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Chapter 1
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
The next day is better: it’s not raining, and Bella now recognizes some of her classmates. It’s flattering that Mike and Eric seem to be vying for her attention, too. But Bella’s day is still miserable, especially since she spends all morning wondering how to confront Edward. When she enters the cafeteria with Jessica, though, Edward isn’t with his siblings. He doesn’t show up for lunch at all. After lunch, Mike accompanies Bella to biology. Edward isn’t there, so Bella breathes a sigh of relief. She knows she’s going to have to do something about Mike—he’s getting too friendly. She spends all of biology wondering if Edward isn’t in school because of her.
Though Bella frames it as a nice change that Mike and Eric are so interested in her, she implies that she’s not into a romantic relationship right now. And in general, this passage illustrates how conflicted Bella is about all the attention she’s getting in Forks. She likes it on one level, but it also means that she has to reevaluate how she sees herself and do things she’s never done before—like turn down Mike’s advances. And as all of this is going on, her thoughts remain focused on Edward.
Themes
When school is over, Bella heads for the grocery store. She discovered last night that Charlie can’t cook, so she asked to take over the shopping and food prep. When she gets home, Bella preps some steak and potatoes and then checks her email. She has three frantic emails from Mom. Bella writes Mom back and tells her about the truck. Then, she starts reading Wuthering Heights for school.
Again, Bella demonstrates her maturity by so readily taking over food prep now that she lives with Charlie—it seems as though she probably did the same thing when she lived with Mom, given that Bella earlier expressed concern about Mom’s ability to feed herself. Bella seems to have been taking care of herself for some time. Wuthering Heights, full of gothic drama and dramatic love affairs between people who seem almost magnetically attracted to each other, foreshadows in a way the Gothic elements and intense romantic drama of Twilight.
Themes
Over dinner later, Bella tells Charlie about Mike and then asks if he knows of the Cullens; the kids, she says, are “different.” Charlie looks angry. He says that Dr. Cullen is brilliant, and that the town is lucky to have him. He was concerned at first, but all the Cullen kids are polite and nice; none of them have caused trouble—unlike some local kids. The family also “stick[s] together the way a family should.” Bella says that they seem nice, and that they’re all attractive. With a laugh, Charlie replies that she should see Dr. Cullen—the nurses at the hospital swoon over him.
The rest of Bella’s week is uneventful. Edward doesn’t come back to school, and Mike invites Bella to La Push Ocean Park in two weeks. By Friday, Bella isn’t worried about Edward. Her first weekend in Forks is uneventful; she cleans, does homework, and checks out the local library. On Monday, kids greet her when she gets to school. Bella is thrilled; she’s more comfortable here than she thought she’d ever be. But when she and Mike step outside after English, Bella’s day gets much worse—it’s snowing, and she hates snow. Bella hurries away from Mike after someone, presumably Eric, throws a snowball at him.
Themes
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Thanks to the snow, Bella is already on edge when she gets to the cafeteria. But when she sees five people sitting at the Cullens’ table, she freezes. She tells Jessica that she feels sick, and she only buys a soda. The one time she sneaks a look at the Cullens, they’re all laughing. Studying Edward, Bella decides he has a bit more color today. Jessica interrupts Bella’s thoughts to ask what she’s looking at—and at that instant, Edward meets Bella’s eyes. He doesn’t look unfriendly this time. Jessica laughs at Bella as Mike invites everyone to a snowball fight after school.
Themes
Bella is thrilled when she exits the cafeteria and finds that the snow has turned to rain. In the biology classroom, Bella is relieved to find her table empty. But a few minutes later, Edward sits down and introduces himself politely. Bella can’t figure out if she made up his rudeness last week, and she asks how he knows to call her Bella when everyone else calls her Isabella at first. He drops the subject as the teacher passes out supplies for their lab. Bella has already done this lab, so she and Edward identify the phases of mitosis on slides with little effort. The one time their hands touch, Edward’s hand is ice cold.
Themes
Bella and Edward are the first group to finish. They sit in awkward silence for a moment until Bella realizes what’s different about Edward. She asks if he got contacts; his eyes are a golden color now, when they were black last week. He says he didn’t. Just then, the teacher comes to check their work. He accuses Edward of doing the lab himself, but Bella shares that she was in an advanced placement program in Phoenix.
Themes
Edward tries to make small talk with Bella about the snow. Bella feels paranoid; it’s almost like Edward somehow knows she hates it. She says, truthfully, that she doesn’t like it in Forks, and she tells him why she decided to come: Mom married to a minor league baseball player and wanted to travel with him, and Bella decided to move so that Mom could be happy. Edward suggests that this doesn’t sound fair, and he says he’s sure that Bella is suffering more than she’s letting on. This is annoying, but when Edward asks if he's annoying her, Bella says that she’s just annoyed that she’s so easy to read. Edward replies that she’s actually very hard to read.
The teacher calls the class to attention, but Bella watches Edward clench his fists and lean away again. Once again, Edward disappears as soon as the bell rings. Mike walks over and groans that Bella was lucky to get to work with Edward on such a hard lab, but Bella says she didn’t have a hard time. They walk to gym class together. When school is over, Bella climbs into her truck. She looks around and notices Edward staring at her, which causes her to almost back out in front of another car. When she finally does pull out, she notices Edward laughing.
Themes
