58 pages • 1 hour read
Stephenie MeyerNew Moon
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2006A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Beach
Often when Bella visits Jacob in La Push, she heads down to the beach and walks the shoreline between the ocean and cliffs, sometimes sitting on the big, bleached driftwood log where she first sat with Jacob. Here, she learned that Edward is a vampire; she also realized here that Jacob has become a werewolf. As she paces, she tries to reconcile her love for these two people with her concerns about their behavior as mythical beings. It’s also here where she decides to jump from the cliffs into the water. The beach is where she does some of her most important thinking. The beach symbolizes her mind, the tall cliffs standing like great principles in her spirit that confront the roiling seas of her emotions.
Meadow
The lovely forest meadow where Edward took Bella on the day they first kissed haunts her after Edward leaves. She searches for it, sometimes with Jacob’s unwitting help, and finally locates it. The meadow symbolizes for her the essence of her love for Edward, but she discovers that the place holds no meaning without him. Her search is part of her attempt to hold onto items that remind her of Edward.
Not only does the meadow disappoint her, but it also nearly becomes the end of her when another vampire, Laurent, appears there and threatens to kill her. A pack of werewolves chases him off, but not before the meadow has changed for Bella from a place of dreams to one of horrors. The meadow embodies her yearnings and fears; it seduces her with a promise of heaven while threatening her with a hellish end to all her desires.
Risk
Bella begins to hear Edward’s voice when she takes risks.. She realizes that she can hear him whenever she wants, so she takes up motorcycle riding, cliff diving, and other risky behaviors. Bella’s eagerness to hear Edward’s voice even though it means she’s in danger is a motif that emphasizes both her desperation to hear from Edward and her stubborn need to rebel against his “rules.” The implication is that Bella can’t possibly survive without her love interest.
Romeo and Juliet
A recurring motif in the story is the drama Romeo and Juliet. Edward and Bella study it in English class, and Bella notices similarities between her situation and Juliet’s. Like the Capulets and Montagues, the Quileute werewolves and the Cullen vampires contend against each other while Bella stands between them like Juliet. Edward’s suicide echoes Romeo’s because each thinks their true love is dead and life thus no longer is worth living. Jacob reminds her of Count Paris, who loves Juliet even though she can’t return the favor. Many of the play’s threads thus entangle Bella as she tries to understand her situation. Even Edward notices that he and Romeo share the fate of making tragically wrong decisions.
Bella’s 1953 Chevy
Bella’s 1953 red Chevy pickup is reliable, sturdy, slow, and noisy. The vehicle symbolizes Bella’s personality because it’s old-fashioned and represents traditional values, but it also symbolizes her sense of her physical self because of its awkward clunkiness. Edward wants to get her a fancy car, and Jacob would fix up something better for her, but Bella refuses to let the truck go. Its large, heavy presence serves as a shield when she drives through the wet, slippery, gloomy, and sometimes dangerous world around Forks. Somehow, Bella wouldn’t feel right without her big old pickup to protect her.
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By Stephenie Meyer
