The Host-More Important Themes and Understandings

So literally, since I have started  this book yet again, I have spent all my free time reading and absorbing myself in the intriguing story. Hmm in some ways this is not good though, I'm so tired, having stayed up late into the nights reading when I should be getting sleep. But thats the thing, this book is so interesting that the time flies by as I read. This time around, I'm noticing a lot of themes and symbols that I had overlooked previously. The character Jamie, Melanie's younger brother, is a symbol of youthful innocence-in the beginning he, along with Jeb is one of the only to treat Wanda as a human being instead of a 'vile parasite'. There is another dual theme that exists-that of both love and friendship and how there is no limit to the capacity and availability for both entities. By this, I mean that this entire story shows how love is transcending-Melanie conciously fights against Wanda to keep safe the two people she loves the most-Jamie and Jared. She resists Wanda's prying in her memory, trying to disuade her from helping the Seeker. The love that Melanie feels for Jared and Jamie is so powerful that it evolves into love in Wanda for the two humans. This love enables Wanda to realize her lack of companionship and belonging in the soul world and urges her to journey to a place where she believes she belongs more, the human realm which funnily enough is where her enemies and possible death lie. Also in the story, friendship is shown as having no limit in the sense that the humans of the caves, well most of them, are able to look beyond formed hatred and accept Wanda. "I had friends now. Doc, Trudy, Lily Wes, Walter, HEath. Strange humans who could overlook what I was and see something they didn't have to kill. Maybe it was just curiosity, but regardless of that, they were willing to side with me against their tight-knit family of survivors" (Meyer 273). The theme regarding the immensity and complexity of human emotion is continued as the story progresses. Wanda begins to accept the cave people's anger towards her, it no longer shocks her, she has begun to understand human emotion and oddly enough finds beauty in this functioning of the human being. "I could feel how intensely aware she was of the hand in mine. There was an emotion slowly building in her that I didn't recognize. Something on the edge of anger, with a hint of desire and a portion of despire. Jealousy, she enlightened me" (Meyer 224). This brings up Wanda's initial character-she is very observative and cautious. Whereas Melanie is adventurous and willing to take a risk, Wanda is rational and sensible in her decision to not take action and view the human world from the sidelines at times. There is an evident contrast in personality that occurrs in the single body. To go a stepfurther not only is there contrasting personalities in one body, but there is a three person love triangle occuring between only two bodies. Another idea that I noticed was that of finding one's place in the world. The soul's name is Wanderer, one that she has rightly earned after living on nine host planets, including the soul world's Origin colony. She is a typical Wanderer in the fact that she travels place to place because she does not feel the need to settle down. She is alone and feels unnattached to each planet that she has lived on, that is, until she reaches the Earth. "I was not a liar, and I dont' think I could have lied to Jamie if I was. I tried not to think about the implications of my feelings for him. Because what did it mean if the greatest love I'd ever felt in my nine lives, the first true sense of family, of maternal instinct, was for an alien life form?" (Meyer 254). Therefore, it can be said that there is an element of self-discovery in the novel-Wanda discovers that she has been incomplete and emotionally cold up until the she arrived on the Earth. This idea is universal and relates to everyday life in the fact that every individual at some point is forced to analyze themself an this analyzation leads to change an understanding.