Breaking Dawn

“I shook my head. The friendship that had sprung up between Edward and Seth was something that still boggled my mind. It was proof, though, that things didn’t have to be this way. The vampires and werewolves could get along just fine.”

Bella’s thoughts about Seth and his attendance at her wedding introduce a conflict that has been present throughout the series: the wolves versus the vampires, pointing to the novel’s thematic interest in Overcoming Prejudice and Ignorance. Bella remains adamant that the wolves and vampires can get along, noting that it’s their ignorance and stubbornness that prevents them from doing so.

“They were frozen at whatever level of development they’d achieved before being bitten. Adorable two-year-olds with dimples and lisps that could destroy half a village in one of their tantrums. If they hungered, they fed, and no words of warning could restrain them. Humans saw them, stories circulated, fear spread like fire in dry brush.”

Bella’s memory of Carlisle telling her about the immortal children foreshadows the central conflict in the book—the fight to protect Renesmee. His warning emphasizes the fear that came from these children, providing context for why there will be so much hostility and fear of Renesmee later in the text.

“So many kinds of love, harmonious in this one moment. It seemed a very hopeful picture to me.”

At the conclusion of the wedding, Bella notes the different “kinds of love” around her represented by those in attendance, emphasizing The Importance of Family and Friendship in the narrative. These words emphasize the prevailing tone at the start of the novel—one of happiness and contentment among Bella and her family. Because this love for the people in her life is Bella’s defining character trait, the fact that the different parts of her life—the humans, the vampires, and the wolves—have come together to support her in her marriage takes on greater significance.

“Where before there was just one thing I could not live without, now there were two. There was no division—my love was not split between them now; it wasn’t like that. It was more like my heart had grown, swollen up to twice its size in that moment.”

The moment that Bella realizes that she is pregnant, she falls in love with her unborn child. These thoughts reinforce a key component of her character: her unshakeable love and devotion, which she now feels for her child the moment she discovers it exists. Meyer emphasizes Bella’s relationship with Renesmee (even in the womb) as emblematic of The Interplay Between Love and Sacrifice. Even before any danger is introduced, Bella is already prepared to sacrifice anything for her child—just as she has been for Edward.

“We could go tonight. We could kill [every vampire] we could find. I liked that plan because I knew Edward well enough to know that, if I killed any one of his coven, I would get my chance at him, too. He’d come for revenge. And I’d give it to him—I wouldn’t let my brothers take him down.”

Meyer introduces Jacob’s first-person point of view with thoughts about how much hatred he still has for Edward, establishing the trajectory of his character arc from the self-focused concerns of a lone wolf to a leader with a broader perspective and sense of empathy. Here, Jacob considers attacking the coven just to get Edward to respond angrily and give them a chance to fight. This Jacob stands in contrast to the Jacob later in the text, who lives with the Cullens after Renesmee’s birth and fights alongside them.

“Simple desires, simple answers to those desires. Pain came in easily managed forms. The pain of hunger. The pain of cold ice under your paws. The pain of cutting claws when dinner got feisty. Each pain had a simple answer, a clear action to end that pain. Not like being human.”

These thoughts emphasize Jacob’s internal conflict throughout the text. Because of his overwhelming love for Bella—and feelings of loss when she marries Edward—he grapples with the pain of being human, instead preferring to remain a wolf. However, he is also obligated to be with his pact and protect his family. This along with his desire to maintain a friendship with Bella requires him to be human or at least remain in Forks. His love for Bella and his family compels him to resist his lone wolf tendencies and embrace community.

“I was disappointed that it was Carlisle who answered. I’d rather Edward had come through the door, fangs out. Carlisle was so…just human or something. Maybe it was the house calls he made last spring when I got busted up. But it made me uncomfortable to look into his face and know that I was planning to kill him if I could.”

Jacob’s discomfort with Carlisle's kindness and the bond that they’ve started to form evidences the challenges of shifting his perspective on the vampires. Unlike Edward, whom he hates simply because he loves Bella, he cannot find it in him to hate Carlisle—even though he, too, is a vampire. As Jacob begins to like Carlisle, he becomes aware that his prejudices toward the vampires are rooted in judgment and assumption.

