TWITLIGHT SPOILER
SRSLY. SPOILER. Don't click if you really mean to read the final book.
Locked to prevent drive-by spoiling.
WTF, LOVE SHIELD?!
It's epic fanficcy fail.
If they publish this shit, they'll publish anything.
Don't bitch at me for spoilers; you shouldn't have clicked.
NON-SPOILERY EDIT - although don't click to comment if you can't take the spoiler.
From SMeyer's FAQ: The apple on the cover of Twilight represents "forbidden fruit." I used the scripture from Genesis (located just after the table of contents) because I loved the phrase "the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil." Isn't this exactly what Bella ends up with? A working knowledge of what good is, and what evil is. The nice thing about the apple is it has so many symbolic roots. You've got the apple in Snow White, one bite and you're frozen forever in a state of not-quite-death... Then you have Paris and the golden apple in Greek mythology-look how much trouble that started. Apples are quite the versatile fruit. In the end, I love the beautiful simplicity of the picture. To me it says: choice.
Ok, Rule #1 of literary analysis is be aware of ALL the implications of a symbol. Yes, the apple = Adam and Eve is the first thing to come to mind. But honey, learn your own religion. The apple is symbolic not of the choice but the sin, which was man's fall from grace and loss of innocence. Eating the fruit from the tree would make Adam capable of malicious choices as well as beneficence, introducing motive to humanity for good or ill. It's all about why human beings are capable of such extremes of rationale - how could God have made a being with the potential to become Hitler? If Adam and Eve had resisted temptation, supposedly, that great potential for deliberate evil (and deliberate good, mind you) would have gone untapped, and mankind would have existed in a state of blissful innocence, and machine guns would never have been invented. So goes the parable. Additionally, the "fall from grace" is often explained as a loss of sexual innocence - after eating the apple, Adam and Eve became aware of their nakedness and were ashamed by it, in the way that adults (in America, at least) find public nakedness titillating and embarrassing, but kids under, like, five can wander around nude and people think it's cute. Even the color - the rich red of passion and the blood of lost virginity - screams sex. So to me, aware of all these ramifications, I find the apple as a symbol of a chaste love story between teenagers written by a Mormon mom to be a seriously bizarre choice. Or maybe I just teach too much James Joyce.
Locked to prevent drive-by spoiling.
WTF, LOVE SHIELD?!
It's epic fanficcy fail.
If they publish this shit, they'll publish anything.
Don't bitch at me for spoilers; you shouldn't have clicked.
NON-SPOILERY EDIT - although don't click to comment if you can't take the spoiler.
From SMeyer's FAQ: The apple on the cover of Twilight represents "forbidden fruit." I used the scripture from Genesis (located just after the table of contents) because I loved the phrase "the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil." Isn't this exactly what Bella ends up with? A working knowledge of what good is, and what evil is. The nice thing about the apple is it has so many symbolic roots. You've got the apple in Snow White, one bite and you're frozen forever in a state of not-quite-death... Then you have Paris and the golden apple in Greek mythology-look how much trouble that started. Apples are quite the versatile fruit. In the end, I love the beautiful simplicity of the picture. To me it says: choice.
Ok, Rule #1 of literary analysis is be aware of ALL the implications of a symbol. Yes, the apple = Adam and Eve is the first thing to come to mind. But honey, learn your own religion. The apple is symbolic not of the choice but the sin, which was man's fall from grace and loss of innocence. Eating the fruit from the tree would make Adam capable of malicious choices as well as beneficence, introducing motive to humanity for good or ill. It's all about why human beings are capable of such extremes of rationale - how could God have made a being with the potential to become Hitler? If Adam and Eve had resisted temptation, supposedly, that great potential for deliberate evil (and deliberate good, mind you) would have gone untapped, and mankind would have existed in a state of blissful innocence, and machine guns would never have been invented. So goes the parable. Additionally, the "fall from grace" is often explained as a loss of sexual innocence - after eating the apple, Adam and Eve became aware of their nakedness and were ashamed by it, in the way that adults (in America, at least) find public nakedness titillating and embarrassing, but kids under, like, five can wander around nude and people think it's cute. Even the color - the rich red of passion and the blood of lost virginity - screams sex. So to me, aware of all these ramifications, I find the apple as a symbol of a chaste love story between teenagers written by a Mormon mom to be a seriously bizarre choice. Or maybe I just teach too much James Joyce.