Through a study of Twilight literary texts, fangirls' online discourse, and cinematic adaptations, I theorize the rhetorical dimensions of "neo-Victorian melodrama," a pervasive mode of discourse in girl culture. These rhetorical functions include the validation of girls' emotional lives, especially affective responses to coming-of-age experiences. Through the confessional revelation of interiority, neo-Victorian melodrama promotes empathy and intimacy among girls and functions to critique restrictive constructions of contemporary girlhood, which has inherited Victorian discourses related to female youth. Theorizing these rhetorical dimensions helps advance an appreciation for girls' rhetorical activities and their cultural preferences. These preferences have often been derided by ageist and sexist critiques of Twilight, a phenomenon initiated by Stephenie Meyer's young adult vampire romance. In order to determine the rhetorical dimensions of neo-Victorian melodrama in girl culture, I use generic rhetorical criticism. Specifically, Meyer's Twilight Saga appeals to contemporary girls through melodramatic moments shared with Charlotte Brontë's nineteenth-century Jane Eyre. Fangirls' online discourse certifies this appeal while also demonstrating how melodrama qualifies girls' own speech practices. Thus, generic criticism is complemented by ethnographic approaches to fandom. In addition, a focus on narrating voiceover, a sound convention with a legacy in girls' media, helps make sense of the Twilight cinematic adaptations' translation of neo-Victorian melodrama from page to screen. The rhetorical dimensions of neo-Victorian melodrama in girl culture are consistent with previous feminist theoretical insights related to the revelation of affect, intimacy, and personal experience for the purpose of community building. While feminist rhetoricians have addressed women's rhetorical practices, they have not theorized girls to the same extent, nor have they used generic criticism to account for melodrama's redemptive or progressive potential. Likewise, while scholars of literature, film, and media studies have advanced an appreciation for women's preferences for melodrama, these feminist scholars generally have not treated girls' preferences for the melodramatic mode. And while feminist critics in girls' studies have theorized girls' productive cultural contributions, as well as their complex reading and viewing strategies, such scholarship has not accounted for girls' preferences for melodrama. My study at once builds on and remedies the gaps in this theoretical foundation. / text

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My thesis attempts to answer the question of how narrative time is portrayed in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight (2005). To examine this, I have chosen to utilize Gérard Genette’s use of the concepts order, duration, and frequency. These concepts are mainly taken from Genette’s Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method (1980). In order to develop the discussion about time and narrative I also incorporate Martin Hägglund’s Dying for time: Proust, Woolf, Nabokov and About Time: Narrative, Fiction and the Philosophy of Time by Mark Currie. The analysis establishes that Meyer uses all three, order, duration, and frequency, in order to convey a very specific narrative. The order of the story shows how the character of Alice, who can see the future, has a very conditional relationship with time. Through the duration, we learn how the love interest, Edward Cullen, is highly prioritized in the main character and narrator’s eyes. This is also shown in the frequency, where the first-person narrator highly affects the passage of events by repeating specific actions. Twilight, in other words, uses many different ways to depict a distinct relationship with time

Denna uppsats ämnar att analysera genderswap tekniken i Stephenie Meyers bok Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined ur ett genusperspektiv. Uppsatsen förhåller sig till Lena Gemzöes bok Feminism där genusproblematiker diskuteras. Uppsatsen avser att jämföra Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined med original boken Twilight för att undersöka om det finns könsskillnader mellan huvudkaraktärerna Bella och Beau och hur genderswap påverkar detta. Analysen visar att via genderswap lyckas man framhäva skillnaderna mellan Bella och Beau i förhållande till våld, familjesfären och manliga privilegier. Via ett genderswap visar Meyer på hur den kvinnliga stereotypen fortfarande präglar Bella som kvinnlig karaktär och hur Beau som Bellas respektive manliga version framhäver existerande problematiker inom berättelsen. Jag argumenterar att analysen om genderswap driver till diskussion om hur könsroller gestaltas i Meyers två böcker och skapar utrymme för vidare diskussion inom ämnet.

