Midnight Sun

“I realized that my hate, the hate I’d imagined this girl somehow deserved for simply existing, had evaporated. Not breathing now, not tasting her scent, I found it hard to believe that anyone so vulnerable could ever be deserving of hatred.”

Although Edward’s initial response to Bella is hate, it does not take him long to become intrigued with her. What initially prompts this change of perspective is the vulnerability and innocence that Edward sees here in Bella’s eyes. Meyer maintains this characterization of Bella, in contrast with Edward’s self-hatred, throughout the novel, ever presenting Bella as a girl whose goodness can rescue Edward from monstrosity.

“Somewhere during that short, thoughtless second when I’d sprinted across the icy lot, I had transformed from killer to protector.”

This is the moment when Edward decides to save Bella from being crushed by a van in the school parking lot. By this point Bella already intrigues Edward, but here he makes an irreversible decision to entwine his life with hers. When he refers to the second that this decision takes as “thoughtless,” he references both the fact that his desire to save Bella is now instinctual and the fact that this instinct takes priority, even over his desire to protect his family.

“‘It all depends on whether he is strong enough. Either he’ll kill her himself’—she turned to meet my gaze again, glaring—‘which would really irritate me, Edward, not to mention what it would do to you—’ She faced Jasper again. ‘Or she’ll be one of us someday.’”

Alice presents Edward with only two possible futures for Bella. Either Edward will kill her or she will become a vampire. At this moment, there is no third option for her, no future in which she will remain human. This makes Edward distraught, since to him, human life is the only kind of life worth living. In this passage, Alice also begins to show her own concern for Bella, with whom she could be great friends one day.

“My life as an unending, unchanging midnight. It must, by necessity, always be midnight for me. So how was it possible that the sun was rising now, in the middle of my midnight?”

As Edward watches Bella sleep for the first time, he begins to finally fall in love with her. This represents a permanent change for Edward, who, as a vampire, has a static nature. This passage also references the title of novel—Midnight Sun. Midnight is the life Edward has lived as a vampire for almost a century, defined by literal and moral darkness. Bella provides a new light and new opportunities to strive for goodness.

“What if I’m not a superhero? What if I’m the bad guy?”

At this point, Bella does not know that Edward is a vampire, although she suspects that he is not human. When she begins to guess what he might be, her initial guess (being bitten by a radioactive spider) is based in superhero lore. Although she is correct to guess something that is more than human, it has not occurred to Bella that Edward might not be a good person. She certainly believes he is. Edward, on the other hand, who perpetually doubts his own morality and value, considers himself in the role of the villain.

“But I could see the conclusion now, with Alice’s voice rising above the tune and taking it to another place. I could see how the song must end, because the sleeping girl was perfect just the way she was, and any change at all would be wrong, a sadness. The song drifted toward that realization.”

In this passage, Edward composes a melody on the piano to represent his feelings about Bella. Music is an important way that Edward works through his feelings and emotions. Alice, who sits with Edward singing, does not know the true meaning behind the tune, and thus her voice rises more optimistically at the end. Plagued by self-doubt and self-hatred again, Edward brings the tune to a sadder end, representing his belief that he will endanger Bella’s life.

‘“Are you all right?’ That was really the most important thing, the first priority. Retribution was secondary. I knew that, but my body was so filled with rage that it was hard to think.”

After Edward rescues Bella from a group of predatory men in Port Angeles, he first wants to take revenge against them. This would be in line with Edward’s character before he met Bella, where at one point he did act as a vigilante and execute evil people. However, now that Bella gives him a moral goal to strive for, he prioritizes her safety over his previous impulses.

‘“I hear voices in my mind and you’re worried that you’re the freak.’ I laughed. She understood all the small things, and yet the big ones she got backwards. Always the wrong instincts.”

Edward explains to Bella how his mind-reading abilities work, as well as his theory that Bella’s mind, which he cannot hear, must run on a different frequency. As always, Bella interprets this revelation about Edward’s vampiric world in such a way that attributes all the negative characteristics to her. She is more worried that there is something wrong with her than the fact that she has just found out Edward can read minds. The moment demonstrates Edward’s astonished frustration at Bella’s ability to take his world in stride without fear or second thought.

“I had accused her of being a magnet of danger. Right now, it felt as though that was the literal truth. I was danger, and with every inch I allowed myself nearer to her, her attraction grew in force.”

To Edward, Bella seems perpetually in danger; she almost died the first day she met Edward, when he almost killed her, and she almost died in Port Angeles. However, as Edward indulges his desires slightly, allowing himself to become physically closer to Bella in biology, he reminds himself that much of this danger comes from him. Thus, Edward again interprets a part of their developing relationship in a way that blames himself for any problems.

