chapter 2
Loving you is like loving the dead Eroticization of the dead body Sara Kärrholm
The dead body has been a subject of fascination to many writers over the centuries, not least in the Gothic literary tradition in the stories of Edgar Allan Poe and onwards. The figure of the vampire is one of the most popular literary manifestations of this interest in death and in the dead body. In narratives such as Bram Stoker’s Dracula the vampire is able to attract his victims through, for example, the sound of his voice or playing mind games. This type of psychic or subliminal power of attraction is also present in the description of vampires in Meyer’s Twilight novels, but the attraction is also made physical to a great extent. In the story of Bella and Edward the vampire not only possesses a mesmerizing voice or an irresistible power of mind but also a highly eroticized body. That the body is a living corpse is accentuated by the coldness of Edward’s body whenever Bella touches it. What does this eroticization of the ‘dead’ body entail with regard to the interpretation of the love story in Twilight? Of course, Edward’s body, like the bodies of other vampires, is both dead and undead, or alive, at the same time. And yet, it is evident that some of the ‘dead’ qualities of Edward’s body, such as the coolness and hardness of his limbs or the paleness of his skin, are among the things that attract Bella to him. In this article I examine what this attraction represents: is Bella a girl with necrophiliac tendencies or are there other implications 47