Chapter Four: Invitations (Pitiful, Pathetic and Puzzling)

Note: I apologize for my lacks of updates. I’ve been attempting to do other things and I had to put my analysis on the back burner for the last two weeks. But I’m back.

So, Chapter Four. It’s one of her first dreams of Edward. And for a month, she can’t help but have Edward staring in her dreams. He is running away from her, and she just tries to catch him but is never fast enough, and he doesn’t come back no matter how loud she calls.

So, while Edward is not talking to her, everyone else at school is obsessed with her. Including Tyler who because her faithful servant along with Mike and Eric. Bella continues to remind everyone of Edward and what HE did, but no one seems to care.

With chagrin, I realized the probably cause–no one else was as aware of Edward as I was. No one else watched him the way I did. How pitiful.

Bella begins to realize how much Edward effects her. He saved her but treats her as if she has a disease.
Take a second and think back to good ol’ Pride and Prejudice. Elizabeth leaves Netherfield with Jane after Jane has recovered some. She meets Wickham, but it seems like everywhere she goes, everything she does brings her focus back to Darcy. Wickham knows Darcy and is constantly relating stories of Darcy’s injustice. Elizabeth, though she would never admit it, is very conscious of Darcy in order to avoid him. But she doesn’t do a very good job.
And Edward? Yeah, he is trying to avoid Bella at all costs. Because he knows that he’s no good for her. Darcy tries to avoid Elizabeth at all cost, because he sees the inferiority of the match.

Well, Mike attempts to get Bella to ask him to the dance in this chapter. And fails. And does it in front of Edward. Edward is curious and frustrated that he doesn’t know WHY Bella would say no. And so he stares at Bella.

Just because he’d happened to look at me for the first time in a half-dozen weeks. I couldn’t allow him to have this level of influence over me. It was pathetic. More than pathetic, it was unhealthy.

And then Edward says her name.

“Bella?” His voice shouldn’t have been so familiar to me, as if I’d known the sound of it all my life rather than for just a few short weeks.

Soulmates? I think so. I’m just saying.

And later on, comes my all-time favorite line.

Of course he wasn’t interested in me, I thought angrily, my eyes stinging–a delayed reaction to the onions. I wasn’t interesting. And he was. Interesting . . . and brilliant . . . and mysterious . . . and perfect . . . and beautiful . . . and possibly able to lift full-sized vans with one hand.

Who WOULDN’T want a guy like that?

Although, the next day Bella says that she wants to hit Edward because of how annoying he is to her. He refuses to give her a straight answer and that bothers her.

My palms tingled–I wanted so badly to hit something. I was surprised at myself. I was usually a nonviolent person.

Edward brings out some very strong emotions in her. Which is curious because it seems that Bella brings out some very strong emotions in Edward. As he says later…well, we’ll get to that later. I think that’s why we love the “love/hate” relationships in literature. Because hate is such a passionate feeling. Indifference is the antithesis of love. So when strong emotions are present, there’s that sexual tension. And we LOVE that tension. It keeps us reading.

The chapter ends with Edward warning her that it might be better if they weren’t friends, but he wasn’t about to stop now. Curious. Why would it be prudent? We all know why. But Bella doesn’t and you’ll have to ready my next analysis to continue on.

Leave a comment. Tell me what you think. I’m interested and open to everything!