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1 ECLIPSE by Stephenie Meyer

ECLIPSE
Twilight Book 3
Stephenie Meyer
ULTIMATUM
Charlie shrugged. “There’s no law that says I can’t cook in my own house.”
“You would know,” I replied, grinning as I eyed the badge pinned to his leather
jacket.
“Ha. Good one.” He shrugged out of the jacket as if my glance had reminded
him he still had it on, and hung it on the peg reserved for his gear. His gun belt
was already slung in place — he hadn’t felt the need to wear that to the station
for a few weeks. There had been no more disturbing disappearances to trouble
the small town of Forks, Washington, no more sightings of the giant, mysterious
wolves in the ever-rainy woods. . . .
I prodded the noodles in silence, guessing that Charlie would get around to
talking about whatever was bothering him in his own time. My dad was not a
man of many words, and the effort he had put into trying to orchestrate a sit-
down dinner with me made it clear there were an uncharacteristic number of
words on his mind.
I glanced at the clock routinely — something I did every few minutes around
this time. Less than a half hour to go now.
Afternoons were the hardest part of my day. Ever since my former best friend
(and werewolf ), Jacob Black, had informed on me about the motorcycle
I’d been riding on the sly — a betrayal he had devised in order to get me
grounded so that I couldn’t spend time with my boyfriend (and vampire),
Edward Cullen — Edward had been allowed to see me only from seven till nine-
thirty p.m., always inside the confines of my home and under the supervision of
my dad’s unfailingly crabby glare.
This was an escalation from the previous, slightly less stringent
grounding that I’d earned for an unexplained three-day
disappearance and one episode of cliff diving.
Of course, I still saw Edward at school, because there
wasn’t anything Charlie could do about that.
And then, Edward spent almost
every night in my room, too,
but Charlie wasn’t precisely
aware of that. Edward’s
ability to climb easily and
silently through my second-
story window was almost as
useful as his ability to read
Charlie’s mind.
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Though the afternoon was the only time I spent away from Edward, it was
enough to make me restless, and the hours always dragged. Still, I endured my
punishment without complaining because — for one thing — I knew I’d earned
it, and — for another — because I couldn’t bear to hurt my dad by moving out
now, when a much more permanent separation hovered, invisible to Charlie, so
close on my horizon.

Analysis
TYPE OF TEXT AND TEXTUAL GENRE
This text is from the novel Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer. Eclipse was published in 2007 and it is
the third book of the saga Twilight. This saga includes: Twilight (2005), New Moon (2006), Eclipse
(2007), Breaking down (2008). Stephenie Meyer (1973) is an American author, famous for the
four vampire fantasy romanced novels.
This saga is a mixture of fantasy and romanced genres, not to mention the new treatment the
writer gives to vampire stories, this time addressed to teenagers. Fantasy genre used magic
and other supernatural phenomena to develop its stories, and it may take place in imaginary
worlds where magic and magical creatures are common. On the other hand, romanced is a
type of genre that focuses on romantic love between two people, most of the times.
Vampires, wolf men and other kind of fantastic creatures became famous thanks to movies.
Vampires were first horror figures to become in 1992 a romantic figure as well with the film
Bram Stoker’s Dracula by Francis Ford Coppola. Stephenie Meyer makes use of this germ to
create a successful saga, using the tragic and tortured undead satanic kind of character who
desperately looks and fights for pure everlasting love.

COMMUNICATIVE FUNCTIONS (PRIMARY AND SECONDARY)