“I knew what it was like for Leah, having to see that all the time. Having to hear it in Sam’s head. Of course we all felt bad for her, we weren’t monsters—in that sense, anyway. But I guess we’d blamed her for how she handled it. Lashing out at everything, trying to make us all as miserable as she was. I would never blame her again.”

When Jacob sees Edward and Bella together, he thinks of how Leah had to witness the same thing because of her feelings for Sam, highlighting Jacob’s growing empathy. These thoughts draw a parallel between Jacob’s character and Leah’s: both suffer from unrequited love, which Jacob now begins to understand can manifest as bitterness toward others. This mental comparison sets the stage for Jacob to ultimately choose love over bitterness and resentment.

“I had to admit, I felt better with some clothes to my name, even stinky ones that didn’t quite fit. It was hard not being able to just jet back home and grab another pair of old sweatpants when I needed them. The homeless thing again.”

When Carlisle provides Jacob with clothing, it underscores the value he places on family, friendship, and community care. The Cullen family’s attempt to bridge the gap with the wolves, offering their appreciation for everything they are doing for Bella, lays the groundwork for the full dissolution of their centuries-old feud. Despite Jacob’s resistance to the gift—emphasized by words like “admit” and “stinky”— he’s grateful for what they are doing, creating room for healing in their relationship.

“The hold she had on me only got harder to break. Almost like it was related to her expanding belly—as if by getting bigger, she was gaining gravitational force.”

Meyer uses Jacob’s inner monologue to foreshadow his imprinting on Renesmee. He notices that something is strange with Bella’s pregnancy, creating an unnatural attraction between the two of them, which he metaphorically compares to a planet and its “gravitational” pull.

“I was all alone in my hatred and the pain that was so bad it was like being tortured. Like being dragged slowly across a bed of razor blades. Pain so bad you’d take death with a smile just to get away from it.”

Jacob’s reaction to seeing Bella with Edward highlights just how much his love for Bella affects him. He uses a simile, comparing his heartbreak to “being dragged slow across a bed of razor blades” —the emotional pain is so strong that it feels physical.

“I struggled to keep the screams and thrashing locked up inside my body, where they couldn’t hurt anyone else, it felt like I’d gone from being tied to the stake as I burned, to gripping that stake to hold myself in the fire.”

As Bella suffers with her transformation, she refuses to call out in pain because she does not want to upset Edward, reiterating her self-sacrificial tendencies as a character as well as her strength of will. She’s willing to sacrifice unbearable pain in exchange for keeping Edward comfortable—an archetypical gender dynamic that Meyer’s text leaves uninterrogated.

“I stared at the beautiful woman with the terrifying eyes, looking for pieces of me. There was something there in the shape of her lips, if you looked past the dizzying beauty, it was true.”

When Bella looks into a mirror and sees the new vampire version of herself, the mirror serves as a metaphor for her change. The visual of two physical versions of herself—one real and one in the mirror—conveys her evolution from human to vampire with her newfound strength, beauty, and confidence.

“It had come on slowly, but I could feel it now—the raw, massive strength thrilling in my limbs. I was suddenly sure that if I wanted to tunnel under the river, to claw or beat my way straight through the bedrock, it wouldn’t take me very long. The objects around me—the trees, the shrubs, the rocks…the house—had all begun to look very fragile.”

Bella’s first-time hunting underscores her new sense of comfort, confidence, and rightness as a vampire. Her ease in the woods reemphasizes it as a symbol of the paranormal world of the novel. For the first time in her life, she feels as though she belongs in the woods and, by extension, in Edward’s life.

“Bella, things are different with us now, but you’ll always be my best friend, and I’ll always love you. But I’ll love you the right way now. There’s finally a balance. We both have people we can’t live without.”

Jacob’s words emphasize Renesmee as a symbolic representation of the bridge that has been built between the vampires and the wolves. Jacob’s imprinting upon her resolves the conflict both between Bella and Jacob and between the wolves and the vampires, as Jacob’s love for Bella is no longer an obstacle to their peace.

“Charlie’s face was a fistful of flames, punching straight down my throat. But it was so much more than pain. It was a hot stabbing of desire, too. Charlie smelled more delicious than anything I’d ever imagined. […] But I wasn’t hunting now. And this was my father.”

