Breaking Dawn Symbols, Allegory and Motifs

Breaking Dawn Symbols, Allegory and Motifs

Allusions to A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream

William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream has been alluded to in the second part of the book. The line from the play, ‘And yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays’ forms part of the preface for second part. The plot of the second part also alludes to the plot of the play. Like Helena, Leysander and Demetrius, Bella, Edward and Jacob form part of a love triangle. The story also is resolved as a ‘deux ex machina’ when Jacob imprints on Renessme as in the play

Fake Identification

Alice leaves Bella the name of a lawyer so she could get fake identification for Jacob and Renessme. Bella realizes the implication of the documents. Alice didn’t see Cullens surviving the attack from the Volturi and so abandons them. The documents are meant to provide Bella a way to make sure that Jacob and Renessme can run form the Volturi. The fake identification, thus, represents their impending doom and hope for Renessme.

Alice’s abandonment

Alice and the Cullens, though not related, have strong ties. Edwards considers her as a sister. Alice, in the second book Eclipse, goes to great lengths to save Edward’s life and keeps an eye on the Volturi out of concern for Bella’s life. She had been through thick and thin with Cullens and so, her decision to desert them comes as a shock and a ultimatum that Alice did not consider Volturi to spare the Cullens, for which she decides to abandon Cullens and leave with Jasper.

Bella’s dream about the immortal child

Bella had previously expressed her desire to sacrifice her ability to bear children in order to embrace immortality to be with Edwards forever, much to the disapproval of Rosalie. In the first part of Breaking Dawn, Bella is told about the immortal children and the havoc they spread. She starts experiencing disturbing dreams about vampire children killing her loved ones. This keeps disturbing till the she gets married. This could be understood as her intrinsic desire for maternity. It could also be seen as a foreshadowing element for the child Bella conceives later.

Alice’s inability for premonition

Alice starts to have problems with visions which concern Bella’s future. As it is revealed later, that Alice’s powers don’t work in the vicinity of a vampire-human hybrid, like with werewolves. The holes in the visions are enough to worry Alice and rest, as Bella had conceived a child of which no recorded history was available. The child seemed to be growing at an accelerated pace and had been hurting Bella. Combining these symptoms with Alice’s inability to see Bella’s future, it makes Bella’s future a mystery.

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