T.02.16 Paris

In Which The Romeo And Juliet Analogy Is Abused

No, we're not going to Paris.

Bella is saved by Jacob and Sam, who take her back to Billy's house where Jacob tells her that Harry Clearwater, who we briefly met at a dinner party twelve chapters ago, just had a heart attack. There, saved you six pages.

Bella takes a nap then monologues about Romeo and Juliet, establishing a loooong analogy between Juliet as her and Paris as Jacob. If it's been a bit since High School English, Paris was Juliet's intended and is killed by Romeo in the final act of R&J. He's not a very developed character either, but his only purpose is to serve as a threat to Juliet's happiness and is never an alternate romance. Bella imagines that she might be able to have a life outside the tragic ending of Juliet. This scene would play out just fine if we weren't already in the middle of a larger Romeo and Juliet analogy / rewrite. Bella/Juliet is already past her suicide and Romeo is on the way to his and throwing Jacob in this late as a doomed Paris is just forcing me to compare this book to a renowned, seminal work of English Literature. You're not going to fare well, regardless, so stop trying to rewrite Romeo and Juliet with Vampires and come up with your own stuff!

Billy returns and announces that Harry has died so Jacob drives Bella home. On the way she imagines trying to start a new life with Jacob, even without being able to every love him. When they arrive at the house, Jacob tenses up and tells Bella there's a vampire present. Bella, however, sees the car in the driveway and realizes that it belongs to Carlisle.

SumUp C+
The whole point of this chapter seems to be to get us back to the house and I didn't feel like much attention was paid to the rescue or short recovery. Most of the chapter is Bella showing how much she remembers about a classic play that Meyer is using as a plot stencil.

While the R&J is getting arduous, Bella does seem honestly resigned to her fate and trying to work Jacob into that as a backup "safe harbor" isn't entirely unrealistic. If only she'd stop jumping off of cliffs.

The reverse is that Bella has spent a whole 5 months away from Edward and so the backup plan is hamstrung . First, her relationship with Edward never felt real and so this moaning about how she'll never love again is pathetic. Second, she's seventeen and dated Edward for a less than a year. That's not a lifetime of love, that's two semesters. Complaining that the love of her life is gone (again, as a 17 year old) makes Bella sound like a drama queen and her giant martyr act in staying with Jacob is pathetic. Maybe seventeen year old girls think and act like this, but that doesn't make them any less wrong. Again, it's the author's LOVE wand that keeps Bella tied to Edward and nothing else.

Last note, Harry seems to have been tossed into the story back in chapter 6 and killed here purely as a plot device. Why introduce the character, never use him and then kill him? Guess we'll find out shortly.