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61 pages 2 hours read

Stephenie Meyer

Twilight

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2005

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Chapters 10-17Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 10 Summary: “Interrogations”

Edward drives Bella to school. Jessica meets them with Bella’s jacket; she’s itching for Bella to tell all and hints she’ll grill her in trig class. Bella asks Edward what to tell her; Edward thinks it’s best simply to say they’re dating.

In trig, Jessica needles Bella about Edward; Bella says Edward’s visit to Port Angeles was a surprise, that he’ll take her to Seattle on the weekend, and that, no, they haven’t kissed yet. Knowing that Edward will read Jessica’s mind, she adds that she’s not sure how much he likes her and that there’s more to him than just a pretty face.

At lunch, Bella sits with Edward; she feels students’ eyes on them, including the other Cullens. Edward objects to Bella’s belief that he doesn’t care about her very much. Bella insists she’s ordinary and he’s exceptional; Edward retorts that, on her first day at Forks High, all the boys had yearning thoughts about her.

Bella asks about his hunting. Edward says Emmet likes to hunt grizzlies, and he prefers mountain lions. They don’t hunt with standard weapons but with bare hands and teeth. They’re careful not to over-hunt in regions with sparse animal populations. They like hunting predators; deer and elk make adequate meals, but “where’s the fun in that?” (215).

Chapter 11 Summary: “Complications”

The biology teacher screens a documentary. Edward sits close to her in the darkened room, and she feels electricity between them. After school, some boys ogle Rosalie Cullen’s red M3 sports car; Bella and Edward slip past and drive to Charlie’s house. Bella wants to watch Edward hunt, but he refuses angrily: He’s afraid that he might harm her in the savagery of the hunt.

Tossing and turning, Bella dreams that night of Edward; they’re good dreams, but they keep waking her. In the morning, Edward drives her to school. He asks questions about her life, including her favorite color (it changes; that day, it’s brown), the music on her CD player (it’s the same as a week ago; Edward has a copy in his car), her favorite gemstone (topaz), and other details: “Movies I’d liked and hated, the few places I’d been and the many places I wanted to go, and books—endlessly books” (229). At times, it feels like a psychology test.

The questions continue after school as they sit in Edward’s car under a pelting rain. She describes the things she misses about Phoenix, like the huge sky, the craggy hills, and the smell of desert creosote. Hours pass; she asks the time; he says it’s twilight, “the safest time of day for us […]. The easiest time. But also the saddest, in a way” (233).

Bella gets out before Charlie comes home. A car approaches; Edward stiffens, then drives off quickly. The car pulls up; it’s Jacob. In the car is his father, Billy Black, who stares at Bella, searching her face. She realizes his concern involves Edward.

Chapter 12 Summary: “Balancing”

Jacob and Charlie help Billy into his wheelchair, and everyone hurries inside out of the rain. Billy and Charlie watch a game on TV while Bella prepares some food. Jacob joins her in the kitchen. He asks who drove her home; she confesses it was Edward. She wonders aloud if Billy, who distrusts the Cullens, will mention it to Charlie; Jacob doubts it.

Still, Bella keeps an eye on the two older men in case Billy says something about Edward that she needs to head off. As the Blacks leave, Billy looks gravely at her and says, “You take care, Bella” (239).

Friday morning, Edward picks her up for school and continues asking questions. At lunch, he asks about her boyfriends; she says she hasn’t had one yet. He tells her he must leave shortly to hunt with Alice so he won’t be tempted to hurt her on their Saturday date. They’ll bring Bella’s truck to school so she can drive home. She wonders how they’ll manage since the truck’s key is probably in a pocket at the bottom of a pile of laundry at home.

She asks why he’ll hunt with Alice; he says she’s the most “supportive” of his family about his interest in Bella; the other siblings are confused by it. Edward admits he’s confused, too, and that she fascinates him with her surprising behavior. Bella notices his sister Rosalie glaring at her. Alice suddenly stands next to them; Edward introduces her, and she greets Bella in a friendly manner. Alice exits the cafeteria, and he soon follows.

After school, her truck sits in the lot. Inside is a note from Edward: “Be safe.” At home, knowing Charlie will leave early the next day to go fishing, Bella fibs that she’s canceled her Seattle trip and instead will do errands and homework. That night, nervous about the next day but needing to be well-rested, she breaks her rule about “gratuitous drug use” and takes cold medicine to help her feel drowsy (252). She puts on a disc of Chopin nocturnes, and sleep overtakes her.

