Themes Of “The Da Vinci Code”
Name :- Gohil Devangiba A.
Roll No. :- 14
M.A Sem. :- 4
Paper No. : - 13 ( The New Literature )
Topic :- Themes Of “Da Vinci Code”
Email id :- devangibagohil786@gmail.com
Submitted to Department of English Maharaja
Krisnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University
Themes Of “The Da Vinci Code”
·
The False Conflict between Faith
and Knowledge :-
Dan Brown refuses to
accept the idea that faith in God is rooted in ignorance of the truth. The
ignorance that the Church has sometimes advocated is embodied in the character
of Bishop Aringarosa, who does not think the Church should be involved in
scientific investigation. According to The Da Vinci Code, the Church has
also enforced ignorance about the existence of the descendents of Jesus.
Although at one point in the novel Langdon says that perhaps the secrets of the
Grail should be preserved in order to allow people to keep their faith, he also
thinks that people who truly believe in God will be able to accept the idea
that the Bible is full of metaphors, not literal transcripts of the truth.
People’s faith, in other words, can withstand the truth.
·
The Power of Metaphor :-
Langdon hints that the secret that is uncovered
about the true form and existence of the Holy Grail might be better left
unmentioned by the forward thrust of progress. The mystery and aura surrounding
that mystery has for millennia allowed the Grail to be whatever believers make
of it. The suggestion here is that faith is stronger the farther way from facts
it remains situated. Coincident with this ideological view is an valid
explanation for why so many of those who put their faith in the Holy Bible do
so on the condition that every word is literal. When Langdon ponders over the
wisdom of introducing facts into the equation by which faith arrives at truth,
he is also calling into question whether such faith remains as strong and
steadfast if stories and events presented as historical fact in the Bible are
viewed merely as metaphor for the purpose of enlightening a larger truth. The
question boils down to whether metaphor is invested with the same power to
guide and condition faith as literal fact.
·
The Subjectivity of History :-
The Da Vinci
Code raises the question of whether history books
necessarily tell the only truth. The novel is full of reinterpretations of
commonly told stories, such as those of Jesus’ life, the pentacle, and the Da
Vinci fresco The Last Supper. Brown provides his own explanation of how
the Bible was compiled and of the missing gospels. Langdon even interprets the
Disney movie The Little Mermaid, recasting it as an attempt by Disney to
show the divine femininity that has been lost. All of these retellings are
presented as at least partly true.
·
The Intelligence of Women :-
Characters in The Da Vinci Code ignore the
power of women at their peril. Throughout the novel, Sophie is underestimated.
She is able to sneak into the Louvre and give Langdon a secret message, saving
him from arrest, because Fache does not believe her to be capable of doing her
job. Fache specifically calls Sophie a “female cryptologist” when he is
expressing his doubts about Sophie and Langdon’s ability to evade Interpol.
When interpreting one of the clues hidden in the rose box, Langdon and Teabing
leave Sophie out, completely patronizing her. When she is finally allowed to
see the clue, she immediately understands how to interpret it. Sophie saves
Langdon from arrest countless times.
Other women are similarly underestimated. Sister
Sandrine, in the Church of Saint-Sulpice, is a sentry for the Brotherhood, but
Silas, indoctrinated in the hypermasculine ways of Opus Dei, does not consider
her a threat. And Marie Chauvel, Sophie’s grandmother, manages to live without
incident near Rosslyn Chapel for years, preserving her bloodline through
Sophie’s brother.
·
The Subjectivity of Truth :-
As the thriller elements
of the narrative unfold and find Langdon and Sophie being chased around the
globe in pursuit of the elusive truth of the Holy Grail, they uncover a greater
mystery that enhances the novel’s thematic concern with truth. In light of the
controversy over the novel itself being accused of playing fast and loose with
the facts, this is one theme that managed to leap off the pages and into the
zeitgeist of the book’s ascension to the best seller heaven. The search for the
Holy Grail ultimately hangs on an increasingly troubling series of revelations
about the historical narrative of the spread of Christianity. These revelations
have the effect of challenging the faith of those who have entrusted their very
spiritual being upon commonly held convictions which the protagonist slowly
reveal to be everything from simple misconceptions to sinister fictions
engineered for the purpose of controlling the masses.
·
Feminism v. Patriarchy
Lying at the heart of the
pursuit that is the centerpiece of The DaVinci Code is the historical
oppression and persecution of women by the Catholic Church in particular and
Christianity as a whole. What begins as the latest quest for the Holy Grail
transforms into a pursuit of the Sacred Feminine as the secret history of the
Catholic Church is revealed to be one with an overarching agenda to maintain
the patriarchy and ensure continued dominion of men over women. Underlying this
thematic consideration is assertion that the religion established in the name
of Jesus Christ subverts the intention and the foundation of the beliefs of its
very founder.
The dominant theme of The
Da Vinci Code, clearly, is the urgent necessity of reclaiming a holistic
spirituality for humankind. Langdon’s reflections in Chapter 28 perhaps
state this theme most clearly: “Mother Earth had become a man’s
world, and the gods of destruction and war were taking their toll. The male ego
had spent two millennia running unchecked by its female counterpart (Ch. 28, p.
135). In the world of The Da Vinci Code, a restoration—literally, a
re-union—of the male and female principles in the human psyche will lead to a
renewal of human society—human “intercourse,” in all the senses of that word.
Another theme that runs throughout the novel, uniting characters who at first seem to have little in common, is the theme of the quest. Some quests are noble; others are not. Some questers are worthy of finding what they seek; others are not. Teabing, Bezu Fache, Collet, Rèmy, Bishop Aringarosa—all these individuals are motivated by ultimately selfish ends—sometimes masked in the ostensibly noble aims of piety or service to the truth; and granting the caveat that a few of these characters transcend such petty motivation by the end of the novel. But Langdon and Sophie remain committed, throughout, to a quest for the truth for the truth’s own sake. They believe, as the Bible states, that the truth will set people free (see John 8:32—in its scriptural context, a statement Jesus makes about himself, and therefore thematically appropriate to Brown’s novel, as well).
More specifically, of course, the novel is thematically a quest for the Holy Grail. The Grail in Brown’s book humanity’s continuing, divinely inspired quest for wholeness. As Marie explains to Langdon near the novel’s close, “It is the mystery and wonderment that serve our souls, not the Grail itself". As Teabing says at one point, humanity’s “Quest for the Holy Grail is literally the quest to kneel before the bones of Mary Magdalene. A journey to pray at the feet of the outcast one, the lost sacred feminine” in other words, to restore that element of human spirituality and psychology that has been so wrongly rejected. That quest needs its “modern troubadors” like Langdon to keep the dream of such wholeness alive. This theme in the novel seeks to inspire readers to take up that calling, as well.
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