Meyer finished an outline of the book in 2003, but developed and changed it as she wrote New Moon and Eclipse, though the main and most significant storylines remained unchanged. Little, Brown and Company took certain measures to prevent the book's contents from leaking, such as closing forums and message boards on several fansites and providing a special e-mail address for fans to send in links to leaks and spoilers online.
Breaking Dawn was released on August 2, 2008 at midnight release parties in over 4,000 bookstores throughout the US.[1] From its initial print run of 3.7 million copies, over 1.3 million were sold in the US and 20,000 in the UK in the first 24 hours of the book's release, setting a record in first-day sales performance for the Hachette Book Group USA.[2] The book was highly successful, selling over 6 million copies in 2008, and was the third best-selling novel of 2008 behind Twilight and New Moon.
Unlike the series' previous two entries, Breaking Dawn received mixed reviews from critics. It is also the most controversial book of the series, as adult themes and concepts are explored more directly than in its predecessors. However, the novel was awarded the British Book Award for "Children's Book of the Year". It was translated in 38 languages with rights sold to over 50 countries. The book has been adapted into a two-part movie, with the first part released on November 18, 2011 and the second part released on November 16, 2012.
Breaking Dawn is divided into three separate parts. The first part details Bella's marriage and honeymoon with Edward, which they spend on a private island that Carlisle bought and gave to Esme, Isle Esme, off the coast of Brazil. Two weeks into their honeymoon, Bella realizes that she is pregnant with a half-vampire, half-human child and that her condition is progressing at an unnaturally accelerated rate. After contacting Carlisle, who confirms her pregnancy, she and Edward immediately return home to Forks, Washington, where the fetus continues to develop at an abnormal speed.
The second part of the book is written from the perspective of Jacob Black, a werewolf who had also fallen in love with Bella. A month after the wedding, Bella calls her dad, Charlie Swan, and says that she is sick. Charlie relays this to Billy Black, Jacob's dad, and Billy relays it to the pack. Jacob thinks that Bella is actually a vampire now and attempts to lead an assault on the Cullens for breaking the treaty. When he arrives, he discovers that Bella was sick, but it was from her pregnancy, not a disease. Jacob begs Bella to abort the fetus and save her life, but Bella is determined that she will live long enough to have the baby and be transformed into a vampire. Jacob runs off in his werewolf form and keeps thinking of what Bella had said. This accidentally reveals Bella's condition to the pack, and because they think the baby will become a monster, the pack decides to kill the baby and Bella immediately. Jacob refuses, and when Sam uses an alpha command to force Jacob, Jacob accepts his bloodline as the true leader of the pack and breaks free of Sam's control. He runs off to warn the Cullens of the pack's plan to kill Bella and the baby. However, while en route, Seth Clearwater, one of the younger pack members, joins Jacob and makes note of the fact that neither of them can hear the others' thoughts and that they had formed their own pack. They warn the Cullens and take up patrol around the Cullens' property. Leah, Seth's older sister, joins them shortly afterward. After a chance remark by Jacob, they discover that the baby simply craves blood, and Bella has to drink it out of a cup for the greatest effectiveness. Bella gets better, but the fetus in Bella's body grows swiftly and the timing of birth is unknown due to the lack of any related medical knowledge on human-vampire births. Carlisle, the experienced doctor, is out of the house to replenish blood supplies from a hospital blood bank when Bella falls, detaching the placenta and inducing labor. The baby breaks many of her bones, including her spine, and she loses massive amounts of blood. In order to save her life, Edward changes her into a vampire by injecting his venom into her heart. Jacob, thinking that Bella is dead, and blaming Bella's daughter Renesmee as the cause, tries to kill Renesmee. Instead, he "imprints"—an involuntary response in which a shape-shifter finds his soul mate—on her.
