Isabella Marie Cullen (née Swan) is the protagonist character of the Twilight book series by Stephenie Meyer. She is initially an ordinary teenage girl, but during the series, Bella marries vampire Edward Cullen, with whom she has a human-vampire hybrid daughter, Renesmee Cullen. The Twilight series, consisting of the novels Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn, is primarily narrated from Bella's point of view. In The Twilight Saga film series, Bella is portrayed by actress Kristen Stewart.
She is the daughter of Charlie Swan and Renée Swan-Dwyer and the daughter-in-law of Edward Masen Sr. and Elizabeth Masen (Edward's deceased biological parents). Bella is the step-daughter of Phil Dwyer (Renée's second husband) and the adoptive daughter-in-law of Esme Cullen and Carlisle Cullen (Edward's second and adoptive parents). Bella is the adoptive sister-in-law of Alice Cullen and Emmett Cullen as well as Rosalie Hale and Jasper Hale, the granddaughter of Geoffrey and Helen Swan (Charlie's deceased parents) and Marie Higginbotham (Renée's deceased mother).
In Twilight, 17-year-old Bella moves to her father's home in Forks, Washington, meets the mysterious Cullen family, and falls in love with seemingly teenage Edward Cullen. However, she soon discovers that the family is a coven of vampires. Bella expresses a desire to become a vampire herself, but Edward refuses to turn her. In the second novel, New Moon, Edward and the other Cullens leave Forks in an effort to keep now-18-year-old human Bella safe from the vampire world. Jacob Black, a member of the Quileute tribe who is also a shape-shifter taking a werewolf form, comforts the distraught and severely depressed Bella. She comes to care deeply for Jacob, though less than she loves Edward. At the end of Eclipse, she becomes engaged to Edward Cullen, and they marry in Breaking Dawn, one month prior to her 19th birthday. On their honeymoon, she becomes pregnant, and, due to the peculiar nature of her baby, Bella nearly dies giving birth to their daughter, Renesmee. Edward turns Bella into a vampire to save her.
Concept and creation
The premise for both Bella and the Twilight series originated in a dream Stephenie Meyer had in which an "average girl" and a "fantastically beautiful, sparkly... vampire... were having an intense conversation in a meadow in the woods." In this dream, the pair "were discussing the difficulties inherent in the facts that... they were falling in love with each other while... the vampire was particularly attracted to the scent of her blood, and was having a difficult time restraining himself from killing her."
Meyer's original characters were unnamed; she took to calling the characters, who would later become Edward and Bella, "he" and "she" for the purpose of convenience as she "didn't want to lose the dream." Meyer explained that the name "Isabella" was decided upon because "after spending so much time with [the character], I loved her like a daughter. ... Inspired by that love, I gave her the name I was saving for my daughter,... Isabella."
Bella's positive reception at her new school in Forks, particularly her popularity with male characters, was modelled after Meyer's real life move from high school to college. Meyer has said that there are similarities between Bella and the title character of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, a novel which she has cited as an influence on the Twilight series.