Communication Functions have been mainly theorised by the linguist-literary theorists Karl
Bühler (1879-1963), Roman Jakobson (1896-1982) and Michael Halliday (1925). To develop
our analysis we will focus on the functions given by Jakobson, a pioneer of the structural
analysis of language. Roman Jakobson, influenced by Bükler previous studies known as
“Organon‑model”, developed the “Communication Functions”.
We use language with a given intention: giving orders, convincing, transmitting feelings,
sending information… According to these intentions, Jakobson developed some theories,
primary and secondary. Primary theories are referential, emotive and conative because they are
more instinctive and frequent. Secondary Theories are metalingual, phatic and poetic/aesthetic
because greater elaboration is needed.
In every text there is a sender; in this text it is Stephenie Meyer, who is telling the story of
several characters, mythological and human, who are fighting for love in their everyday lives
at high school; her intention is to catch reader’s attention by means of love and the delirium,
and to write about dark extreme topics without such as death, love, and everlasting romance.
Of course, the story is told through the eyes of different characters: a girl, not a common
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point of view in this kind of literature, a genre that has most of the times being told from a
masculine point of view. The emotive function is centred upon the sender who shows his/her
emotions throughout the text. Here we are sharing Bella Swan experience with some friends
of hers as well as her boyfriend (a vampire), and her father (a human being). The receiver is
all those people who, in this case, will read this novel. They are influenced by the message
and supposed to have a good time while reading, sharing the character’s experiences. The
success of the books has increased thanks to the film adaptations of the books. The function
that describes this process and focuses on the receiver is known as conative function. In this
text emotions and facts are expressed focusing Swan’s experiences on the passing of time
(time without her boyfriend). Afternoons (were the hardest part of my day); I glanced at the clock
routinely — something I did every few minutes around this time. Less than a half hour to go now;
so close to my horizon are examples of the expressions that are read in this short extract. There
are not many links, so the use of commas and full stops evokes in the reader subsequent
sensations of sudden and frequent stops, creating a pattern of interruptions in the train
of thoughts of the character. The use of past perfect and past simple, as a means to bring
memories back to the present moment supports this tendency to create a given pattern of
time.
A message is what is being transmitted. Its corresponding function is aesthetic/poetic, the
linguistic construction that has been chosen to produce an effect on the reader. This message
is full of allusions to myths and famous literary works seem to have been taken as a source:
apart from wolf men, vampires and other kind of creatures, we may think that the name of
the main female character, Bella Swan, has not been chosen by chance, since Bella is also the
name of the female character in the tale Beauty and the Best.
To do so we need a code, which is the organized set of units and grammar rules that, being
properly combined, produce understandable messages. As we can read in this short extract
here proposed, Meyer plays with words more than expected.
Metalingual Function is the checking of the code working. It is essential in our everyday use of
language because it is the function where language explains itself. Language speaks about
language.
There must be a channel that allows communication between sender and receiver. Phatic
Function is about all those resources that help keep an interaction; it is the medium to transmit
a message. In this case a poem-book was the channel (phatic function) chosen.
Communication is developed within a context. Referential Function is about external issues or
contextual information. The main resources of this function are the deictic elements and we
will speak about them under the title of Stilistic Resources.

STYLISTIC RESOURCES
The narrator is Bella. She is telling her problems with her dad, with Charlie and with Edward.
We share her point of view and emotions. The first five paragraphs tell some incidents that
have taken place with Charlie and the scene is focused on the present moment of Bella,
the narrator. The next four paragraphs pay special attention to her life and feelings during
afternoons, when she is not allowed to see Edward.
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We find several figures of speech in this text. There are a lot of cacophonies, use of words and
phrases that imply strong, harsh sounds within the phrase; such is the case of hung, peg, gear,
gun. In this very same example we find consonance, repetition of sounds in quick succession
produced by consonants. Alliteration is given in had, him, hung, because these words are used
in quick succession and begin with letters that belong to the same sound group.
Parallel structures are used in There had been no more disturbing disappearances to trouble
the small town of Forks, Washington, no more sightings of the giant, mysterious wolves in the
ever‑rainy woods, creating a short of melancholia. There is also a caesura in His gun belt was
already slung in place — he hadn’t felt the need to wear that to the station for a few weeks, thus
creating a fracture within the sentence, where the two parts are distinguishable from one
another yet intrinsically linked to one another. Not to mention the deictic references that cross
the text: anaphora (a forward expression refers to an earlier expression) in my glance had
reminded him he still had it on. Hadn’t feel the need to wear that to the station.
According to the mentions the author makes in the text, the reader may guess that the novel,
as this short extract, is full of anthopormorphism (act of lending a human quaity, emotion or
ambition to a non-human object or being), archetypes (which is the reference to a concept, a
person or an object that has served as a prototype of its kynd and is the original idea that has
come to be used over and over again) and even bibliomany (finds its roots in biblical origins).
Due to the topic the novel and this extract develop, references to the interpretations given to
the figure of vampire should be applied to this particular case, such as that of the fallen angel,
a must in all religions throughout the world. This non-human being creatures are given human
qualities, specially during recent times and in western culture.