There has been much discussion in the past few years over the portrayal of young women and their romantic entanglements in young adult fiction. Two of the most hotly contested series are the Twilight series and the Hunger Games series. Many women feel that Bella is a weak girl interested only in obtaining her happily ever after with Edward. She has no desire to go to college, have a career or become a person in her own right. She simply wants to be with Edward.
Katniss Everdeen on the other hand has fought in several ferocious battles and is very much a strong young woman. Yet she too has romantic entanglements and is torn between the classic best friend versus the kind boy who has always loved her. Many people think the author copped out by having Katniss indeed decide between the two and settle down with one of these two young men.
I am more sympathetic to the point in the Twilight series that this is perhaps an unrealistic portrayal for young women to have, that one person can fulfill all your needs and desires and that you don’t need to be a person complete in and of yourself. However I’d argue that this is an unrealistic expectation for any person, including young men. Edward sets the bar fairly high attentiveness wise.
I do think that people are overreacting a bit to the Twilight series though. There are a couple of things that bother me, the first being that all women must fit a certain mold and that if she doesn’t fit in that mold there is something wrong with her. If she isn’t strong and kickass then she is flawed in some way.
Secondly as much as we would all like a book to be life changing they very rarely are. Peer pressure will have far more to do with how young girls form their first romantic relationships. Most of the young women I know get that this is fantasy. They know perfectly well that very few men are going to attentively inquire after their thoughts and feelings and live in an angst like state in denying their feelings for the object of their desire. It is somewhat insulting that the inference is that these girls are so weak minded (Bella like?) that they cannot make up their own minds and form their own opinions as to whether this is the type of romance they would like to have.
Somewhat more puzzling for me is the vehement wish that Katniss had not “settled” for a man. I do not understand why, after all that Katniss had endured, anyone would deny her the love and company of another human being. To my way of thinking Katniss did not settle for Peeta. She instead chose to be with the one other person who as fellow survivor could understand all that she had gone through. Would the reader have preferred that Katniss live alone, becoming more and more like Haymitch as the years went by? Why can’t we have our happy endings in our fantasies or realities for that matter? Who would not want that ending?
