![Sample our Social Sciences journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/110822/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Social-Sciences.jpg"})
Abstract
This article examines the violence inherent in the popular Young Adult Fiction series The Twilight Saga, considers how this violence can be re-coded as reassuring through the use of romance genre conventions, and further extends this analysis by applying the concept of the female gaze to the series. The article initially examines the gendered violence within The Twilight Saga, considering both the physical violence that occurs, as well as the mental and emotional violence, using Evan Stark's notion of coercive control. The series is then considered as conforming to the romance genre, using the work of Tania Modleski and Janice Radway, discovering how instances of violence can be re-coded as reassuring. This analysis is then further extended by introducing the concept of the female gaze, and considering how a female gaze might impact the way the potentially anxiety-inducing male body can be read as desirable, and how culturally determined understandings of what constitutes the desirable male body are evolving.
Notes
1. It is important to note that Radway's groundbreaking study focussed on the reaction of the readers of the romance novels; while this is a fascinating area of study, it is unfortunately beyond the scope of this essay, which has attempted to account for one possible reading of The Twilight Saga. Petersen, however, has engaged with the responses of feminist readers in her thought-provoking essay “That Teenage Feeling” (see Petersen Citation2012).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Jessica Taylor
Jessica Taylor is a PhD student at the University of Western Australia. Email: [email protected]