Abstract Twilight is a series of five vampire-themed gothic novels by American female writer Stephenie Meyer. It describes the story of a teenage girl Bella Swan, who moves to Forks, and then falls in love with a vampire. The author uses horrific scenes, supernatural abilities and many other unique factors of female gothic fictions to show Bella’s braveness and courage. Now, gothic literature becomes more and more acceptable to people. As the representative works of female gothic novels, Twilight series are highly praised for its rational treatment of sexuality and morality. The story is unique and entertaining, so it has attracted a lot of people to read it. In recent years, Twilight series have been adapted to films and brought great commercial benefits. According to the survey, we can find that female gothic has developed rapidly and become a main-stream literature. The study of female gothic works is also meaningful to oppressed women in modern society. Bella’s rebellion consciousness tells us that women should learn to protect themselves. The current study aims to open up a window for those who are concerned about female gothic, and stimulate people to make a further study on Twilight.53814

Keywords: female gothic; Twilight; Bella

摘要《暮光之城》是由美国女作家斯蒂芬妮梅尔所写的以吸血鬼为主题的五部哥特系列小说。它描述了一个搬家到福克斯的十几岁的女孩贝拉和一个吸血鬼相爱的故事。作者运用了恐怖场景超能力以及其他许多女性哥特小说特有的因素来表现贝拉的勇敢和勇气。现在，哥特式文学变得越来越让人接受。作为女性哥特小说的代表，由于其理性地处理了性与道德方面的问题《暮光之城》被高度称赞。这个故事独特而有趣，因此吸引了越来越多的人来阅读。近几年，《暮光之城》系列小说已经被改编成电影，并且带来了巨大的商业利益。通过研究我们发现女性哥特已经飞速发展，并成为了一种主流文学体裁。女性哥特作品的研究对当代受压迫的女性同样是有意义的。贝拉的反抗告诉我们女性要开始学会保护自己。作者希望当前的研究能够为关注女性哥特的人打开一扇窗户，并且激励他们对《暮光之城》做更进一步的研究。

毕业论文关键词：女性哥特；暮光之城；贝拉

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 1

2.1 Development of gothic theory 1

2.2 Development of female gothic theory 3

3. Female Gothic Embodied in Twilight 4

3.1 Female gothic embodied in Bella 5

3.2 Female gothic embodied in environment and supernatural elements 6

3.3 Differences between female gothic in the novel and traditional female gothic 7

4. Contribution to Gothic Literature 8

4.1 Weakening of the horrible atmosphere 9

4.2 Contribution of its adaption 10

5. Conclusion 11

Works Cited 12

1. Introduction 

Stephanie Meyer is an American young fiction writer and film producer, best known for her vampire romance series Twilight. The series includes five parts, Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, Breaking Dawn, and Midnight Sun. Twilight has been translated into different languages and gained recognition worldwide. Meyer was the best selling writer in 2008 in America, and her masterpiece Twilight was the best-selling book in 2008 in US bookstores and has sold over 100 million copies. “Meyer was one of the most worldwide influential figures in May 2008 and one of the most promising new authors of 2005"(Xu Zhenglin, 2007:126). Meyer ranked No. 49 on Times magazine's list of the "100 Most Influential People in 2008".and ranked No. 26 in the Forbes Celebrity 100 list of the world's most powerful celebrities in 2009.