unfailingly and creepily devoted bride, meet your codependent kluz decendant. you must be related!

Read this article if you're interested in literature stuff. It's an interesting little article about using Twilight to teach Frankenstein to (I'm assuming) classes of mostly girls, as Twilight seems to have failed to capture the same number of male fans. The author holds that a teacher could compare Bella, Twilight's codependent klutz, to Elizabeth, Frankenstein's unfailingly (and kind of creepily) loyal bride. I actually agree on this, you could totally teach Frankenstein with Twilight, though not for the reasons the article mentions.

Elizabeth Randall (article writer), describes both Elizabeth and Bella as being strong, fearless types. I gotta tell you, the one word I would NOT use to ever describe Elizabeth would have to be strong. She is an insanely weak character, basically devoting her life to a guy who barely notices her existance. She steps in and is the perfect, patriarchy-friendly bride, devoted and self-sacrificing, practically a caricature of a woman. Seriously, there's nothing she wouldn't do for Frankenstein. Not one thing. And, like all good, weak-willed, patriarchy-approved women, she gets to die. How glorious!

Anyway, so that's Elizabeth. Now Bella. Like I've said before, I haven't read Twilight (well, I've read the first chapter of the first book now but that's it) but the film did not make me think Bella is any kind of strong character. Constantly moping around about how awful Forks (I vote they rename the town Lemon Zester, as it is a much cooler kitchen utensil and would also make their town more exotic. Pastry Cutter is also acceptable) is and pretty much gluing herself to Edward like some sort of creepy fangirl (seriously, does she have any friends outside of Edward and the Cullens? Oh, and Jacob. But does she have any friends outside of her various supernatural boyfriends and what have you?) does not a strong character make. I'm pretty certain that if Edward had told her to jump off a bridge, she'd gleefully do it, complaining about Forks/Lemon Zester/Pastry Cutter all the way.

See? Both weak willed women blindly devoted to the man in their lives. Elizabeth's devotion results in her death and Bella's devotion results in... well, super human strength and presumably fantastic and ice cold sex for the rest of her days. Consequences are certainly not equal but anyway. See how these things, they are similar?

Actually, the more I think about it, the less I think these two books have in common. I do dislike both though. Anyway, something to think about.