Why We "Heart" Edward

Being the elitist bookworm that I am (and an English teacher with little time), my litmus test for whether to read or not to read a book is an author’s state of existence: if you’re dead but your work is still happily frolicking in the fields of academia, I’ll read you. Am I embarrassed, then, by my vampiric consuming of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight novels? (She is very much alive, after all). Of course not! Dearest Edward is, after all, dead. And I can’t resist this mythical Mr. Darcy! Snob that I am, I’m still just a girl—who loves a good romance. Still, I must psychoanalyze the hysteria for this modern-day Mr. Rochester. Why do we "heart" Edward? The Twilight series is the phenomenon that it is for one reason: the romantic ideal she has created in our beloved Edward Cullen—a vampire who is somehow, simultaneously, the ideal gentleman. Meyer’s (only) brilliance was to perfectly marry in this being two of the most powerful and longed for—yet often conflicting—forces: love and lust.

Let us consider the vampire on a symbolic level. The vampire “lives” purely to consume; he is a slave to his thirst, to his desire for blood. Thus, were Desire to manifest itself physically, what more fitting form than the vampire. The vampire is the embodiment of pure desire; in fact, of extreme desire, i.e., lust. Indeed, a vampire’s desire is often referred to as “bloodlust.” Moreover, lust is so potent in this creature that it takes the very life of others to satiate its perpetual yearning (only momentarily, of course, for Desire is never satisfied—because then it wouldn’t be Desire; it would be Fulfillment, but I digress).

Now let’s consider the human female; in relationships, a woman has one fundamental worry: a man’s motives. Does he truly love me, or is it only bodily desire? Um, ladies, with the vampire, it is piercingly clear: he wants your body.

But in Edward’s case it is impossibly, but deliciously, both. What makes Edward so captivating to females—young and older alike—is that this creature, this vampire who is desire, lust itself manifested in physical form controls himself. Why? How does he control with superhuman strength his monster hunger? Because his all powerful lust for Bella is impossibly overwhelmed by his love for her. And yes his motivation is great—Bella would die if he indulged—but that fact is what makes his love so awesome and true: unlike the often testosteroney human male, the vampire’s uncontrollable instinct is to indulge, but Edward inexplicably manages it because his love for her is so vast. And that is the attraction for us humans: a love so profound, so true that he can’t help himself—only the other way. And that’s how all women want to be loved: maddeningly yet unconditionally. The perfect harmony of eros and agape—but with agape on top.

So that’s why we Twihards "heart" Edward Cullen—or at least why we elitist bibliophiles don’t stake the Twilight series.