Name :Hetalba C Gohil
Paper : 401 New Literature
Sem :4 M.A:
2
Topic : Themes ,Motif
and Symbol in The Da Vinci Code
Submitted to:
Dr, Dilip Barad,
M.K. B. Universty
The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown is a rather unique
book. It doesn’t just have one theme; it has many different unique themes and
motifs, which are shown in different ways. He demonstrates the conflict between
faith and science, as well as the subjectivity of history. The Da Vinci Code
is a perfect example of how the themes in a piece of work don’t necessarily
have to be meaningless; we can learn significant life lessons from anywhere.
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
“Faith - acceptance of which we imagine to be true, that which we
cannot prove.”
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. Dan Brown also shows how the church refuses to believe the existence of
Jesus’s descendants, and works to rid the world of such evidence by trying to
find and destroy the Holy Grail. Through these different stories within the
novel Dan Brown shows us a different side of religion and faith:
“Every faith in the world is based on fabrication...
Every religion describes God through metaphor, allegory, and exaggeration, from
the early Egyptians through modern Sunday school... Should we wave a
flag and tell the Buddhists that we have proof the Buddha did not come
from a lotus blossom? Or that Jesus was not born of a literal virgin birth?
Those who truly understand their faiths understand the stories are
metaphorical.” (Pg. 341-342).
This novel is a perfect way of showing that each
religion is based on an event that may not be quite true, but people who are
really getting something out of their religion are the ones that understand
that their religion could be based on a metaphor or a fabrication.
The Subjectivity of History
“History is always written by the winners. When two cultures clash,
the loser is obliterated, and the winner writes the history books-books which
glorify their own cause and disparage the conquered foe. As Napoleon once said,
what is history, but a fable agreed upon?” (Pg. 256).
The Da Vinci Code raises the question of whether
history books necessarily tell the only truth. Dan Brown has incorporated
commonly told stories about the past, but has shown modern interpretations of
them, that point out small details which lead us to question the version we
have always heard. For example, the fresco: The Last Supper; most people have
heard that it is a painting of 13 men, and at the end of the supper they all
drink out of one glass, the chalice. But, in the story we learn that there is
actually one woman in the picture, Mary Magdalene, and that each person has one
wine glass. These small details actually mean a lot, and cause us to question
other things, such as the pentacle, and Jesus’s life. 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. This
novel is just trying to show us how history is just a one sided account, and that
we should never fully believe a story, how we should always be looking at it
from another side as well, and that we should be constantly trying to interpret
the stories we have always heard.
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.
Motifs
Ancient and
Foreign Languages
Many of the secrets that lie below the surface of the
narrative are concealed from would-be interpreters only by language. Saunière
leaves anagrams for Sophie to decipher. Langdon and Teabing use the Hebrew
alphabet to figure out a clue. Sophie helps Langdon and Teabing use a mirror to
read the backward writing that Da Vinci favored. In The Da Vinci Code,
language reminds us that secrets exist everywhere and sometimes need just a
little interpretation.
Art
Brown uses descriptions of works of fine art to prove that
art can tell stories that history tends to obscure. These works of art include
Da Vinci’s Last Supper, Madonna of the Rocks, and Mona Lisa,
which hide symbols of goddess worship and the story of the Magdalene; the
Church of Saint-Sulpice, which still contains an obelisk, a sign of pagan
worship; and tarot cards, which hide themes of pagan mythology. These art
objects are constantly viewed by people who see them without seeing their hidden
meanings.
Symbols
Red Hair
Sophie Neveu’s red hair, mentioned at the beginning of the
text, foreshadows her divine blood. When Langdon first sees Sophie, he calls
her hair “burgundy” and thinks that her attractiveness lies in her confidence
and health. He compares her favorably to the blonde girls at Harvard over whom
his students lust. Later, at Teabing’s chateau, Teabing shows Sophie that Mary
Magdalene is depicted with red hair in The Last Supper. Langdon also
thinks the mermaid Ariel’s red hair in The Little Mermaid is evidence
that Disney intended his movie to be an allegory of the story of Magdalene. By
the end of the novel, when Sophie’s brother gives a tour of the Rosslyn Chapel
and his hair is described as “strawberry blonde,” we understand that Sophie and
her brother are of Mary Magdalene’s bloodline.
Blood
Blood stands for truth and enlightenment in The Da
Vinci Code. Saunière draws a pentacle—for him, a symbol of the Church’s
intention to cover up the true history of the world—on his stomach in his own
blood. Sophie realizes that her grandfather has left a message for her on
the Mona Lisa because a drop of his blood remains on the floor.
Teabing spies a trickle of blood on Silas’s leg, which he takes to mean that
Silas has a cilice, a barbed punishment belt, on his thigh, and disables him by
hitting him there. Silas himself had thought of blood as truth in a different
way—for Silas, blood means cleansing of impurities. And at the very end of the
novel, the discovery of the blood of Mary Magdalene running through Sophie and
her brother’s veins proves that the story of the Grail is true.
Cell Phones
In a novel that spends a great deal of time interpreting
ancient symbols like the pentacle, the chalice, and the rose, the cell phone
might seem like an incongruous modern interloper. But the cell phone symbolizes
the fact that in the modern world, secrets are both harder and easier to keep.
Teabing conceals his identity as the Teacher by using cell phones to
communicate with his unknowing allies. In one instance, he even speaks to Silas
from the back of the limousine while Silas is in the front, concealing his
identity while only feet away. At the same time, however, the characters are
often worried about their cell phone use being traced. Fache, for example, at
one point figures out that Sophie has tipped Langdon off by looking up her
phone number, which is stored in his cell phone, and finding that it matches
the number Sophie gave Langdon as the American Embassy’s number.
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