ABSTRACT
In Twilight, Stephenie Meyer provides an inner glimpse of Persephone psychology. Bella epitomizes the lost girl, forever fated to cycle between worlds. Her favorite novel is Wuthering Heights, placing Twilight in a long line of homage to the Brontës. Her appreciation for the novel is distinctly gendered; her lover, Edward Cullen, does not appreciate the book. A man who has lived nearly one hundred years without satisfactory relationships and full acceptance in communities does not fi nd fl attering the implicit parallel Bella draws between him and Heathcliff. The creature of twilight and exile presents a beautiful narcissus object for Bella; he offers the same paradoxical fantasy of development and escape from the conditions of Bella’s existence, which, like Mary’s of The Secret Garden, are diffi cult indeed. They drive Bella’s creation of a soul-mate in darkness, her pleasure in abduction by chariot, and her internal poetics of guilt, despair, and lamentation, akin to the elegiac, passionate monologues of Brontë’s Catherine.
