I've been thinking a lot about Jasper. I find him fascinating. Except for him telling his backstory to Bella in Eclipse, Jasper is almost never the focus of attention. He is the center of Alice's world, but no one else's.
In Twilight, Jasper seemed to exist so Alice had a mate. We understood that they were "adopted" into the Cullen family, and that Jasper was less comfortable in the "vegetarian" lifestyle than everyone else, but that was all. Even Bella's stay with him in Phoenix did little to illuminate his character; Bella herself states that he becomes distant and remote once the sojourn is over.
In New Moon, Jasper is absent for the majority of the book. However, Jasper is the catalyst for the entire story. His lack of control at Bella's party is the single act that precipitates everything that follows. If Jasper hadn't attacked her, would Edward have left? If Edward hadn't left, would he and Bella have stayed together? Jasper's loss of control was responsible, in my opinion, for the rest of the story.
In Eclipse, Jasper reveals himself to be hiding a great deal of strength and intelligence behind that quiet reserve. He manages to train vampires and werewolves together. He reveals that he is the member of the Cullen family with the most blood on his hands. He has slaughtered human and vampire alike for years with little remorse. Only the weight of hundreds of lives taken, and the example of his underling, makes him realize that the life he is leading doesn't make him happy.
In Breaking Dawn, Jasper becomes a figure of tragedy. In witnessing Bella's transformation, Jasper must realize that so much of his own behavior is a result of his own choices, not the implacable will of nature. He is absent again, for much of the novel, when Alice leaves the family, and when they return it is Alice's triumph, not his. No one misses Jasper. No one is shocked that Jasper left. It is Alice they love and miss, not him. But he does return, and when he does, we have the satisfaction of seeing how happy he is with his family.
His relationship with Alice, along with Carlisle and Esme's, is one dealt with in almost purely emotional terms. We don't get references to them being physically intimate, though I'm sure they are. What we do get from them is the idea that they love each other to the exclusion of everything else.
What do you think about Jasper?
Jasper seems to represent a constant subtext throughout the books. He represents the reality of what the vampires are - blood drinkers. He's not prominent because the story concentrates on vampires trying to hang on to and enhance their humanity, but Jasper is an essential reminder of not only what vampires such as Edward, Esme, Alice and the others really are, but what they must suffer and endure as they strive to be better than they are. In a way, I think Bella and Jasper represent opposite ends of an evolutionary tree. She finds joy in that life and is able to be a "good vampire" with a minimum of stress, while Jasper is probably closer to what would have been the truth if vampires were real - average, decent human beings trapped in a nightmare existence they can neither escape nor endure.
ReplyDeleteI had hoped that Jasper would have taken a more prominent role as perhaps a guide or advisor to Edward in Midnight Sun, but it didn't look like it was going that way to me.
ReplyDeleteTo me, Edward not have only asked Carlisle for advice on what was occuring - he'd seek more diverse opinions. And, I believe Jasper's advice would have been, not to kill Bella, but to run. To hide. To escape. Who else but Jasper would know how horrifically difficult it was to resist temptation - how it feels to fail over and over.