Feminist study of Dan brown novel " The Da Vinci code"
Name :- Hitixa Goswami
Class :- M. A. Sem 4
Roll No :- 9
Beach :- 2019-21
Enrollment No :- 2069108420200013
Subject :- The new literature
Assignment Topic :- feministic study of " The Da Vinci code"
Email :- hitixagoswami28@gamil
Submitted to :- S.B.GARDI Department of English Bhavnagar University
Word :- 1997
Feminist study of Dan brown novel " The Da Vinci code"
Introduction :- The Da Vinci Code is a 2003 mystery thriller novel by Dan Brown. It follows "symbologist" Robert Langdon and cryptologist Sophie Neveu after a murder in the Louvre Museum in Paris causes them to become involved in a battle between the Priory of Sion and Opus Dei over the possibility of Jesus Christ having been a companion to Mary Magdalene.
Public memory plays a vital role to construct, Deconstruct and reconstruct the memory. The needs and interests of a particular community dictate narrative frameworks that structure memory-making into the collective memories that define that community, such as the Church. Exposing how representations of historical women like Magdalene are constructed and maintained in public memory offers a rich site of inquiry. Furthermore, drawing on Michel Foucault's (1969) theories about the power/knowledge relationship, powerful people created the memory of Magdalene as a prostitute. Magdalene as an historical and biblical figure has captured the imagination of people throughout history, from New Testament Gospels and Gnostic sources to Christian storytellers, medieval legends, and popular culture.
Dan Brown’s intention is to celebrate the sacred feminine, which is lost in the course of time. From the very beginning of the novel he tried to remain faithful to his intention by saying that,
And finally, in a novel drawing so heavily on the sacred feminine, I would be remiss if I did not mention the two extraordinary women who have touched my life. First, my mother, Connie Brown—fellow scribe, nurturer, musician, and role model. And my wife, Blythe—art historian, I painter, front-line editor, and without a doubt the most astonishingly talented woman I have ever known.
In the novels, Dan Brown challenges the Christian ideas of feminine, by favoring the pagan ideas. Before the Christianity, people believed in paganism. Pagan religion believed in both gender, it emphasized equality of both gender and sometimes revered feminine leadership and divinity too. Followers of pagan religion believed in worshiping Goddesses. But as Christianity took over, as a part of the Vatican’s campaign to eradicate pagan religions and convert the masses to Christianity, the church launched a smear campaign against the pagan gods and goddesses, recasting their divine symbols as evil. This unfair and perverse treatment of divinity is strikingly similar to the way that the Church also removed any instance of female power or divinity in the predominantly male faith.
The central argument in Brown's plot is the claim that Jesus and Magdalene were married. Pregnant at the Crucifixion, Magdalene later escaped to France, known then as Gaul, in order to bear his child. Thus, Mary Magdalene is Holy Grail because she carried the royal bloodline. According to Brown's thesis, the Catholic Church has spent the last 2,000 years trying to cover up these facts in order to diminish the role of women in the early Church "the lost sacred feminine" and to deny that the bloodline still exists in France today. Brown tried to prove that Jesus was Divine as well as human being. Brown also obliterates one of the most prominent images of Magdalene in public memory, that of the repentant whore. As one character says in the 2006 movie version of the novel, "What if the world discovers that the greatest story ever told is actually a lie?"
Brown paints the new and pure image of Mary Magdalene. That generates debate and discussion among the readers. However the book is labeled as ‘Fiction’ but he included real characters and events. it raised the question about history itself, as Brown himself said : “How historically accurate is history itself?”
Dan Brown has challenged the Christian ideas of feminism by fevering Pagan ideas. Before Christianity there was the existence of ‘Paganism’. Followers of paganism believed in equality thus they worshiped both God and Goddesses. Sometimes they revered feminine leadership too. Therefore Brown attempted to restore that ‘Sacred Feminism’ in his novel. Dan Brown gave the example to prove feminine leadership;
Dan Brown to show feminine sacredness, comes with evidence that Mary Magdalene was married to Jesus and she was the favorite disciple of Jesus, Brown quotes from the Gospel of Phillip,
“……and the companion of the savior is Mary Magdalene. Christ loved her more than all the disciples and used to kiss her often on her mouth. The rest of the disciples were offended by it and expressed disapproval. They said him, ‘why do you love her more that all of us?”’
Here, he shows that Jesus was more closer to Mary Magdalene and he wanted her to be the leader of Church, but as follower started feeling that if women will be on power position they will lose their power and dignity, and to protect their own power and dignity, they started blaming women that women are impure and lower to man. They worship God but refuse to worship the goddesses.
So until now women have been seen as pure, divine and sacred but as Christianity came into existence, it challenged the sacredness of feminine. Before it, women have been praised as being able to give birth to new life with the Christianity, idea of sacredness questioned and they started believing it’s not woman but man who is divine and able to create new life. Now women are treated as second or lower to man, her ability to create new life is not considered as something divine but as something impure and unclean.
