I am connecting Edward and Clara's relationship in The Shadow Catcher, to Edward and Bella's relationship in The Twilight Saga. Even though their stories are decades and worlds apart, I found multiple similarities between them.
Starting at the beginning of their relationships, both couples started a "friendship," you could say, through an accident. A gun shot rang through the forest, startling Edward and causing him to fall off a roof and Clara ran to him to provide some care. Bella was in the school parking lot and had a near death experience when a fellow classmate almost ran her over with his car, but Edward came to her rescue, stopping the car.
After these accidents, their "friendships" seemed to blossom. Clara talked to Edward about her life, she read him books and they bonded by talking about art and portraits. Bella and Edward also talked about their families and their lives while out to dinner one night, and the one special moment that bonded Bella and Edward was when Edward played Bella a song on the piano called "Bella's Lullaby," which is a form of art.
Another thing I found that these two couples had in common was when the men left. Edward Curtis left Clara the morning after they slept together. Edward Cullen left Bella in the second book, New Moon, because he didn't want to hurt her anymore. While they both had different reasons, they both still left the women that loved them. And of course, just like in every love story, even though they were left behind, both Clara and Bella went back to their men.
Lastly, both couples took the next step in their relationships without a second thought: sex. It's a subject I won't get into too much, but it's important because it was a huge step in both relationships. It was the moment that helped Clara decide that she really did love Edward and it was the same way for Bella when she and Edward did it in Breaking Dawn.
The one way I think that these two relationships inform each other is that one relationship lacks, what the other has. Edward and Clara's relationship may not be fully developed yet, but I can tell that Edward Curtis does not love Clara the way Edward Cullen loves Bella. At this point, honestly, I can't find something the Edward and Clara's relationship has, that Edward and Bella's relationship doesn't, but I guess we'll see what we find in the next chapter, Clara and Edward.
This relationship provides an insight for me into two completely different relationships, yet I found multiple similarities. It was interesting to be able to look at a relationship between two people in the 1900's versus a relationship in 2008. It gave me two different perspectives on something that I don't normally think about.
I thought that this was a really interesting connection, and it got me thinking about how love is portrayed in novels. In Twilight they have so much love and romance, while with Edward and Clara’s relationship there is no love on Edwards’s part only by Clara. I think it’s really interesting how the characters of Bella and Clara are really similar when it comes to love. It consumes them, and it becomes all that these women care and think about. I think novels incorrectly portray women as hopeless, weak fools.
ReplyDeleteFirst, I need to point out that literally every time I read this book I ALWAYS think about Edward and Bella from Twilight and it is so distracting!!!
ReplyDeleteSecond, I found this blog post very interesting. I never really made the connection between the characters of both books. Both Edwards seem to keep their significant others at an arms length away, but for different reasons. Edward Cullen, of "Twilight", kept Bella away because his unconditional love for her was dangerous and he was protecting her. Edward Curtis of "Shadow Catcher" keeps Clara away simply because he does not love her.
Clara and Bella, however, are very similar. They both become completely consumed in love and their loved ones.
This is the first blog I'm reading other than my own and I don't know if I'm proud to say that I also seem to think of Edward Cullen every time the author mentions Edward Curtis.
ReplyDeleteI like this post because it makes sense to me. I feel like every couple has unique scenarios, however, all relationships seem to follow common themes. It's sad how easy it is to predict the outcome of someones love story, but it is a fact. Your post seems to expand on the notion that love takes different forms depending on circumstances. While reading Wiggins's novel I can see the ruin of Edward and Clara coming from a mile away; I also read the "Twilight" series and saw the first movie, and the relationship of Edward Cullen and Bella is just as predictable.
Gennah, I could not have said this any better. Legitimately every time I see the name Edward in the "The Shadow Catcher" it makes me think of Edward Cullen from the Twilight series. It's incredible how we make that connection now, but people in the future won't make that same connection. This whole relationship idea really made me think about other novels that I have read, and made me realize how predictable they are. Which also makes me think about real life. Are real life relationships just as predictable as the ones on novels? That's something that I plan to find out.
ReplyDelete