Saturday morning, Edward knocks on her door, and she drives them in her truck. He tells her to head north out of town and then east on a side road. He’s grumpy that she’s so willing to be alone with him out in the wilderness. At the road’s end, they hike through a deep forest for hours and arrive at a beautiful meadow covered in flowers and lit by the sun.

Edward hesitates in the shadows. He takes a breath, then walks into the sunlight.

Chapter 13 Summary: “Confessions”

Edward’s shirt hangs open. His skin sparkles “like thousands of tiny diamonds were embedded in the surface” (260). He lies on the grass, enjoying the sun, perfectly still but humming to himself, like a glittering statue. Bella sits and gazes at him. She strokes his smooth, cold arm, admiring his perfect body. He sits up, and she leans toward him, hypnotized by his perfect beauty and the alluring aroma of his breath.

Suddenly he’s standing 20 feet away in the shadows. He apologizes, then races around the meadow in a blur. He breaks off a huge limb from a spruce and hurls it at another large tree, making it shudder. He says with great intensity that everything about him is designed to lure her in, and she’d have no chance if she tried to run away or fight him. Then, more calmly, he tells her not to be afraid: “I swear not to hurt you” (264).

He walks back slowly and sits again beside her. Calmly, she resumes stroking his arm. She admits that she’s afraid, not of him, but that she can’t be with him as much as she wants. He tries to explain why he’s dangerous to her in particular: The smell of her blood is uniquely attractive to him. It happened once to Emmet, with disastrous results.

When Edward first met her, her aroma drove him mad. The only thing stopping him from killing her was realizing the terrible damage it would do to his family. He kept her rudely at arm’s length, then left for Alaska, where he calmed down. On returning, he tried to be politely distant but found her “too interesting” for her surprising mind, the one he also can’t read.

He argued with his family, who wanted to leave at once, and convinced them that he’d do whatever was necessary to keep them safe. For him, the worst outcome would be Bella’s death, “to never see you blush scarlet again, to never see that flash of intuition in your eyes when you see through my pretenses” (273).

To prove himself, he puts his hands on her throat, then places his head against her chest and listens to her bounding heart. Time passes, and finally, he pulls away, saying that wasn’t too difficult. Her hand traces the lines of his face; then, she rests her head on his chest, and he puts his face against her hair.

As shadows lengthen, they rise to leave, but this time he lifts her onto his back and runs through the forest, wind whipping her face as they cover in minutes the distance they walked in hours. At the road, light-headed, she sits until a brief motion sickness passes. Edward takes her face in his hands and gently kisses her. She reacts powerfully, pulling him to her. He backs away, steadies himself, and, calm again, declares that he’s stronger than he thought.

Still wobbly, she heads for the truck, but he stops her and insists he should drive. Worried about his reckless speed in cars, she says, “Take it easy—my truck is a senior citizen” (284).

Chapter 14 Summary: “Mind over Matter”

On the way home, Bella asks when Edward was born. He says 1901, but in 1918 he was dying of Spanish Flu. Carlisle found him and, lonely, turned him into a fellow vampire. Carlisle later did the same for his wife, Esme, when she’d fallen from a cliff. He brought Rosalie into the family, hoping she’d be a wife to Edward, but they felt like brother and sister; Rosalie later found Emmet wounded by a bear, and something about him made her carry him to Carlisle for the transformation; they’ve been married ever since.

Alice and Jasper met before they joined Carlisle. Alice can foretell things about the future and can sense when other vampires are nearby. Most vampires are nomadic; some, like Carlisle’s family, live in groups, mostly in cloudy, northern climes like Alaska, where their skin doesn’t give them away. Otherwise, they come out only at night; hence, the legends.

At home, she invites him in. He watches while she prepares leftovers. He confesses that he sometimes sneaks in and watches her sleep. She’s shocked—not that he’s watching her, but because of what she might have said. He assures her it’s mainly about her mom.

Charlie comes home, and Edward disappears. She heats some food for her dad, then says she’s going to bed early. Upstairs, she finds Edward in her room. Quickly, she showers and rejoins him. They sit on her bed, talking and touching, and Edward says that, now that he’s finally decided to be with her, it’s much easier to be near her without worry.

They both admit that the feeling of being in love is much more intense than they expected. Edward describes his first jealousy pangs when Mike, Eric, and Tyler each tried to attract Bella’s attention. Then he heard her in her sleep call his name, and he knew he couldn’t resist her. She asks how she can capture his heart when, for example, Rosalie is so much more perfect; he says his sister could never be a hundredth as alluring to him Bella, who has a uniquely powerful hold on him.

