Twilight At 20: The Theology Of Stephenie Meyer's Vampire Trilogy

(MENAFN- The Conversation) The vampires of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight saga are undoubtedly unique. Never before had vampires been described as having sparkling, diamond-like skin in the sunlight, for example. But Meyer's Twilight novels, the first of which turns 20 this year, also drew on a long vampiric tradition, with spiritual themes that were just as relevant 200 years ago as they are now.

Vampires in the Victorian era stood as a symbol of their time. They represented the questions of a society faced with the tension between new scientific discoveries and the spiritualist movement – a desire to unite the material to the immaterial, the immanent to the transcendent.

Decades later, the Twilight saga sought to answer the same questions for its own generation of readers. Just before the book was published in 2005, the cultural historian Christopher Partridge noted the rise of alternative spirituality in the west and a return to thinking of our existence as both physical and spiritual. Though institutional religion may have lost its former foothold in society, many began identifying as spiritual but not religious.

Twilight reflects this paradigm shift that resists limiting our perception of reality to just what we see with our eyes or comprehend with our intellect. By introducing modernised vampires to Forks, a mundane Washington town, Meyer was participating in a widespread desire to find a spiritual reality in our day-to-day lives – or to re-enchant the world.

This article is part of a mini series marking 20 years since the publication of Stephenie Meyer's first Twilight novel.

Many Victorian vampires – such as the unnamed female vampire in Le Fanu's Spalatro (1843) and Robert Louis Stevenson's Olalla (1885) – share certain qualities with Meyer's sparkly vampires. They occasionally show mercy to humans, sacrifice relationships with their loved ones to keep them safe, and reflect on how they exist as spiritual creatures in a physical reality.

In this way Meyer's vampires question what it means to be human from a theological perspective, just as Victorian vampire stories did. Meyer's brilliance was to take an archaic mythos, introduced it to the 21st century, and find that it still stands. She exchanged the vampires' creepy castles for a contemporary open-floor plan home , and audiences still flocked. Her vampires are ever ancient and ever new, participating in trying to answer age-old human questions.

Twilight follows the Victorian vampire tradition by exploring humanity through inhumanity. One of the most frequent themes in the saga is vampire Edward Cullen's concern for his soul. He follows in the footsteps of his adopted father, fellow vampire Carlisle, by feasting on animals rather than humans because he doesn't want to be a monster. The Cullens believe that by indulging in their thirst for human blood, vampires diminish their soulful existence.

'This is the skin of a killer, Bella.' Edward shows his sparkly skin in the film adaptation of Twilight.

This is as ancient a human concern as any. Are we more than just flesh and blood, possibly creatures with souls? And if we are, what does it mean to be human?

The protagonist of the Twilight saga, schoolgirl Bella Swan, is the primary point through which Meyer illustrates what it means to be human. Throughout the saga, Bella is torn between two worlds – human and inhuman. In Bella's actions, the defining point for humanity is identified as selfless love. In each book, she makes the choice to put herself in danger for her loved ones' sake. This is echoed in the Cullen coven's desire to sacrifice their instincts by refusing to take innocent lives. In doing so, both Bella and Edward function humanely, even in their biological differences.

Myths survive because they cut to the heart of human existence. The vampire is immortal in literature across cultures because it says something that a systematic analysis of humanity or the world cannot.

What we receive in myth, as author C.S. Lewis noted , is not a statement on reality, but reality itself. When we hear a myth, we experience reality in a way that opens the spiritual senses, opening us up to experiencing the universal through a particular.

Twenty years on from Twilight's original publication and 200 years since the Victorians drooled over their own sexy undead, we're still talking about vampires. Meyer's vampires endure because they tell us something of what it means to be human.

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