The Girl Who Triumphed

This thesis explores some of the basic principles of the modern romance, with particular emphasis on the paranormal romance. With the Twilight Saga as an example, in the first chapter, this thesis explores how the feminist reading of the paranormal romance can be seen as too simplistic, and in the case of Twilight altogether wrong. By looking at feminist criticism of the novels, exemplified by Anna Silver, we find that much of the rhetoric used is based on fear, or a reading that is too shallow. When looked at as a paranormal romance, these readings make very little sense, as the paranormal romance does not really allow it. When in addition we look at one way of how the vampire plays into the story, we find that if we follow the constraints of the genre, this particular paranormal romance cannot really be seen as carrying a message that women are subordinate at all. When we in the second chapter explore how the vampire can be seen from two additional sides, we see that the Twilight Saga is a very complex story. The first of these two being that the vampire can be seen as harbouring the fear of our age, which is the idea of perfection we can never attain, but we are made to want it. That the Twilight Saga particularly targets women only accentuate that this idea of perfection is especially aimed at women. When our third look at the vampire reveal that they might be read as Mormon, and finally take a look at what Bella has to sacrifice to become not only a perfect creature, but a Mormon one as well, it is evident that Mormonism is a faith where women can never be as great as the men. No matter what they sacrifice. The Twilight Saga may therefore be read as anti-Mormon because of the unattainable, male, perfection women must die to achieve