She asks more about his siblings’ strengths. He says Carlisle’s great power is compassion; Esme is passionate; Emmet is physically powerful; Rosalie is tenacious; Jasper can raise or lower people’s moods at will.

Bella asks what it might be like for a vampire and a human to be married. Edward says it’s impossible: He must be careful at all times not to hurt her by accident with his great strength; he wouldn’t be able to guarantee that during a moment of passion.

She asks him to stay. He hums a lullaby to her, and she falls asleep in his arms.

Chapter 15 Summary: “The Cullens”

In the morning, Bella wakes to find Edward still there, sitting in her rocking chair. She leaps into his arms, then—worried about morning breath—hurries to the bathroom to freshen up. She returns to him; playfully, he picks her up, throws her over his shoulder, and takes her downstairs to the kitchen, where she finds some cereal to eat.

Charlie is gone for the day, but Edward suggests she consider introducing him to her father as her boyfriend. Bella thinks he’s much more than that but worries that the introduction will be awkward. Edward offers to introduce her to his own family. They can do so immediately. He asks if she’s afraid of them; Bella replies that she’s afraid they won’t approve of her.

She changes quickly into a tan skirt and a blue top that he likes. Downstairs, they share their second kiss, and Bella promptly faints. She quickly recovers and says she simply forgot to breathe.

Edward drives them in her truck. They travel north for several miles, then turn at a hidden side road that winds for more miles through the forest to a small meadow with a white three-story house with a veranda on all sides. The living area is huge, airy, and white, with giant windows looking out on the lawn and trees.

Dr. Cullen and his wife, Esme, greet them and shake hands with Bella. Alice bounds down the stairs and, heedless, gives Bella a welcoming kiss on the cheek. Jasper appears, and at once, Bella feels calm. He greets her but doesn’t approach.

Bella notices a grand piano; Edward can play it and, after some urging, sits at the instrument with Bella and performs a lushly romantic work that he composed in her honor. Embedded in the music is the lullaby he hummed to her the previous night.

As he plays, Bella asks about Rosalie and Emmet; Edward says Emmet is trying to reason with his wife’s resistance to the idea of Edward’s new human companion. Rosalie wishes she were human, and she’s jealous of Bella’s humanity. Jasper, still new to the family and its ways, keeps his distance from Bella, lest her blood tempt him. Esme, meanwhile, is delighted that Edward is finally in love.

Edward tells her that Alice foresees outside vampires coming to the area soon; they’re curious about the Cullens. He warns her he’ll be overly protective for the next several days.

They walk up the great staircase to the upper rooms. On the hallway wall is a large wooden cross, hundreds of years old, carved by Carlisle’s father when he was an Anglican pastor. Carlisle was born in the 1640s. His zealous father searched for vampires to kill and trained Carlisle to do so; Carlisle found a coven but was bitten by one of them. Knowing his father would have him burned, Carlisle hid and transformed.

Chapter 16 Summary: “Carlisle”

They walk down the hall to Carlisle’s office, a room filled with books and pictures. Carlisle is just leaving to fill in for another doctor in town, but he bids them stay. Edward continues the history: Carlisle initially tried to kill himself, including starvation, but nothing worked. One day, he killed a deer and realized he could live without hunting humans. For the next two centuries, he traveled in Europe, learning in universities and perfecting his immunity to the temptation of human blood.

A large, colorful painting on the wall by Solimena shows dozens of elegantly robed people. Edward explains that these are a coven of wealthy and cultivated vampires in Italy with whom Carlisle stayed for a few decades; they tried to convince him to hunt humans, but he refused. Finally, he moved to the New World in search of sympathetic vampires. He became a doctor but still felt lonely. Deciding to create a companion, he found an opportunity in the dying Edward.

Edward admits that he rebelled against Carlisle, left home, and hunted humans for a while. Because he can read minds, he limited himself to murderous criminals, hoping that would assuage his guilt and depression, but it soon became unbearable, and he returned to Carlisle and Esme.

He shows her his room, with its wide windows that look out on the forest and the Olympic Mountains, its huge collection of music CDs, and, instead of a bed, a large black sofa. She says all of this is not scary but delightful; overjoyed, he grabs her and leaps to the sofa, which bangs against the wall. He holds her tight but then rearranges her to sit on his lap when Alice and Jasper enter. After kidding him about not sharing, they invite him and Bella to a family baseball game. It involves lightning.

