Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Twilight, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Love and Lust
Self-Restraint and Morality
Good, Evil, and Perspective
Family
Summary
Analysis
Bella is dressed in her favorite sleeveless shirt to fly out of Phoenix, but her carryon item is a parka. She’s headed for a tiny town in Washington state called Forks. It’s on the Olympic Peninsula and is the rainiest place in the United States. When Bella was just a few months old, her mom “escaped” Forks with Bella—and like Mom, Bella hates the town. But now, she’s “exiling” herself there voluntarily. Before Bella boards, Mom reminds her that she doesn’t have to go. Bella feels panicky for a moment; her mom is “erratic” and “hare-brained” and will struggle to feed herself, even with her new husband Phil around. But Bella lies that she wants to go and tells Mom goodbye.
This passage sets up some important things about Bella: she loves the heat and the sunshine, and yet she’s willing to give all that up for reasons that are still unclear. Bella also implies that she takes on the more adult role in her relationship with Mom, making sure Mom eats, for instance. This dynamic becomes especially clear when Bella insists to Mom that she wants to move to Forks—she seems to not want Mom to feel bad or responsible for making Bella do something she doesn’t actually want to do.
Themes
Bella eventually gets off her final plane in the small town of Port Angeles. She has an hour in the car with Charlie to look forward to. Neither Charlie nor Bella is talkative, so Bella is certain that the drive will be uncomfortable. Sure enough, Charlie greets Bella with an awkward hug and ushers her to his police cruiser (he’s the police chief in Forks, and Bella plans to buy herself a car so she doesn’t have to ride with him). As he puts Bella’s bags in the trunk, he shares that he bought a Chevy truck off his old friend, Billy Black, for Bella. It’s very old, and Bella frets that she can’t afford to both buy it and get it fixed—but Charlie says that it runs great, and that it’s a gift.
This passage shows how provincial Forks is, especially compared to a metropolis like Phoenix: Bella is flying into a small regional airport, and her father is the police chief and doesn’t see any problem with doing all his traveling in his cruiser. Referring to her dad by his first name instead of Dad speaks to how much distance there is between Bella and Charlie. It seems they don’t have the close relationship that Bella has with her mom, which again raises the question of why Bella is choosing to move to Forks.
Themes
Bella stares out the window at the greenery until they get to Charlie’s tiny two-bedroom house. He and Mom bought it right after they got married. Bella spots the truck immediately and loves it: it’s red and solid metal, so she’ll survive any accident. She thanks Charlie, and he acts embarrassed.
The truck makes Bella feel like she might have a better time in Forks than she initially thought. It’s charming and solid, a possible indicator that Forks itself might have more positive aspects than Bella expects.
Themes
Charlie helps Bella carry her things upstairs to her bedroom and then leaves her alone to unpack. It’s nice to be alone and not have to pretend to be excited. Tomorrow, she’ll attend her first day at Forks High School, which will now have 358 students total. Bella knows she’ll be a curiosity, coming from Phoenix. Unfortunately, Bella isn’t tan, sporty, or blonde, like girls from Phoenix should look. Instead, she’s pale, with brown hair and no coordination. When Bella finishes unpacking, she notices that she already looks sallow in this light. She’s never going to fit in—she doesn’t relate well to other people.
The truck might help, but Bella also believes that she’s at a severe disadvantage. She knows that people are going to make assumptions about her, and she knows they’re going to be sorely disappointed when she doesn’t fit their preconceived ideas. Forks also starts to seem oppressive and unhealthy when Bella notes how sallow her skin looks already. Bella’s thoughts make clear that she conceives of herself as a loner and an outsider, as someone cut off from other “more normal” people..
Themes
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In bed later, Bella struggles to fall asleep—the rain is too loud. When she wakes up in the morning, it’s foggy outside. She eats breakfast with Charlie, and when he leaves, she looks around the house. It looks exactly like it always does: Mom was the last person to paint the cabinets, her and Charlie’s wedding photo is still up, and all of Bella’s school photos are also on the wall. Charlie clearly isn’t over Mom. Ready to escape, Bella heads out to the truck; it’s clean, and it starts with a roar. Fortunately, the radio works.
Bella’s observations about the weather contribute to how oppressive Forks feels: the rain won’t let her sleep, and the fog makes it hard to see anything outside the house. What’s in the house is a bit oppressive too: it shows Bella that Charlie is still living in the past, and perhaps isn’t excited about having to rethink how he thinks of his ex-wife or his daughter.
Themes
The school is off the highway, like everything else in Forks. It doesn’t look like the schools Bella is used to; the grounds are heavily landscaped, and there aren’t any metal detectors. Bella parks in front of the office and heads inside. By the time she returns to her truck with her schedule and a map, other kids are starting to arrive. She follows the traffic to the appropriate parking lot and is glad that most of the cars are older—the newest car is a Volvo. She parks and studies the map; hopefully she can memorize it.
Bella might fear the other kids making assumptions about her, but she also makes assumptions of her own—schools, she believes, should look a certain way to be a “real” school. She also shows that she’s a normal teen in many ways and just wants to fit in, hence her observation about not standing out too much in her ancient truck.
