Breaking Dawn: More than Just Your Average Teenage Love Story!

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I remember back in college when I was enrolled in a Philosophy class, we were asked to write an essay about the movie Breaking Dawn. The purpose of this task is for us to identify the social dimensions of the story. Kindly read the essay I wrote as shown below.

At the surface level, Breaking Dawn part 1 seems like an ordinary teenage love story. The movie has been subjected a lot of times to ridicule and mockery because of the obsession of many people to cheesy romances. Teenage girls and some teenage boys have patronized this movie for they have identified themselves with the characters’ circumstances and situations as creatively written by Stephenie Meyer. Let’s face it, when it comes to love stories, teenagers as well as young adults, and even single adults will find themselves drawn to it. However, after attending this Philosophy class, I have realized that the movie can be seen in a deeper and analytical way. It is not just your average teenage box-office hit love story but a story full of social teachings, ideas, and relationships that when put into light can give wholesome and intellectual advancements to critical viewers.

First, I would like to focus on the relationship of Bella and Edward. Though their togetherness is out of the ordinary since one is human and the other is a vampire, nevertheless, it still portrays common human relationships. They first started out as mere mutual friends but as time progresses; they become more than just friends, but boyfriends and girlfriends which is by the way a very common occurrence in our society. It portrays a man’s need to identify one’s self to another person. Yes, it is about love, but it also depicts a person’s need to be needed by someone else, to be intimate with another person, to be protected and to protect the other.

Subsequently, this togetherness of being mutual, will then lead to another hugely important social phenomena which is marriage. In the movie, and as I have read in the book itself, Bella and Edward got married. For Edward, this is very important because this binds them for a lifetime. However, for Bella, this is a means for her to satisfy their deal of her becoming a vampire. When marriage is discussed in the context of society, this is a form of togetherness that creates the basic unit of the society which is known as the family. This social union takes its place in our society not just for the reason of the good feeling of being together, but for a greater calling which is procreation which I think is the calling for married couples as dictated by the laws of nature.

Bella’s giving of premium to her unborn child should also be given some form of emphasis since it shows the importance that Bella places on life and the good that a child brings to the family. While carrying the child, she sought for the protection of Rosalie. This helps us to understand another social aspect of society that conveys a mother’s relationship to her child. This kind of a social relationship projects one of the strongest and perhaps a foundational occurrence in our society, a mother’s love for her offspring.

The relationships of the wolf pack can also be put into light. Theirs is a group which shows equality and proper distribution, as well as a sense of brotherhood. I know for a fact after reading the book that they are concerned for each other’s welfare since of course they are a pack. This wolfish concern for each other shows the importance that they give for each individual person. Each person is accountable for the other. Each member of the pack is important. Also, each member of the pack has the capability to contribute something to the entire group though little it may be.

     However, the danger that this could lead to which has been shown in the movie is when a circumstance such as the alpha wolf exerts too much authority to his constituents that it will eventually lead to the removal of individual creativity and uniqueness. This scenario presents a sociality point of view in a sense that it showed an aspect of relationship wherein we humans also experience the same, being members of an equalized community as well as being constituents of an appointed leader. In the movie, the alpha wolf, by exerting too much his authority, has already failed to see beyond the functionality of Jacob the wolf. Due to this lack of conformity to reason by the Sam, the alpha wolf, Jacob then broke away from the group and sought to be a pack of his own.

Jacob’s desire to break away from the group, also presents something social in nature. Though he was a lone wolf for quite a short time, it also speaks resoundingly of its implications socially. As what I have read in Manuel Dy’s article, when people choose to be alone, it is still meant to be something that is social in nature. Though Jacob was alone for quite sometime, that was still meant for others because in his solitude, he is trying to prove to others the surety of his argument that it is a mistake to pass on the verdict of the demise of Bella and her so-called “monstrous child”.

We could also look at the social relationship of Bella and Jacob. They are not as mutual as Bella is to Edward but they show a togetherness that is important to our society. Their friendship eases up their own personal anxieties that they are experiencing. What they have for each other is also being experienced by people in the society. Friendship brings people together and it produces good results to people who are involved in that kind of a social relationship.

It is also good to take note that when Bella got pregnant, she considered the child to be a precious being that should not be harmed. However, when her husband, Edward, found out about her pregnancy, he called the child in her womb as an “it”. This simply means that Edward looks at the child as an object. Of course, it is somehow reasonable for him to see the child that way since he is somewhat a monster himself and he has fathered a child to a mortal woman, definitely, something is bound to go wrong with the set-up. However, this shows, as what I have learned also so far in this class that, we people has the tendency to look at others as an ‘it” rather than a creature who has the capacity to be unique and creative. If someone is not too significant for us, then we look at them in a manner that could be sometimes utilitarian. What matters to us when someone is insignificant to us is what this man can give me, or what kind of advantages I can draw form him/ her.

Considering the movie, there are indeed a lot of social dimensions in it. It reflects not just teenage angst, infatuation, and love but also implied but real occurrences in society.  I guess that these discussions are not much seen by common viewers but the movie poses very real phenomena which if taken into account posit truth about who we are as people,

creatures born to be social beings!