Chapter 17 Summary: “The Game”

Edward drives Bella home in her truck. Waiting on her porch are Jacob and Billy Black. Edward snarls; Billy stares coldly. Bella suggests that she deal with the Blacks. Edward agrees and says he’ll dash home and return in a few hours to meet her father.

Bella invites the Blacks in, accepts their gift of a package of fish fry, and puts it in the fridge. Billy asks Jacob to get something from the car; when he leaves, Billy tries to warn Bella about the Cullens, but she tells him it’s none of his business. He persists, and she remains defiant, telling him she knows the situation and is “maybe even better informed than you are” (352). She says Charlie won’t be back till late; Billy takes the hint, and they leave.

Jessica calls and tells Bella about the dance, including that she and Mike kissed. Charlie comes home; at dinner, Bella casually drops that she visited the Cullen house and has a date that evening with Edward. Charlie looks like he’s having apoplexy until Bella clarifies that Edward’s the younger brother, not Emmet, who looks too big and old for Charlie’s comfort.

Edward arrives; Charlie invites him in. Edward is polite and deferential, and he gets along well with Charlie. Bella and Edward depart in a large Jeep, borrowed from Emmet, and drive on a bumpy road through the forest until they arrive at a meadow. Edward must carry her again; she’s worried about getting motion sickness; to distract her, he kisses her; again, she reacts eagerly, and it staggers both of them. He seems troubled.

He helps her climb onto his back; she closes her eyes and buries her face in his shoulder, and he starts off at a run. Surprisingly, it feels to her as if he’s merely strolling. They arrive at the destination; she drops down and promptly falls on her back. Edward bursts out laughing. She gets huffy, assuming after the kiss that he’s miffed at her. He assures her that he’s never mad at her but often at himself. He adds, “I love you” (366).

They walk a short distance to a giant, open field in the middle of the Olympic Mountains. The baseball diamond is much larger than normal. The Cullens greet her, then rush off to play, except Esme, who will referee and walk with Bella toward the field of play. On the way, they chat, and Bella quickly decides that Esme is much like her mother. Esme admits she lost an infant child and therefore jumped off a cliff. She thinks of Edward as a son, is happy he’s found love, and believes he and Bella will find a way to make it work.

The game begins. Alice pitches to Emmet; on the second pitch, Emmet swings his aluminum bat and connects with a crack that sounds like thunder. The ball sails far over the forest; Emmet rushes around the bases; Edward dashes after the ball at high speed. Esme, listening, declares “Out!” and Edward appears from the forest, ball held high.

Jasper hits a grounder that Carlisle retrieves; they both run to first base and collide with the sound of boulders crashing. They’re fine, but between the loud crack of the bat and the collisions, Bella realizes it’s no wonder they only play during loud thunderstorms.

Alice suddenly looks stunned; the others gather around. She says the visiting vampires have heard their play and have sped their travel to join the game. The Cullens look at Bella; realizing it’s too late to hide her scent, they decide to continue the game and face the visitors together.

Chapters 10-17 Analysis

In the middle chapters, Bella and Edward decide, despite the dangers, to become a couple. Bella accepts Edward as he is and commits to him, while Edward learns how to be with her without causing her harm.

Both Bella and Edward are virgins, physically and emotionally: Neither has ever experienced the intense feelings for another person they feel for each other. Their relationship thus represents the ideal of love as mythologized in many societies, especially the Judeo-Christian West: Each is the only person the other wants as a life partner.

One of the main reasons why Edward is drawn to Bella is her unique mind. Not only is he unable to read it, as he can do with other humans, but its workings constantly catch him off guard. He’s well aware that Bella suffers from serious self-doubt: He tells her, “You don’t see yourself clearly at all”—but what really gets him is her capacity to catch him off-guard: “You never do what I expect. You always take me by surprise” (245).

Chapter 12 contains the couple’s visit to Edward’s favorite spot, a flower-strewn meadow. It’s here where he shows Bella the stunning glitter that covers a vampire’s body in sunlight. The author says this scene, which came to her in a dream, formed the nucleus of the plot that grew into Twilight. For Bella, the sunlight she misses now becomes a disadvantage, and the gloomy weather she so hated now forms the cover Edward needs to attend school and be with her.

Some critics claim that Bella is trapped in an abusive relationship with Edward, a 100-year-old man who stalks a 17-year-old, tries to convince her she’s crazy, feels an overpowering urge to kill her, controls her feelings with looks and words, and expresses intense jealousy. (Mussen, Maddie. “I really hate to break your teenage heart but Edward Cullen is totally abusive.” The Tab, 2019.) Bella also suffers from low self-esteem, which makes her vulnerable to abusive men while drawn to their dangers. (Goodfriend, Wind, Ph.D. “Relationship Violence in ‘Twilight.’” Psychology Today, 9 Nov 2011.)

