To start with, I see Esme quite differently from the way this fandom appears to see her, yet also quite differently from the way Meyer intended for me to see her.
I think we all on this website have noticed that fandom has morphed Esme into a very different character than the one we met in the books.
Now, some people take this further than others, and it’s gotten to a point where I can’t tell if fandom believes this new and shinier Esme is canon, or if they know she isn’t canon but don’t care. Either way, the common denominator to all variations of fanon Esme is that this fandom is sick of the way Stephenie Meyer writes women, and see Esme as the worst affected by all. And fanon Esme is a vindication, one where Esme is an assertive, intelligent, feminist woman with a fantastic sex life and an impressive career. The ideal American woman of the 21st century.
And to each their own - if this makes people happy, then by all means. This meta is my personal opinion on her, though, and since fanon Esme has gained such a strong foothold in fandom I would be amiss not to bring her up.
Another thing I’d be amiss not to bring up is movie Esme. The Esme portrayed in the movies is, like so many of the characters, a different person than the one in the books. She is charming, warm, appears to have no difficulty controlling herself, and off the top of my head I can think of one time where she’s given what was originally Carlisle’s moment. I’m talking about sparing Bree - in the books this is something only Carlisle would do, something that has the others going, “jeez, Carlisle, only you”. In the film, this is a decision he and Esme make as a couple. This changes both their characters.
So, these versions of Esme exist, and they’re good characters, but they’re not the Esme I see in the books.
What we meet in canon is a woman who contents herself with being a 50’s housewife. No one in the house eats, she still knows how to cook. Making beautiful homes and keeping them beautiful is not just her passion, it appears to be all she wants to do. Now, humans can be housewives, and that’s a choice I respect very much, but Esme is a vampire, living in a vampire coven. The Cullens have zero need for a housewives. And she doesn’t do other things, either. There is only the creation of homes and being a mother.
And so Esme floats through eternity, embodying the Mother archetype, going through all the motions mothers do with no deeper meaning to any of it.
I don’t know if anyone here has read Coraline, but in that book we meet the Other Mother. Other Mother always has time for Coraline, she makes all the delicious food Coraline could ever want, and loves her very much. The cat tells us that this may be, Other Mother may love Coraline, but it could also just be she wants to eat her. And since Bella does end up sowing buttons into her eyes, I can’t shake the association.
I think the Esme Platt who ran away to fend for herself and her child, who got a job and struggled to be independent, died with her child. This was her last tie to hope, to this world, and with his death she gave up on life in a way nothing could meaningfully recall.
She then wakes up as a vampire, beautiful (I’m guessing here, but one of the most common things men like to insult women is by demeaning our appearance. An abusive husband, living with Esme in a time where a woman’s appearance decided her worth even more than it does today, would definitely use this against her. Not to mention, it is a cornerstone in female socialization that we’re taught to value our looks. Becoming inhumanly beautiful would boost anybody’s spirits and install confidence, and I doubt Esme was an exception), stronger and faster than any human man, invulnerable, powerful in a way she never dreamed she could be.
The man she idolized since she was a child, who was supposed to be an unattainable dream, is there, and even more wonderful than she remembered. He’s the one who saved her, and within the year he becomes her husband.
(This by itself is too fantastical, too storybook ending, and I imagine snapped whatever remaining strings Esme still had tethering her to sanity. Any newborn vampire would find themselves in a surreal new state of being, but this is a step further. There’s getting to have it all, and then there’s... well, then there’s this.)
Then there is Edward. Days after she lost her son, she’s presented with a young man who lost his mother.
(And this might be a post of its own, but: we never see Esme be a mother to any of the other Cullens, and I don’t think she is. It’s just Edward. And she loves him all the more for it. She wouldn’t blink at Bella dying if Edward decided his thirst weighed heavier than his fascination with the human. This is canon - they have a conversation about this, and Esme make her stance clear. She puts Edward above absolutely everything else in this world.)
What I’m getting at here, is that Esme was handed perfection on a silver platter. All the things she’d lost, all the things she’d lacked, things that had been taken from her in the cruelest manner possible, were now given to her, in perfect condition at that. Esme will never have to worry about things like money, sickness, aging, or even Edward growing up and leaving the nest. (And even when he does get married and have a baby, he still doesn’t leave the nest!)
Esme was given the ultimate do-over with vampirism, and she spends it being what she never got to be in life. (And I’ll link this post, because Bella’s in the same situation, if less extreme, and they’re both in for a rude awakening. And I don’t think Esme will cope at all.)
To Esme, vampirism is startlingly similar to the afterlife. It’s her tailored paradise, eternal and perfect. There’s the fact that every so often she slips up and eats people, but that only adds to the eeriness of it all.
Esme Cullen is more a ghost story than a vampire to me, haunting whichever house the Cullens inhabit under the guise of being a homebody.
(As for the her supposed sex life with Carlisle - Meyer said they have a spiritual relationship. That’s hilarious, and code for they’re not having sex.)
