New Moon is a watered-down version of Romeo and Juliet with more angst and less purpose. There’s no point in denying it. In fact, Stephanie Meyer alludes quite frequently to the lovers of classical literature in the Twilight series.

Twilight refers to Pride and Prejudice. Eclipse reveals the Heathcliff in Edward and the Cathy in Bella. Breaking Dawn is… Alien – so, okay, Stephanie Meyer broke her pattern with that one. But at least she offers a nod to The Merchant of Venice and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

With New Moon in theaters, I’ve decided to hide away from the hordes of squeeing fans and take a peak at the Romeo and Juliet in this Twilight sequel. (Dr. Tubbs, this one’s for you.) Romeo and Juliet is a love story for the ages. It’s origins go back to the ancient Greeks and Romans, because, let’s face it, we all love a good tragedy. Nothing makes a story live forever quite like a premature death and a priest who moonlights as a pharmacist. But Romeo and Juliet were facing some pretty great obstacles in their relationship: their fathers were gangsters, the Prince was a pratt, and Verona wasn’t known for breaking into spontaneous song – a phenomenon that would have eased tensions considerably. I mean, come on, who’s pulling a sword in the middle of the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee?

Similarly, Bella and Edward are facing some challenges. He’s a vampire and she’s not. Okay, make that one challenge. Still they are in love, they’re young, and they’re too emo for their own good. The book and the movie revolve around the classic he said, she said. He crushes a phone; she dives off a cliff. Someone is dead and all hell breaks loose. True love at its finest.

Shakespeare pulls no punches with his young couple – two beats before seeing Juliet, Romeo is mooning over another girl! Yeah, that’s a love for the ages! Finicky, selfish, young, irresponsible, lust-driven, obsessive love in a relationship that lasts for a few days before Juliet’s boy toy kills her cousin. It wasn’t his fault? Fine. But he agreed to fight, the guy died, and he’s sent into exile. Juliet, like a good little fourteen-year-old, throws a tantrum. Then Romeo imbibes some punch, and the rest is literary history.

What Meyer forgets is the classic tale doesn’t die with a kiss. The poncy Prince doesn’t get to say much, but what he says is important.
The thwarting of a great love is not the tragedy.  The real grief and power in the story comes from two families who have traded their children for a vendetta. The town is littered with their dead. Romeo’s mother has offed herself due to the grief of her loss. People are killing each other in the streets, and now the fathers have killed their own children. Romeo and Juliet’s deaths are significant because they brought the cost of the war home. The book is a political and social statement told through a love story – a tactic Shakespeare used in most of his work.

That is what gives Romeo and Juliet’s teeny-bopper relationship such power. Would we really have liked them if we’d had to watch that relationship develop over four books as we have with this sparkly vamp and his girl? Would we even like  Ed and B if we saw them 40 years into their relationship? I’m not so sure.

Stephanie Meyers isn’t trying to make an eternal statement, she’s telling the story of two teenagers (apparently 109 is the new 17) in crazy, erratic, suicidal love with each other. She’s done so with flourish and aplomb. But at its best, her work contains only a shadow of the greater story that she works so hard to mimic. In that brief flicker of similarity there lies a danger to those who cannot tell the difference between a teen romance and a true “in sickness and in health” kind of love.

Meyer’s characters, like Romeo and Juliet, are still children in how they view commitment. They don’t have to consider the possibility of regret or the work that goes into building a real relationship.

Meyer’s fans look at Romeo and Juliet as far off characters who wear weird clothes and speak like the Queen.  But Bella and Edward go to high school and listen to Linkin Park.

Or as the girl sitting next to me in the theater gushed, “That is love.”  But is it? And, what happens when the impressionable members of Team Edward and Team Jacob are unable to tell the difference?

-Stephanie

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 21st, 2009 at 4:58 pm and is filed under linkedin, story telling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.