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I'm really going to need to start writing these entries closer to the time I read the chapters, I had to look up the title of Chapter 2.
Anyways, I'm going to do a more focused commentary this time, okay? The last entry was really fun to write, but it took a really long time. So Today we're only having three topics, Bella, Edward and the Science Lab. Specific points will still be given page numbers.
But, before all that, I made something special. Of course, this was also a product of a type of boredom.
Ta-da~!
You can hardly tell it's photoshopped, huh? Just looks like its supposed to be there.
Anyways, on with the show, eh?
Bella
What can I say about Bella in this chapter? She managed to loose most of my respect in a few short pages. If you read last rant, then you know that Bella's character was a dilemma for me, on one hand she had an interesting and subtle sense of humor which I appreciated, on the other she was showing signs of being a bit shallow and appearance-oriented. I dislike people who are too appearance-oriented. This may be because I'm one of those people who isn't pretty because I make no effort to be, not because I couldn't be. This means that people give me a hard time about how I dress and wear my hair, etc. For similar reasons, I don't get many dates. What can I say? It's high school.
In any case, this chapter starts to show less of Bella's pure humor as she begins to get, I don't know what else to call it, obsessive about Edward. Sure, at the beginning of the chapter her apprehension at his arrival to school is understandable, she's scared by him and at the same time she feels guilty that she might have done something to cause his absence. (30) She also wants to know what the heck his problem is, again, understandable.
But then you begin to see how she treats the other people who she's gotten to know. Bella has by this chapter already made labels for the people who have actually been nice to her while being obsessive about some one who was a jerk, an attractive jerk, but a jerk none-the-less. I mean "Chess Club Eric." How does she even know the school has a chess club? (My school used to have a chess club, turns out that no chess was ever actually played. It got shut down.) And then Mike goes from "Cool Guy" to "Loyal dog-friend" in less than twenty pages. I assume that this is meant to diminish his importance, I hope not; he seemed pretty cool. (29)
She also makes a few more observations about the Cullens(which I will come back to later), you can already see that she wants to know more about their group from how she thinks about them. I don't think she's obsessed with joining them yet, but the way this is going it's only a matter of time. (32)
Also, she stares. She stares at Edward. To his face. I spent some time every few paragraphs trying to use sheer force of will to stop her from staring. Is there anything that shows you're focused on appearance better than staring at some one you think is cute, while they're talking to you? (43-44)
She also doesn't like snow. Even before she'd ever experienced it before. It's not like she decided she hated snow after being smacked by a snowball, no she hadn't even seen it before and she already hated it. Judgmental much?(39)
BUT. Despite all of the problems that have emerged in our viewpoint character. The Chapter wasn't a total loss. We also found out that she can cook, she likes books, she knows how to allay her mother's worries and that she's competitive.
Think about it, during the science lab, she wanted Edward to be wrong. (45) Or at least to make a mistake once or twice. Not that any one would have a reason to. Actually, speaking of which:
The Science Lab
I'm taking Biology, so I know that what they did in the story was a pretty standard type of lab. We did one similar to it, actually that was on the same day I read this chapter.
For those who aren't following along, the basic idea is simple. The students are given a set of slides of cells in stages of Mitosis and they have to figure out which they are and put them in the right order. For non science-oriented students who didn't understand the textbook well, I suppose that might be hard if they didn't have a reference. But any one who actually studied the material should be able to tell them apart with ease. I mean look at them!
 The bottom one is the actual cell, so that's what the students would be looking at.
It's not a hard Lab. In fact, in the Lab I did in my biology class we were given a slide full of tiny cells and we had to identify all of them and make a count of how many there were in each phase. So instead of identifying one interphase, I counted 148. Same with the 34 Prophase and so on. Oh yeah, and if you bumped the slide you had to start over.
So no one should have trouble just getting one of each if they know the order of mitosis and vaguely what happens in each section, right? I mean maybe you'd mix up prophase and Metaphase, but you'd find your mistake fast enough. But the Biology class of Forks had great difficulty with it. Mike even called it awful.
But it wasn't hard, at all. So the people in the class haven't been studying it for long obviously, or they all don't get it. Except Edward and Bella.
What is the purpose of this scene anyways? I think it was to highlight that Edward is smart as well as to make them interact together as a pair. Did it show he was smart? No, because all it did was make the rest of the class seem like Morons. I have a feeling that this impression was, deep down, a product of the fact that Stephanie Meyers was probably not science oriented, and so most of her stock characters aren't either. That's mostly speculation though.
Another thing, after the lab, the teacher asked Edward if he'd let Bella use the microscope at all, a legitimate question since only his handwriting was on the sheet and he's obviously known as a bit of a smarty. But after finding out that she had helped and that she did get it, he remarked it was good he paired them together.
What. The. Heck?
I am probably pretty biased about this, but since when do teachers like to pair two smart people together? They don't. If some one gets it, then they usually get paired with some one who doesn't get it. Therefore, the teachers reason, the person who doesn't get it will learn from the person who does. This teacher, Mr. Banner I think, was happy that Edward got a partner he wouldn't have to explain stuff to? Is this how partnering works in Forks?
If so... um... When can I move?
Edward
Edward Cullen is by far the most infamous part of this book. Those who like him usually are Edward fangirls, they may even go as far as to say that guys don't like the series because they're jealous of Edward and that any guy worth his spit should try to be like him. People who don't like this book go as far as to label him a Gary-Stu. After all, he's attractive, smart, strong, and mysterious with a sense of humor to boot, doesn't that make him an automatic Stu?
The Answer, of course, is yes and no. (When is there ever a controversy where the answer isn't yes and no?) Gary-stus do generally have those characteristics, but, on the other hand, so do real people.
Bella's internal comment about the Cullens comes back into play here.(32) She only mentioned that it seemed unfair to have Looks and money, though I'm going to generalize for the whole shebang. Life does occasionally spit up an anomaly, some one who is smart, plays sports well, it genuinely nice and funny, and who's parents are reasonably wealthy. In fact, if you don't require them to be exceptional in all these categories, then it happens more often than you'd think. So, this begs the question, is Edward a Stu, or is he simply a character who is supposed to be one of these people? Moreover, how do you tell?
I cannot answer the first question so far, as I really haven't read the book far enough in, we'll probably come back to it periodically. However, from the new light he is portrayed in in this chapter, I am not sure I entirely agree with either view of him. He certainly appears to be the sort of person I'd like to hang out with. Unlike most people I'd probably be content to just hang out with him, he seems like a nice guy. On the other hand, as a character he has yet to show flaws.
However, as with most people, either flaws or abilities usually show themselves first and then as you get to know a character better, you see the other emerge from where it was hidden. If Edward is a good character, then his flaws will grow out of his strengths as we get to know him. If he truly is an idealized stu, than not only will they not, but the story itself will seem slightly flat because of it.
The jury is still out on Edward, but I was pleasantly surprised to not find a Stu-poisoned individual right off the bat. It's refreshing.
Also: I would like to Thank Angelic for her Comment, It's the first I've received since starting this on either my Live Journal or Gaia Journal.
 Tesar Eshne · Sun Jan 27, 2008 @ 11:50pm · 13 Comments |
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