Best of Freshman Writing

Volume 17

Table of Contents

Christopher Young 

Bradley Neighoff 

Chelsea Hafner 

Chelsea Hartzman 

Madelyn Koch 

Kristy Offenback 

Cody Bressler 

Emily Brown 

Ebony Ford 

Steve Hamel 

Daniel MacIntosh 

Chris Watts 

Matt McClure 

Kyley Mickle 

Shatisha Diggs 

Taylor Bury 

Joanna Evans 

Alyssa Gradus 

Cindy MacIntosh 

Abbey Miklitsch

Lisa Morrison

Hailey Schuchart

John Ritenour

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Copyright © 2012 The Pennsylvania State University

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Last updateded July 2, 2012.

 Chelsea Hafner
English 4
PSU – Worthington Scranton

Edward Cullen

At the tender age of sixteen, I fell in love. The man of my dreams was pale, glittered in the sun, had eyes the color of honey and was stubbornly old fashioned. His name was Edward Anthony Cullen, a fictional vampire character frozen for over a hundred years at the age of seventeen and created from a dream written by Stephanie Meyer. Twilight was the book that started my instant crush, but the movie slowly created an internal battle with my head and heart.
    When I first plunged into the freshly printed, gracefully artistic book, my world revolved around a place called Forks and a mysterious vampire. Edward Cullen was suave, stubborn and savory to my mind. He became a guy I looked forward to reading about chapter after chapter. His words written on the pages filled my heart with hope that he could become real. As I finished Twilight, I followed onto the rest of the series, but Edward was already imagined in my cerebrum—his eyes, the color of melting honey that could pierce the soul, his chiseled jaw and his perfectly copper colored bed-head hair. Edward “chivalrous” Cullen found a way into my head as I flipped through the black inked pages filled with adventure, romance and suspense. My heart fluttered spontaneously as I read about his deep chuckle and the way the corner of his lips twitched into a smirk. Book Edward was created by my imagination and fueled by my love for his charming attitude.
    As the movie descended upon theaters, my excitement was hard to keep under control. I would finally see Edward Cullen or the actor playing the guy who stole my heart. But as the credits rolled, my heart wasn’t as fulfilled as I had hoped. Of course the actor who played him had contacts to resemble melting honey but instead were more like the color of egg yolk. My mind complained that his hair wasn’t how I envisioned it, and his Volvo wasn’t what a cool hundred year old vampire should’ve been driving. The scene where Edward and Bella first meet in biology lab is poorly portrayed from the book’s descriptive pages. Quotes from the text, such as “I feel like I’ve left my whole heart with you,” that my friend and I recited daily weren’t spoken by Robert Pattinson. The actor who played Edward looked constipated and hesitant in scenes that were supposed to make me giggle and bat my eyelashes. I often wondered if I should have ever seen the movie if my love for the book was so extreme.
    I complained about the movie for months, wishing and hoping that it was all a dream and that they would take it all back and create something superb. But I was still drawn to watch the movie repeatedly, and as I did I realized Robert Pattinson’s crappy contacts and bad acting had wedged into my heart, leaving me to understand that the movie that I critiqued and complained about had won over my mind and soul. Since watching the movie I learned to fall in love with a different Edward. It is my love for Edward from both the book and the movie that made my heart still beat passionately and no matter the differences my first love to never wane.
Chelsea Hafner's essay appears here with her express written permission and cannot be reproduced in any manner or fashion without her express written permission.