ABSTRACT This dissertation argues that Bella Swan is a representation of Barbara Creed's monstrous-feminine which serves to reinforce ideologies that insist women are abject, inherently dangerous to men, and threatening to a patriarchal status quo. Through close-textual analysis of The Twilight Saga, I demonstrate how the monstrous-feminine frames the hysterical teenage body, hypersexuality, and eternal motherhood as simultaneously unacceptable and unavoidable. These negative women's stereotypes continue to persist in dominant popular culture, and this doublebind is overcome only by the impossible perfection of vampirism. The monstrous-feminine invites constructions of teenage bodies as unstable and unreliable, women's sexuality as dangerous and impure, and motherhood as a requirement for a complete identity. These constructions are particularly dangerous in Young Adult literature and particularly inspirational in fanfiction.

Uppsatsen undersöker Twilight, skriven av Stephenie Meyer, utifrån de intersektionella kategorierna ålder, kön och klass i förhållande till relationen mellan protagonisterna Bella och Edward. Syftet med undersökningen är att ta reda på hur ålder, kön och klass påverkar relationen. Vidare syftar uppsatsen till att undersöka hur ålder, kön och klass påverkar maktförhållandet i relationen utifrån Foucaults maktteori. Resultatet visar att ålder, kön och klass genomgående i Twilight försätter Bella i en underordnad maktposition, med några få undantag. Många normer gällande de tre kategorierna reproduceras i relationen mellan Bella och Edward, vilket i sin tur ger upphov till en maktobalans. Med anledning av detta resultat bör Twilight läsas kritiskt ur ett intersektionellt perspektiv, men kan med fördel användas i klassammanhang för att belysa och ifrågasätta normer rörande t. ex. ålder, kön och klass.

Literary tourism refers to any travel inspired by literature. This dissertation considers literary tourism from the perspective of a contemporary literary tourism attraction. It investigates the origins of literary tourism both in the historical context as well as in academic writing as interdisciplinary research between geography and literature. The current state of literary tourism research is also considered and the main research themes at present are identified, that is, authenticity and who the literary tourists are. This study also considers what the future might hold for literary tourism by looking at popular contemporary examples, including the works of J.K. Rowling, G.R.R. Martin, J.R.R. Tolkien, Dan Brown, Stieg Larsson and L.J. Smith. In this context, literary tourism’s reciprocal relationship with film tourism is unpacked. This dissertation then moves on to discuss the main focus of this investigation. A mere decade ago, the world was unaware of a book series called The Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer. Yet in a few short years, the literary tourism associated with this series has turned a small town in northwest Washington State into a tourism phenomenon. This study considers the development, extent and impact of literary tourism on this town, called Forks. It also considers other literary and film tourism sites associated with The Twilight Saga to show the vast range of the impact literature can have on tourism. / Dissertation (MHCS)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / tm2015 / Historical and Heritage Studies / MHCS / Unrestricted

Denna uppsats menar att visa på ett samband mellan det västerländska samhällets, kulturella utveckling och förändringen i vampyrens porträttering på film. Uppsatsen kommer att fokusera på de tre aspekter: porträttering, religiösa (kristna) influenser samt makt. De två filmerna som kommer att analyseras utifrån detta är Twilight (2008) samt Dracula (1931).                       Dessa två filmer är gjorda i olika århundranden vilket kommer att visas i resultatet. Resultatet visar på att den senare filmen talar för det kulturella samhällets utveckling ifrån ett fokus på kristendomen. Det som spelar roll och ger vampyrerna ett övertag är heller inte deras odödlighet, utan deras makt eller pengar likt det postsekulära samhället vi lever i. Slutligen så talar dessa filmer om en växande rädsla för gömda hot snarare än synliga hot.

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The purpose of this diploma thesis is an analysis of selected texts of three popular American authors (Stephenie Mayer, Anne Rice, Tim Burton), who develop the tradition of Gothic literature in their prose writing and film making. This thesis attempts to show how the particular Gothic elements are used in selected works (ex.: the vampire or monster character, the theme of violence or death). In the introductory theoretical chapter the specific character of Anglo-American Gothic prose is explained, and in the following chapters the separate themes are analysed. In this context the literary influences, as well as the originality of the stories, are considered (Horace Walpole, Mary Shelley, Ch. R. Maturin, Bram Stoker), and the contribution of the analysed texts for the coming development of Gothic literature is assessed.