The third section shifts back to Bella's perspective, describing Bella's painful transformation and finding herself changed into a vampire and enjoying her new life and abilities. However, the vampire Irina misidentifies Renesmee as an "immortal child," a child who has been turned into a vampire. Because "immortal children" are uncontrollable, creating them has been outlawed by the Volturi. After Irina presents her allegations to the Volturi, they plan to destroy Renesmee and the Cullens. In an attempt to survive, the Cullens gather other vampire clans from around the world to stand as witnesses and prove to the Volturi that Renesmee is not an immortal child. Edward telepathically connects with Jacob and his Quileute pack, with the full realization of Jacob's imprint on Renesmee forging a new family connection of an unbreakable bond and mutual pact of protection between the Cullens and the Quileute, ending hatred between the races. As local and foreign vampires arrive, the Cullen house becomes the headquarters and training ground for the assorted vampires and the Quileute wolf packs. Information pieced together from the many visitors reveals the Volturi's ulterior motives for power through the acquisition of vampires with special abilities, turning the gathered vampire witnesses into self-aware rebels intent on defending their freedoms. Faced with the Volturi's ruthless killing of numerous vampires, many of the guest vampires reveal secret talents, which they know the Volturi will demand to control, or seek to destroy in fear of the powers being used against them. The transformation of each person from human to vampire alters their characteristics, physically and mentally, with traits in human form enhanced in vampire form and particular skills heightened, sometimes into a supernatural power. Since no two minds think alike, although similar, no two powers are identical and some powers require time to develop or improve. The majority of special abilities are mind-based, with exceptions occurring in powers that are physically related. At the Cullen home, various abilities and strategies are worked on individually and collectively, with exceptional talents displayed by notable vampires such as:
- The Cullen coven: Edward's telepathy, Alice's precognition, Jasper's pathokinesis, Bella's mental shield, and Renesmee's tactile thought projection and mental shield penetration.
- The Cullen Allies: Eleazar's ability identification, Kate's psychic electrokinesis, Maggie's lie detection, Siobhan's outcome manipulation, Zafrina's mental visual projection, and Benjamin's elemental manipulation.
Background
Development
Originally, Meyer wrote a book titled Forever Dawn, which was a direct sequel to Twilight.[3] While the basic storyline remained the same, Forever Dawn was narrated completely from Edward's point of view, the werewolves and Jacob were "only sketchily developed", Victoria and Laurent were both alive, and there was an epilogue.[4] Meyer went on to say that she "may post some extras someday if I ever have time to go back through the Forever Dawn manuscript—it's just as long as Breaking Dawn."The part that took Meyer the longest time to write of Breaking Dawn was the half-chapter describing the 3 months after Bella's transformation into a vampire because "the amount of time per word put into that section was probably ten times what it was in any other part of the book" and Meyer liked to write minute by minute, but didn't think it would be exciting.[5]
Meyer decided to include the pregnancy in her story while she was researching vampires, early in 2003, and came across the legend of the incubus, a demon who could father children.[4] Bella's insistence to not let her child die was inspired by Meyer's reaction when asked if she would let one of her children die so she could live, which was to deliver the child no matter what the consequences were.[6] Meyer said in an interview with Shannon Hale, published in The Twilight Saga: The Official Illustrated Guide, that the birth scene published is a little less grotesque than the one she wrote before editing due to her editor, agent and publisher's requests to "tone down the violence a little". She stated that Bella's pregnancy and childbirth, for her, were "a way to kind of explore that concept of what childbirth used to be" in the past and acknowledged that they were "taking Bella in a new direction that wasn't [as] relatable for a lot of people."[7] Concerning the subject of the relatability of Bella, Meyer admitted that she lost some of her relatability to the character when she became a vampire and said, "every point up until that point in the story [the transformation] I would say I could step into this story right here and I could do everything she could do which made it really fun."[8] Meyer wanted to experience Bella's vampiric experiences and "enjoyed very much" writing about them and wanted to end the book from her perspective,[6] but still thought it was "a little bit harder" as she couldn't step in into the story anymore.[8]
In regard to Renesmee's unique name, Meyer wrote that she "couldn't call her Jennifer or Ashley. What do you name the most unique baby in the world? I looked through a lot of baby name websites. Eventually I realized that there was no human name that was going to work for me, so I surrendered to necessity and made up my own."[4]
Meyer states in regard to ending the series:
The Twilight Saga is really Bella's story, and this was the natural place for her story to wind up. She overcame the major obstacles in her path and fought her way to the place she wanted to be. I suppose I could try to prolong her story unnaturally, but it wouldn't be interesting enough to keep me writing. Stories need conflict, and the conflicts that are Bella-centric are resolved.[4]
No comments:
Post a Comment