“He looks at you like…like you’re something to eat.”

Edward overhears Mike Newton say this to Bella after Mike finds out that Bella and Edward are dating. This statement is ironic, since of course Mike does not know that Bella is actually the perfect thing for Edward to “eat.” Bella privately enjoys this unintentional joke, ever taking the dangers of vampires lightly, whereas Edward finds the comment distasteful.

“‘It’s twilight,’ I said. The time when vampires come out to play—when we never had to fear that a shifting cloud might cause us trouble—when we could enjoy the last remnants of light in the sky without worrying that we would be exposed.

I looked down to find her staring curiously at me, hearing more in my tone than just the words I’d spoken.

‘It’s the safest time of day for us,’ I explained. ‘The easiest time. But also the saddest, in a way…the end of another day, the return of the night.’ So many years of night. I tried to shake off the heaviness in my voice. ‘Darkness is so predictable, don’t you think?’

‘I like the night,’ she said, contrary as usual. ‘Without the dark, we’d never see the stars.’”

In this passage, which appears from Bella’s perspective in the novel Twilight as well, Meyer plays with the title of Twilight. Edward and Bella have entirely different insights into the same phenomenon. Edward is pessimistic, associating the end of the day with the darkness in which all vampires must live. Bella sees the night more optimistically, as an opportunity to view a different kind of light—the stars.

“All her paths are leading to one point—all her paths are knotted together. Whether that point is in the meadow, or somewhere else, she’s tied to that moment of decision. Your decision, her decision…Some of the threads continue on the other side. Some…”

By this point, Alice sees a slim third possibility for Bella’s future in which she remains human. However, there is a final decision to be made before Alice can see which future Bella will take, representing the first climax of Midnight Sun. This puts a great deal of stress and anticipation on Edward as he prepares to take Bella to the meadow, where he will find out if he is strong enough to preserve her humanity.

“I found very bad men who had kept their bodies clean, if not their hands, and savored the better quality. Mentally, I tabulated the number of lives I might be saving with my judge, jury, and executioner operations. Even if I was just saving one per kill, just the next victim on the list, wasn’t that better than if I’d let these human predators continue?

It was years before I gave up. I was never sure then why blood wasn’t the existence-crowning ecstasy that Siobhan had believed it to be, why I continued to miss Carlisle and Esme more than I enjoyed my freedom, why the weight of each kill seemed to accumulate until I was crippled under their combined load.”

In Edward’s past, he lived apart from Carlisle briefly as a vigilante. Another vampire, Siobhan, tempted Edward with the prospect of human blood. Edward could not avoid the morality that Carlisle instilled in him, and so he chose to only kill who he believed to be morally bad humans for their blood. Despite his self-doubts, Edward has a powerful moral compass, and eventually he returned to Carlisle’s lifestyle of abstaining from human blood.

“‘So what you’re saying is, I’m your brand of heroin?’

I almost laughed with surprise. She was doing what I was always trying to do—make a joke, lighten the mood, deescalate—only she was successful.

‘Yes, you are exactly my brand of heroin.’”

Edward tries to explain to Bella how powerfully her blood attracts him. Although the usual comparison for human blood is food or drink for vampires, Edward requires a more powerful temptation to describe Bella’s. Typically, her response to what could be a horrifying realization is lighthearted, which Edward appreciates. The moment illustrates the relief that Bella provides to Edward through her casual intake of information, regardless of his concern over her doing so.

“For the first time in a hundred years, I was grateful to be what I was. Every aspect of being a vampire—all but the danger to her—was suddenly acceptable to me, because it was what had let me live long enough to find Bella.”

Up until this point, Edward has despised his nature as a vampire. Now that he is past the first climax of the novel—the knot that Alice describes of Bella’s futures—he can finally relax and enjoy their time together. Edward is so optimistic in his newfound happiness that he can even appreciate what he previously despised, as he would never have been able to meet Bella had Carlisle not changed him into a vampire.

“I am sorry. I don’t mean that to sound so cruel. I just can’t…I can’t watch her do this. ‘She’s got a chance for everything, Edward,’ Rosalie whispered, her whole body rigid with intensity. ‘A whole life of possibilities ahead of her, and she’s going to waste it all. Everything I lost. I can’t bear to watch it.’”

Throughout Midnight Sun, Rosalie makes her displeasure known about Edward and Bella’s relationship. Most interpret this displeasure as jealousy for Bella, an aspect of Rosalie’s usual vanity. However, Edward hears Rosalie’s thoughts that prove her reasons are far deeper, more personal, and less vain. Rosalie deeply regrets being changed into a vampire, and her only wish in life is to be human again. She does not hate Bella; she is jealous that Bella has what she wants, yet is willing to sacrifice what Rosalie never would.