Themes
Finally, Bella gets out of the truck and is relieved that her plain black raincoat doesn’t stand out. She follows some kids to building three and finds her English class. Kids stare at her, but Bella takes a seat in the back. She’s already read everything on the reading list, so she wonders if she can get Mom to send along the essays she already wrote for those books. When the bell rings, a boy with dark, oily hair introduces himself as Eric and offers to show Bella to her next class. He seems like the “overly helpful, chess club type,” but Bella accepts. As they talk, Eric is shocked that it only rains three or four times a year in Phoenix, and he doesn’t understand Bella’s sarcasm. Bella is glad to leave him.
Bella’s familiarity with the reading list implies how smart and good at school she is, and also how Forks seems unlikely to challenge her academically such that it doesn’t even seem like a big deal to cheat the system and use her old essays. Her encounter with Eric also makes it seem like Bella is going to struggle to fit in, since he doesn’t understand her sense of humor or where she comes from. As her day progresses, Bella feels increasingly alone and isolated.
Themes
For Bella’s next two classes, a tiny girl with dark curly hair sits next to her and then invites Bella to sit with her at lunch. Bella can’t remember the girl’s name. As Bella sits with the girl and all her friends, she spots “them” across the lunchroom. They don’t talk or eat. The three boys are beautiful, and the two girls are also gorgeous. Though the five all look different, they also look alike in that they’re very pale. Their eyes are all dark, and their faces are all angular. They’re “inhumanly beautiful.” As Bella watches the tiny girl in the group dump her apple in the garbage, she asks the curly-haired girl who they are. As she asks, Bella notices that the bronze-haired boy in the group catches her eye and quickly looks away.
Bella might stand out as the new girl in town, but these “inhumanly beautiful” people nevertheless stand out even more. That Bella describes them as inhumanly beautiful foreshadows supernatural revelations and events to come. Asking her new friend who these “inhumanly beautiful” people are shows Bella’s interest in these other people who also seem different from the other people in Forks, and her attraction to the beauty she sees in them. The brief look of the bronze-haired boy is of course also foreshadowing.
Themes
The curly-haired girl, Jessica, giggles. She explains that the group are Edward, Emmett, and Alice Cullen, and Rosalie and Jasper Hale. They live together with Dr. Cullen and his wife. In a scandalized voice, Jessica says that Emmett and Rosalie are a couple, as are Alice and Jasper. None of them are related—the Cullens are all adopted, and the Hales are foster kids. Bella notes that it’s nice of Dr. and Mrs. Cullen to take care of kids like this, but Jessica seems reluctant to agree. Jessica says the family arrived from Alaska two years ago. Bella is relieved; she’s not the only newcomer. Noticing the bronze-haired boy staring at her again, she asks who he is. Jessica says with a sniff that he’s Edward, but he doesn’t date.
Jessica’s tone suggests that she has some very distinct ideas about how families should look and act, while Bella’s response focuses more on how people behave and whether they show each other care. Bella’s way of looking at the world clearly does not fit with Jessica’s in this regard. To Bella, learning that the Cullens are also newcomers makes her feel less alone—she has at least some companions in being outsiders.
Themes
One of Jessica’s friends, Angela, walks Bella to biology next. The only open seat is next to Edward Cullen. As Bella passes him on her way to the teacher, Edward looks suddenly furious. Embarrassed, Bella checks in with the teacher and takes her seat next to Edward. He leans away from her as though she smells. Bella surreptitiously sniffs her hair, which smells fine, and spends the rest of the class sneaking glances at him. He barely breathes and keeps his fist clenched. The one time Bella catches his black eyes, she thinks of the phrase “if looks could kill.”
Edward’s behavior is frightening and seems to come totally out of the blue—recall that in the cafeteria, he was sneaking glances at Bella with interest and without obvious malice. Clearly, something has changed for him, and not knowing what that is makes this even more unsettling for Bella. She also seems to instinctively grasp that Edward could be dangerous, as evidenced by thinking of this particular phrase.
Themes
Edward is up and out of the classroom the moment the bell rings; Bella is shocked that he’s being so mean. As Bella gathers her things, a cute blond boy introduces himself as Mike and offers to walk her to her next class. It turns out that they both have gym next. Mike talks about living in California and then asks if Bella did something to make Edward act so oddly. He says Edward is “weird.” The gym teacher lets Bella watch instead of play volleyball, and finally, the bell signals the end of the school day.
Bella here thinks of Edward in very non-supernatural terms (which isn’t surprising). In thinking of his behavior as “mean,” she is perceiving it in relation to the behavior of other normal teens. Mike stands in contrast to Edward: he’s cute instead of inhumanly beautiful, and talks about his normal life instead of behaving oddly and mysteriously. Also as a result he’s kind of boring compared to Edward. And he too judges Edward in relation to what is considered normal. Of course, Edward being “weird” is also foreshadowing of revelations to come.
Themes
Bella heads back to the office but almost leaves instantly—Edward is at the desk, trying to switch his biology class. Bella can’t believe this is about her. As another person enters the office, letting in a gust of wind, Edward stiffens and turns to glare at Bella. Bella is terrified. Edward thanks the secretary without switching his class and leaves. Bella gives the secretary her paperwork and tries not to cry.
Bella was concerned with not standing out in her new school, but here she is already causing someone she doesn’t know to switch classes to get away from her. Edward’s behavior makes Bella feel like she’s never going to fit in in Forks.
Themes
