Educating Edward and others: The issue of endless education in Meyer’s Twilight series

The issue of education within the Twilight series has received comparatively little critical attention to date, despite the importance of its high school setting in both the great romance between Bella and Edward, and the Cullen family’s repeated attendance of high school and college in order to blend in with the human population. There are other elements of education embedded throughout the series: the Cullens learning to resist the allure of human blood; Bella and Edward’s acquisition of self-knowledge via self-denial and suffering; and Bella’s learning to recognize herself as vampire. The purpose of this article is to explore these different types of education within the Twilight series, and in the first section to recognize their possibilities. The second section of the article will explore the limitations and problems presented by a seemingly endless education in Twilight. The article will address issues of education in relation to romance, identity and maturity, and whether or not the vampire characters of the Twilight series ever attain any kind of maturity.