“This name and this keen-edged voice were part of a legend, a horror story. Though he’d been warned and prepared, it had all been such a very long time ago. Billy had never actually believed that one day he’d have to live in the same world as that horror story.”

Although Billy Black represents a relatively minor character in Midnight Sun, he and his family are an important part of the Twilight Saga as a whole. They represent a natural enemy for all vampires, even the Cullens, and they give Bella an additional negative perspective on vampirism. Here, Edward overhears Billy remember when he first found out that the Cullens were returning to Forks. To Billy, raised in the stories of his people the Quileutes, all vampires are horrible and evil. Their return therefore represents an incursion of horrific, supernatural forces into his life.

“Jasper was really extending himself to protect the vulnerable members of our family. I could hear his total concentration. He wouldn’t be able to hold it if things got physical, but for now he had Bella encased in a more clever protection than I could have imagined.”

In the clearing when the Cullens encounter a small coven of visiting vampires, Jasper shows both the strength of his ability and his willingness to embrace Bella as a member of the Cullen family, despite his struggles being around humans. Jasper uses his ability to influence the emotions of others to mask Bella, his partner Alice, and their mother Esme. Edward is grateful to his brother for protecting Bella especially, since Bella is now a more important part of Edward’s life than even the rest of his family.

“You brought a snack?”

One of the visiting vampires, Laurent, says this to the Cullens when he realizes that Bella is human. This shows the typical vampire perspective on humans—only a source of food or sustenance—which also shows how, in contrast, unusual the Cullens are for embracing Bella. This also provokes the beginning of the next conflict in the novel, as Edward’s and the Cullens’s protection of Bella in response to this comment is what triggers James’s desire to kill Bella.

“I could no longer doubt that Bella understood the gravity of the situation. I knew she would never cause anyone this kind of pain, especially not her father, if there were any other way at all.

I’d put her in this hellish position.”

When Bella leaves Forks to hide from James, she is forced to produce a rouse to protect her father. She tells him that she is leaving because she feels trapped in Forks, a repeat of the words her own mother used against Charlie when she left him almost two decades ago. Bella knows that Charlie never truly recovered from that abandonment, and Edward can clearly see how much Bella’s words affect her father. This shows how much Bella, who otherwise instinctively protects her family even at her own expense, is willing to sacrifice for Charlie. As usual, Edward blames himself for putting Bella in a situation where she feels obligated to hurt her father, rather than blaming James for being the one to actually put Bella in danger here.

“Life or death or half life, my decision. But was life even in my power? I’d never been that strong.”

At each climax in Midnight Sun, Edward is forced to decide on whether to intercede on behalf of Bella’s fate. In the meadow, he needed to force himself to be strong enough to resist killing Bella. Now, as James’s venom slowly turns Bella into a vampire, Edward must force himself to decide between letting the change happen or sucking the venom out. If he sucks the venom out, however, he must force himself to be strong enough to stop, so that he will not kill her. Just as in the meadow, Edward initially doubts himself, despite his absolute determination to preserve Bella’s humanity.

“It hit me like an explosion. A bomb detonating inside my body and mind. The first time I’d caught Bella’s scent, I thought I’d been undone. That was a paper cut. This was a decapitation.”

Edward ultimately decides to try and suck the venom out of Bella, trying to keep her alive and human. In this moment, when he finally tastes her blood, he experiences the ultimate temptation. This passage is reminiscent of the first moment Edward smells Bella (Important Quote 1), down to the comparisons to explosions. However, Edward here notes that this explosion is even more powerful, showing how great his force of self-restraint must be to save Bella.

“There was no God that I belonged to. No one for me to supplicate. Carlisle had different ideas, and maybe, just maybe, an exception could be made for someone like him. But I wasn’t like him. I was stained like all the rest of our kind.

Instead, I prayed to her God. Because if there was some higher, benevolent power in her universe, then surely, surely, he or she or it would have to be concerned about this bravest and kindest daughter.”

After Edward saves Bella from James’s torture and potential vampirism, he quickly comes down from the high of saving her humanity and begins to wallow in his own trauma. His pessimism and self-hatred returns. In this moment of utter helplessness, he resorts to prayer, something he has not done before in his time as a vampire because he considers himself unworthy of a God. Instead, he prays to Bella’s God, since it is unimaginable to Edward that someone as pure as Bella would not be protected by an ultimate religious power.