The plot does deal with issues of abuse but from a different perspective. Edward isn’t a person who takes out his frustrations on a partner; instead, he’s a cold-blooded super-being whose natural homicidal instincts stand in the way of his love for another. To his credit, he manages to get past his natural tendency to murder humans for their blood. Meanwhile, Bella learns to assert herself, declare her intentions, and take risks to successfully bring the two of them together.

Fiction often deals with the extraordinary and fantasies about what might be possible; Twilight’s romantic relationship touches on the extreme. It’s tempting, nevertheless, to imagine it edited with a warning: “Don’t try this at home.”

Overall, the story is much more about the challenge of temptation than about mistreating others. Edward’s desire for human blood echoes the agonies of alcoholics and drug addicts. His effort to restrain himself also symbolizes the struggles teenagers have with sexual urges.

Sensuality is a powerful part of their relationship. The word “eye” is used 500 times in the book; some variation on “stare” gets 184 mentions. Eyes are a major conduit of communication, and Bella is highly aware of them. Her intimacy with Edward grows stronger with every gaze between them. It’s in part due to a vampire’s ability to daze humans, but it’s also a testament to the love between two lonely, intelligent, alienated beings who find in each other sympathetic minds and hearts.

Beyond “eye,” the book contains 147 uses of the word “feel,” 103 examples of “hear,” 93 instances of “lips,” and 75 cases of “touch.” “Smell” occurs 47 times. Most of Bella’s interactions with Edward are flirtatious; they’re filled with sensuous awareness of each other. When they’re not arguing—something they do a lot—they’re glorying in each other’s physicality.

Every time Edward touches her, Bella’s heart races; every time they kiss, Bella nearly faints: “His cold touch on my skin never failed to make my heart thud erratically” (257); “he leaned in to swiftly kiss me just under the edge of my jaw. My heart lurched frantically” (350). She reports dozens of such instances. This is a form of literary repetition; in the story, it serves somewhat the same function as words repeated over and over in a song.

Their interaction is, of course, sexy, but there’s a deeper conversation going on between them: Their sensuous obsessions signal rapidly deepening feelings of mutual love and compassion. Theirs isn’t a superficial infatuation; each has found a soul mate.

Edward is handsome, well-mannered, wealthy, thoughtful, generous, and protective. Add to this his refusal to have sex with Bella, and he becomes every parent’s ideal of a proper boyfriend. Edward’s attempt to stay away from Bella represents his fear of harming her, but it also symbolizes teenage struggles with carnality and everyone’s battles against temptation.

The Cullens at first argue over Edward’s decision to date a human; the family’s dispute stands in for the painful discussions many parents have when their teenage children become serious about dating. They agree to support Edward’s decision, and their welcome to Bella marks them as tolerant, understanding, and civil. They’re a credit to families everywhere.

They also display a sophisticated taste: The Cullen home is beautiful, peaceful, and elegantly designed and decorated. The residence, clearly an expensive project, suggests great wealth. Dr. Cullen has been a doctor for centuries, but the other Cullens likely have also brought resources to the family, the kind of riches that vampires, given their tremendous physical and mental advantages, might easily acquire, especially over many decades.

Edward’s mastery of the piano, his wide-ranging taste in music, and Carlisle’s large library of books also speak to a family interested in culture and education. Their discussions, often carried out in high-speed vocalizations, suggest a group blessed by great intelligence. That Bella appreciates their sophistication—not to mention the fact that she can keep up with their urgent discussion of how to protect her from tracker-vampire James—proves she can hold her own in their family. That she comes up with the solution to their dilemma impresses the Cullens and puts the onus on them to show that their minds are worthy of her.

The large painting on Carlisle’s office wall in Chapter 16 is by “Solimena” and depicts a night of debauchery under the watchful eyes of a powerful Italian vampire coven. The artist is probably Francesco Solimena, a well-known member of a 17th- and 18th-century family of painters; his Abduction of Orithyia likely resembles the work owned by Carlisle. The painting, hugely valuable were it ever brought to auction, suggests a connection between the Cullens and the great artists of Early Modern Europe. It also foreshadows later developments in the book series: The coven depicted in the painting, though barely mentioned in Twilight, plays a major role as the book series progresses.

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