The release of Midnight Sun has brought the Twilight universe back into the forefront of conversation in the book world. The discussion is peppered with typical criticisms — Edward is creepy, Bella has no agency, their relationship is all a bit… abusive — but I’m not interested in discussing the many failings of Bella and Edward’s relationship at the moment (I’ve done that dozens of times over the past 15 years, both drunk and sober, in print and in crowded pubs with my girlfriends).
Instead, I want to take the time to share a bit of respect for an oft-overlooked hero of the Twilight books — Bella’s “harebrained” mother, Renee.
As the original Twilight generation reaches full-blown adulthood, many of my peers are expressing their newfound appreciation of Charlie Swan, Bella’s levelheaded, stubborn, and protective father. Memes boasting the sudden realization that our stories are shifting to that of the left-behind mortal man — and not of the tragically romantic protagonists’ doomed love story — abound heavily in the bookstagram universe.
When we discuss these stories that we’ve somewhat outgrown (but still devour with shameless abandon), we share our favorite characters in predictable patterns:
Bella. Edward. Alice. Emmet. Jasper. Jacob. Carlisle. Esme. Renesmee (JK, no one ever says that).
The one name that is never mentioned is the name of the person who is — arguably — the catalyst for the entire saga: Renee Dwyer.
As any Twilight fan knows, Bella moved to Forks to give her mother freedom. Renee had recently met and married Phil, a travelling minor league baseball player, and she was yearning to set off on the road with him.
Until Bella decides to move to Forks, Renee manages Phil’s absence in order to provide her daughter with the care and support she feels a mother is required to provide. She misses him, but resigns herself to her motherly duties nonetheless.
When Bella realizes that her mother is sad, in accordance to her nature as the kindhearted martyr of the story, she decides to sacrifice her own happiness (move in with her father) so that Renee can travel with Phil.
And this is where the story starts.
We don’t get a lot of Renee over the course of the novels. We see her reflected through Bella’s memories of her, portrayed as a scatter-brained mess who ultimately required saving from her adolescent daughter. Bella rolls her eyes (lovingly) as she describes her “wild” mother, and readers are left wondering how such a harebrained human raised someone as self-reliant and responsible as Isabella Swan.
In Midnight Sun, Renee’s behavior takes on a darker tone, as Edward’s affection towards Bella leads him to interpret Renee’s attitude as somewhat less than savory. From his point of view, we see a different version of the mother-daughter relationship: Bella feels that she was a burden to Renee, that her mother resented becoming a mom, and that her life would have been better had Bella not been born.
This, obviously, leads Edward to develop harsh feelings towards Renee — how dare anyone think that the world doesn’t revolve around his little human?
And yet, as I listened to that passage in the audiobook on my morning run, I found myself wondering at his hostility.
Why are we so quick to disregard Renee as a bad mother, when she was simply trying her best?
Who Was Renee Before Bella?
This is a topic we’re not often privy to, as Renee becomes nothing more than a shadowy background character as the stories progress. I had to delve into the Twilight wiki to get my answers, so take them with a grain of salt.
Renee Loved Adventure
This is one thing we know for sure, a fact that is as canonized in the books as Edward’s mind reading capabilities or Alice’s foresight. She brought Bella up as a weekend warrior, travelling around the Southwest United States on road trips and cheap excursions in a desperate attempt to keep some of her pre-motherhood wildness intact.
Renee Hated Forks
Also a point of canon is the fact that Renee ultimately left Charlie because he refused to relocate to a sunnier, more interesting location. She grew to hate the rain and the clouds and ultimately left, taking baby Bella with her.
Renee Chose to Be a Mother
This is where we start to reach a gray area.
According to the Twilight wiki, Renee met Charlie while on a road trip with a girlfriend. They fell in love in a whirlwind romance (very reminiscent of her daughter’s fateful affair with Edward), got married, and had a daughter all before Renee turned twenty.
Renee was young, and although she had been intrigued by motherhood and “married life” at the start, she grew to resent the gilded cage she’d willingly entered. Although she loved Charlie and Bella, she needed something more.
So, she left.
And this could have been the end of her involvement, had she been the selfish person these books try to make her out to be. Had Renee truly hated the shackles of her domestic life, she could have left Bella with Charlie and embarked on the journey she craved without the anchor of single motherhood weighing her down.
But she didn’t. She chose to give up her freedom and the love of her young life to honor her two biggest priorities: her daughter and herself.
And this is why I love Renee Dwyer.
As we read Twilight, at 15 or at 28, we are supposed to marvel at the love between Bella and Edward. Edward faces physical and spiritual torture to be with Bella, and Bella (literally) sacrifices her entire life to be with him.
But, as has been argued countless times in literary circles, that is not the portrait of a healthy relationship.
As adults, we recognize that Bella and Edward’s relationship is borderline toxic, controlling in the extreme, codependent to a dangerous level (remember how Bella jumped off a cliff and Edward attempted to goad a coven of angry vampires to rip him into pieces when they weren’t together?), and definitively obsessive. They meet and immediately frame their respective futures around the other person.
Renee didn’t do this.
It is often assumed that Renee must not have loved Charlie, that her intentions must have been inherently selfish, for her to have left him in Forks. In fact, some of the saddest moments in the books are the small hints that Charlie never got over Renee — that he was ever-waiting for her to return.
She is selfish, because she chose her own happiness over that of her partner.
As a teenager, I accepted this. I rolled my eyes at Renee and disregarded her as a background player to the story, accepting the idea that Bella would simply fade from her life without question, preoccupied by the unfolding love story.
As an adult, I have deep respect for Renee.
Whereas Bella teaches us that nothing — not physical safety nor personal fulfillment — is more important than “true love,” Renee underscores the idea that happiness can only be achieved when one is true to one’s own nature. She was wild and craved adventure, and although she loved Charlie, she could not sacrifice those parts of herself to satisfy a romantic commitment.
But she also deeply cared for her daughter. Despite her need for adventure, she kept Bella by her side, travelling as she could afford and attempting to instill some of her independence into Bella (an effort that was ultimately wasted, as Bella is inherently a homebody like her father who surrenders her freedom to live eternally as a vampire).
Renee illustrates a version of femininity that is rejected in the Twilight universe. Whereas Bella is the picture of sacrifice, Renee represents self-satisfaction. In this world, that means “flakiness.” In reality, that means “a woman whose independence is of greater value than her adherence to traditional gender roles.”
Renee refused to compromise who she was for a relationship. In the canonized context of the published novels, this makes her selfish. In the real world, this makes her a heroine of her own volition, a woman who chose happiness over romance and who still sacrificed her young years to raise her daughter.
Renee is not “harebrained.” She is independent.