Omg Omg Twilight!

There exists a time of each day, just before dusk settles in, a pink haze that slices through the sky. This time is known as twilight. But no, I must apologise, I won’t be talking about that twilight, although that would probably make a more interesting speech. Instead, I will closely examine the Twilight, the novel that has crept its way into teenage literature. By the end of my speech, there will be no doubt in your minds that Twilight is just fantastic.1

For those of you who have not been fortunate enough to have read Twilight, I will briefly explain its storyline to you. The book is about a self-absorbed girl who moves to a new town. She meets a vampire, falls in love with that vampire, and in the space of roughly a few weeks, also wants to become a vampire, in order to bonk that particular vampire. As you can most likely already see, it is very romantic. 2

In Twilight, everything is portrayed so very realistically. It’s so believable that one 13-year-old boy in the US, inspired by Twilight, decided to bite eleven of his classmates. His father, after being contacted by authorities, explained that his son was, just like many other intelligent, well-read people in the world, really enjoying Stephanie Meyer’s classics. I’m sure everyone here will agree that biting each other is a great way to truly experience such groundbreaking literature. 3

This brings me to my next point. Never before in the history of English literature, has anyone portrayed vampires as interestingly as Stephanie Meyer has done. Before the release of the books, vampires had always been feared.4

Now, thanks to Twilight, we actively empathise with those who would, if they existed, so very courteously drink our blood, delicately and respectfully licking our organs clean. Wanting to protect today’s youths from the violence of the underworld vampire scene, Meyer portrayed the vampires of her novels as loving pussy-cats. 5

Now I will discuss the eloquent style Meyer employed to write Twilight. Children today are becoming increasingly illiterate, and Stephanie Meyer, wishing to instil a love of literature in these youngsters, has written her vampire novel at a level all are able to understand. Yes, the Twilight you all know and love was written at an elementary level. She takes simple sentences, which would surely be boring all by themselves, and stuffs them full of synonyms. 6

Here is an excerpt from the novel. "His skin… literally sparkled, like thousands of tiny diamonds were embedded in the surface. His shirt was open over his sculpted, incandescent chest, his scintillating arms bare. His glistening… lips were shut... A statue… glittering like crystal." From those 37 words, let’s examine the words “sparkled”, “incandescent”, “scintillating”, “glistening” and “glittering”. 7

Although you can hardly tell, all these words have the exact same meaning. It’s a great way to avoid repetition, right? This constant wringing out of words is a great way to fill up pages, whilst leaving not much room for plot or character development, which isn’t really that fascinating, anyway. 8

The relationship between Edward and Bella itself is one based on love… Some would call it an abusive relationship; however, that would only be true if Edward was, say, creeping into her room in the middle of the night like a stalker or something. He doesn’t do that at all in the novel, right? He’s not the jealous type either; he is always quite happy to let his prey – I mean Bella – wander off with the 5 or so other guys that are in love with her. And it’s not as if he spends each moment describing his thirst for Bella’s blood, either. 9

Bella views Edward with manic obsession. As readers we can see this, due to the fact that every single line is about him. Stephanie Meyer did admit in an interview that Twilight was inspired by a dream. At the receiving end of her novel, the audience is left wondering exactly what kind of dream it was. The book produced appears to be the private diary of Meyer, so exact in some of its descriptions that we are sometimes left feeling quite uncomfortable… 10

The obsession Bella Swan/Stephanie Meyer has with the blood-sucker is a really unhealthy one. One can make no excuses for Stephanie Meyer’s lack of effort when it comes to discouraging this. Bella attempts suicide, all because Edward left her. What a great message this sends to young, impressionable girls: let’s all leap off cliffs if our abusive boyfriends dump us. You should all be absolutely terrified that amoral books such as these are shaping the minds of tomorrow. 11

And then there is Edward’s attempted suicide as a result. Subjected to such torture, the more literate readers will slap their foreheads in utter exasperation after reading such a thing. However, little girls read this, and for some unknown reason, enjoy it, and don’t have the maturity to laugh it off like the rest of us. 12

For them, such absurdity is reality. But the simple truth is this: killing yourself for someone does not prove you love them, it proves you need mental help, which I know I needed after enduring 434 pages of rubbish. Despite my obvious rage, I must thank Meyer for one thing: a series of good, belly laughs. 13

While Stephanie Meyer has by no means produced a literary classic, as some are inclined to believe, she certainly has succeeded in one thing: manipulating you. So I must give her credit for finding an audience, and appealing to them, although the novel’s fan-base is mainly made up of young, idealistic, hormonal teenage girls, and that’s nothing for Meyer to be proud of. 14

It is a serious issue, however, as the audience she has brain-washed represents the leaders of tomorrow. Therefore, in a final attempt to free these minds from the oppression of Twilight, I must ask you, if you own a copy, please burn it. Just burn it.15