James Character Analysis

The antagonist of the novel, James is a nomadic vampire who initially comes to the forests surrounding Forks out of curiosity about the Cullens. Aside from the vampiric physical traits that make him attractive (the chiseled facial features and pale skin), Bella describes him as physically unremarkable—he’s not particularly tall and has sandy brown hair. The only frightening thing about him are his eyes, which are burgundy (this reflects that he feeds on human blood rather than animal blood). James is what is known as a “tracker” amongst vampires, which means that he loves hunting his victims in ways that challenge and excite him. So it seems perfect to James when Edward defends Bella in the meadow—trying to get around Edward and the Cullens is an exciting challenge, and though Bella doesn’t smell as good to James as she does to Edward, she still smells unusually good to him. Laurent, a vampire who travels in James’s coven, shares that James is extremely cunning and is just as comfortable in the mortal world as the Cullens are. This allows James to successfully trick Bella into meeting him alone at a Phoenix dance studio, where he plans to kill her. There, James reveals that this isn’t his first run-in with the Cullens: in the 1920s, he set his sights on Alice, who was still human at the time. But another vampire who loved Alice turned her into a vampire to save her from James. This is one of the reasons that James is so intent on killing Bella—he wants to punish the Cullens for depriving him of Alice so many years ago. Though James does succeed in biting Bella before Emmett and Jasper destroy him, Edward is able to suck James’s venom out of Bella’s arm, saving her.