55414-2

1. Meyer, Stephenie, 1973- Twilight series. 2. Meyer, Stephenie, 1973—Philosophy. 3. Vampires in literature. 4. Immortality in literature.

5. Immortality (Philosophy) 6. Philosophy in literature. I. Housel, Rebecca.

II. Wisnewski, Jeremy.

PS3613.E979Z89 2009

813’.6—dc22 2009030809

To Twilight fans of all ages, both living and undead.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Supernatural Humans We Can’t Live Without

Jeremy and Rebecca would like to collectively thank the contributors of this book for their extraordinary efforts, the team at Wiley who made this project come to life, including Connie Santisteban and Lisa Burstiner, and of course the series editor, William Irwin, for his incredible editorial instincts as well as his pop culture and philosophical prowess—are you sure you’re not a Cullen?

Jeremy thanks his posse for their willingness to put up with endless nonsense and equally endless obsession. Thanks, Dorothy and Audrey. (He’d also like to thank his new son, Lucian Xavier Wisnewski, just because he wants the boy to be thanked in a book—it’s an auspicious start.) Jeremy also wants to thank Meg Lonergan for her patience with proof-reading and her toleration of quirks. She’s been a great help over the past couple of years.

Rebecca conveys hearty appreciation to Laura Smith-Savoca and Jenny Geissler for prepurchasing Twilight tickets, getting to the theater early, and patiently waiting in line with all the tweens and teens so Rebecca could see the movie opening day—what an experience! She also thanks Stephenie Meyer for creating the Twilight universe, Stephen King for being a literary inspiration, and J. K. Rowling for helping to expand the possibilities of the middle-grade/young-adult genre. Abigail Myers gets a shout-out along with Derek Harrison, Ethan Schwartz, Jaime Freedman, and Marguerite Schwartz. Thanks to Mary Conley-Thomas and Eva Schwartz-Barson for being inspirational women who instill a love of story in all their grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and last but certainly not least, Gary, Bob, and Bell for all you do!

INTRODUCTION

Undead Wisdom

Freud once claimed that love and death mark the driving forces of human existence. Having fallen in love with the undead of Twilight, we might well say the same thing about this vampire tale. The Twilight books confront love and death, and so much more, in a way that facilitates a strange recognition—that the dead are indeed wise, and that they are sometimes wise in matters of the heart, even when that heart doesn’t beat. The strange beauty of Twilight lies here, as elsewhere: we are all faced with death, and we all desire to love. These two facts—one deeply unpleasant, the other quite pleasant—are evident in Twilight. This makes for great reading, and as you will soon see, it also provides great philosophical opportunities.

Death is everywhere. It is between any two syllables, waiting to choke the final breath out of you. It is a force like no other: inescapable, ineffable, and absolute—at least for mere mortals. Death captivates. It haunts. The thought that somehow death might not master us enchants the mind until we find ourselves drawn again and again to the hope that we might escape our fate—by being made immortal vampires, or finding an afterlife, or through a scientific “cure” for death. There is little as powerful as the thought of death, and probably little that motivates us in the way that our mortality does.

Except perhaps love. The existentialist philosopher Albert Camus (1913-1960) once claimed that the only real philosophical question was whether or not to kill yourself in the face of an absurd world. The writer Tom Robbins thinks one can only answer this question with one even more basic: Are you able to love? For love, Robbins suggests, is the only thing that makes life worth living. Love allows us to see things we could never see without it. It shapes our perceptions of the world and enables us to be open to deep, meaningful experiences. It can change a humdrum little town in Washington into a world of wonder.

In the world of Twilight, death is not inevitable, and the purest form of love seems to have been found. Such a world not only allows an exploration of the human condition—facing our deepest and darkest fears, as well as our highest hopes. It also demands that we explore our condition—and there is no better companion for such an exploration than philosophy.

The Twilight saga is full of love and death, as well as a host of other topics central to the way we understand ourselves and navigate the world. Philosophical issues permeate the pages of the Twilight books. Bella and Edward are a mirror for our greatest fears and hopes—for all that can go right with our lives and all that can go wrong. They are the human condition writ large, there for our reflection and exploration.

Perhaps surprisingly, we have a lot to learn from the undead, as well as from the way they relate to the living—about ourselves, our experiences, and our relationships with other people. This book aims to help you with just that, asking such questions as: What is the nature of love? Is death something to be feared? How should feminists react to Bella Swan? Is there a moral obligation to be vegetarian? What is it like to experience the world as a vampire? What does it mean to be a person? How free are we?

Forks, Washington, is a small town; unfortunately, minds can be very small places, too. But philosophy has a way of opening up both: It allows us to see what we hadn’t seen before and allows us to explore issues we might not otherwise explore. Only literature rivals philosophy in this capacity, making our examination of the Twilight saga the perfect place for literature and philosophy to meet.

So whether you’re a fan of Edward Cullen or Jacob Black, believe Bella a fool or a romantic, or are a vegan or a carnivore, keep reading! You’ll enjoy chapters on everything from why we love vampires to how Edward is a Byronic hero to the Tao of Jacob, and much more.

PART ONE

TWILIGHT

one

YOU LOOK GOOD ENOUGH TO EAT: LOVE, MADNESS, AND THE FOOD ANALOGY

George A. Dunn

There is always a bit of madness in loving. But there is also always a bit of reason in madness.

—Friedrich Nietzsche1

Edward Cullen is doomed. The new girl sitting next to him in biology class looks and—to make matters even worse—smells good enough to eat. In fact, in the century or so he’s been stalking the Earth, Edward has never before inhaled a fragrance quite so intoxicating. His nostrils have in their delirium taken the rest of his brain hostage. His sanity is on its way to becoming a dim memory, along with all that gentlemanly self-restraint he’s worked so long and hard to cultivate. All he can think about is what he’d like to do with this girl once he gets her alone—and how he can make that happen. Blinded and blindsided by this sudden upsurge of appetite, he’s able to regain control of himself just long enough to bolt out the door and drive to Alaska, where a couple of days of cool mountain air does the work of a long, cold shower, sobering him up and chilling him out.