Stephenie Meyer's Mormonism And The Erotics Of Abstinence '

“Stephenie Meyer’s Mormonism and the “erotics of abstinence”” by Wm Morris shows his mixed feelings about Stephenie’s novel, Twilight. Morris purpose in writing this article is to show the pro’s and con’s she had with her according to their religion. Morris develops his article by introducing, first, where he found the piece of literature he is analyzing, Profile of Stephenie Meyer in the Time magazine. He also inserts two pieces of commentary about the sexuality scenes in Twilight, as well as in The Host (Meyer’s other book) written by Lev Grossman. In the first piece of commentary, Grossman critiques the level of sexuality Twilight has, a scene in particular. He states “….[Edward] barely touches her, but there’s more sex in that one paragraph than in all the snogging
in Harry Potter.” This part of the book, Edward leans in to smell Bella and tell her she has “ a very floral smell”. In the second commentary, about The Host, Grossman briefly describes the plot of the book, which he describes as “ a love triangle” and “ a kinky setup- [by] two girls in one body- played completely clean.” After the two commentaries from Grossman, Morris writes three paragraphs.
In the first paragraph he simply list other things “the obligatory list of stuff Meyer doesn’t do”, which is pretty much drink alcohol and watch R rated movies. The second paragraph he writes is in explaining he hasn’t “taken a quite a dim view of Meyer’s work”. He does this because Meyer has done something “that [he has] long thought would be a rewarding strand of Mormon literature”. The third paragraph, before another insert of commentary of Twilight from Stephenie, the tone shirt occurs. Although in the paragraph before he states he didn’t take a dim view on Twilight, here he “[thinks] something is missing”. He says he is not fully convinced that Edward and Bella are “the best agents with which to explore the agency” meaning the Mormon religion. After this paragraph, another piece of commentary is inserted, but this time from Meyer, herself. In this commentary, Meyer explains the “underlying metaphor of [her] vampires”, which is that “it doesn’t
matter where you’re stuck in life, or what you think you have to do; you can always choose something else. There’s always a different path.” And Edward is great portrayal of this because he chooses not to be the horrible monster and not drink human blood. The last paragraph in this analysis, is a mix of Grossman and Morris’ argument toward Meyer’s statement in the paragraph before. Grossman “gives a passing nod to the idea” but goes on the erotics idea. Morris argues Mormon literature and dating rituals and eating should be greater explored. And also, once again says that the characters are the appropriate agents to explore the agency because of Bella doesn’t have choices denied to her. He ends his article saying a stronger transmission of the Mormon ideas are more effectively spread by the use of culture. The style and language of this article isn’t complex. The diction and syntax throughout the whole document is very simple. Big or complex words aren’t used, and the paragraphs written by Morris himself, aren’t very lengthy. The diction used through out the passage is very slang. He also introduces references and other ideas by parentheses or a hyphen, and he does his regularly, especially after Grossman’s commentaries. Paragraphs didn’t range from size very much, about 4 to 5 lines each, excluding Grossman’s commentary and the final paragraph. The beginning of the article has two very short paragraphs, then transgresses into two larger paragraphs, not written by Morris. After Grossman’s commentary paragraphs, there are also three short paragraphs, a short commentary by Meyer, and then the longest paragraph in the whole article.