Meyer uses metaphor to compare Charlie’s scent to flames burning Bella’s throat to highlight her newfound strength as a vampire. That she’s able to resist the urge for human blood, evidences her love for Charlie and her willingness to sacrifice her own comfort to be around him.

“As a human, I’d never been best at anything. […] After eighteen years of mediocrity, I was pretty used to being average. I realized now that I’d long ago given up any aspirations of shining at anything. […] So this was really different. I was amazing now—to them and to myself. It was like I had been born to be a vampire.”

Bella explicitly identifies the ways in which her transition into a vampire has resolved the insecurities and lack of confidence she felt as a human. She used to be awkward and uncomfortable and see herself as weak and not deserving of Edward. Meyer positions Bella’s transformation as representative of empowerment—finding comfort in one’s own skin and embracing one’s true nature and purpose.

“Often, when I looked back over my first three months as an immortal, I imagined how the thread of my life might look. […] The tapestry of family and friends that wove together around me was a beautiful, glowing thing, full of their bright, complementary colors.”

Meyer uses metaphor to compare the pieces of Bella’s life to threads in a tapestry, emphasizing the power of family and friendship in Bella’s life and the strength she draws from those relationships. The Cullens, Bella’s human family, and the wolves all represent disparate threads that “weave together” to create joy and a better life for Bella.

“If I could only even things out—remove the Volturi’s overwhelming offensive advantage. Maybe then there was a chance…My mind raced ahead. What if I was able to distract or even take them out?”

Bella’s plan for the fight conveys her inner strength and her willingness to sacrifice herself for her family, reiterating the text’s thematic exploration of the interplay between love and sacrifice. As a vampire, she finally feels strong enough to make a difference, and she’s willing to sacrifice her life to fight and give the rest of her friends and family a chance to survive.

“The Volturi aren’t supposed to be the villains, the way they seem to you. They are the foundation of our peace and civilization. Each member of the guard chooses to serve them. It’s quite prestigious.”

Edward’s description of the Volturi demonstrates the irony in their contradictory motives as the novel’s antagonists. As the ruling class of vampires, the Volturi are supposed to serve as the protectors of vampire civilization—of which the Cullen family is a part—but here, Meyer suggests, their selfishness and hunger for power have corrupted that objective.

“The rage brought every aspect of my being into sharper focus. I could even feel the elasticity of my shield more exactly now—feel that it was not a band so much as a layer, a thin film that covered me from head to toe. With the anger rippling through my body, I had a better sense of it, a tighter hold on it.”

Throughout the series, Bella allows her instincts and emotions— particularly her love for Edward and Renesmee—rather than her reason to dictate her actions. While training for her fight with the Volturi, she discovers the role that hate and anger play within her, giving her access to another resource of power. She discovers her true protective abilities, allowing her to play a key role in the battle because of her engagement with her anger.

“I tried to focus on the positive. There was a good chance that my daughter was going to survive what was coming, and Jacob, too. If they had a future, then that was a kind of victory, wasn’t it?”

Bella’s cost-benefit assessment of their chances in the fight against the Volturi evidences her personal priorities and sacrificial nature. She has created a plan that will allow Renesmee and Jacob to survive the Volturi, emphasizing just how deeply she loves them both. She is willing to give up her own future in exchange for ensuring that they survive.

“They came in a rigid, formal formation. They moved together, but it was not a march; they flowed in perfect synchronicity from the trees—a dark, unbroken shape that seemed to hover a few inches above the white snow, so smooth was the advance. The outer perimeter was gray; the color darkened with each line of bodies until the heart of the formation was deepest black.”

Meyer uses visual imagery to build suspense and a sense of menace as the Volturi arrive. Bella notes the “perfect synchronicity,” their “unbroken” formation, and the way that they are “smooth” in their approach. These words imbue the Volturi with an otherworldly quality, emphasizing their power, influence, and the fear that they instill in their enemies. Throughout the series, Edward has been associated with the idea of brightness, as the sun reflects off his pale skin like diamonds. Here, Bella notes the “gray,” “darkened,” and “black” color of the Volturi, which stands in stark contrast to Edward’s bright colors and light.