In the novel Dan Brown celebrates the sacred feminine. His main intention of the novel is to bring the lost sacredness of feminine back. And for that he shows Mary Magdalene in a positive way, he proves that Mary was one of the pure disciples of Jesus. She was married to Jesus and then they traveled to France. They had their girl child Sarah too.
In the movie “The Da Vinci Code”, when Sir Leigh Teabing and Robert Langdon were talking about history of the paganism and the mysteries about the Holy Grail, Robert Langdon speaks these lines during the talk: “Sex begot new life – the ultimate miracle and miracles could be performed by a God. Those women who were thinking freely and having some intelligence in comparison to males it was hardly impossible to explain the truth. Religious people have killed many women in this wrong belief because they were not ready to give rights to speak to women and they marginalized them. Voice of women became mute or unknowingly unheard to religiosity.
The Neo Pagan groups have referred to the feminine sacredness as well as female worship in their religion. In the new literature we can say that there are debates regarding feministic reading of the text and a narrowed way of looking at the new literature. Here Dan Brown focuses on feminine sacredness and also gives hints about the past wars about Paganism and Christianity. Generally religion, science, super power or super naturalism of humans has many issues and it can be presented with the help of fictional or imaginational characters. Thus Dan Brown indirectly has emphasized on the present days issues regarding religion and position of females and its importance in the society.
Brown is trying to prove that Mary Magdalene was the favorite of all the disciples. What Brown is trying to prove is obviously very profound, and his use of ancient texts makes his argument very convincing. There are other things that he says about Mary Magdalene, “the Priory of Scion, to this day, still worships Mary Magdalene as the Goddess, the Holy Grail, The Rose and the Divine Mother ''. Brown also writes that Mary Magdalene traveled to France after Jesus Christ’s resurrection and bore his child, Sarah.
Christianity spreads rumors that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute. But Brown proves that Mary was not a prostitute; her family was very healthy so there was no need to be a prostitute for her. InThe Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown commonly attributes Mary Magdalene to be a symbol of the lost goddess tradition before Christianity took over. Although Brown never refutes the history of Mary Magdalene as a disciple of Jesus, making her a devotee to the faith, he merely suggests that the way that the Church spread horrible rumors about Mary Magdalene and removing texts from the Bible that portrayed her in a favorable light is interestingly similar to how the Church eradicated the Pagan tradition which incorporated both genders into its worship and emphasized the equality of both and sometimes revered feminine leadership and divinity. Because of this analogy, Brown ties the two ideas together, suggesting that Mary Magdalene was intended to be the founder of Jesus’ church instead of Peter, placing the Church as a potentially female-led institution, much like ancient Paganism.
To undermine the appeal to Mary of Magdala as a warrant for women’s leadership. So it is clear to see that Mary Magdalene’s role was deliberately downplayed and cast in a negative light for the purpose of eradicating any female leadership in the male Christian Church. Since the find at Nag Hammadi, the Gnostic Gospels have revealed that Mary Magdalene was intended to be the leader of the Christian movement, and suddenly people are faced with “one tradition where Peter plays a role of tremendous significance and Mary is on the margins, while in another tradition, Mary is the significant figure and Peter is the suspect”. It is the tradition that emphasizes Peter also known as orthodox Christianity, which people are most accustomed today. It is unfortunate that Mary Magdalene’s reputation suffered so greatly over so many centuries. Although having Mary Magdalene as a part of fictional and non-fictional literature is not relatively new.
Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code most certainly shows how Mary Magdalene’s role in the Bible was deliberately downplayed and cast in a negative light by limiting the mention of her name in the Biblical Canon as opposed to the exclusivity that she plays in the Gnostic Gospels. Brown also uses the written history of Mary Magdalene to represent the feminine leadership that was lost after Christianity took over the masses by showing how the Gnostic and Coptic texts hold Mary Magdalene in a high regard compared to the orthodox texts. Mary Magdalene has not been completely exonerated of the accusations that she has weathered throughout the ages, though on a large scale, many people have set the rumor to rest in their hearts and minds, and have accepted Mary Magdalene as “apostle to the apostles.
Conclusion :- Feministic reading of the text “The Da Vinci Code””, that Mary Magdalene and Sophie Neveau are the real feministic heroes. We know that we have a need to relate to the feminine, to be nourished by her inner and outer presence. Without the feminine nothing new can be born. We all need to reclaim the living power and trans formative potential of the feminine, to feel her connection to the soul and the earth. Only through working together with the feminine can we heal and transform the world. And this means to honor her presence within our bodies and our soul, in the ground we walk on and the air we breathe.
Work cited
A.Reyes, Crysti. "Mary Magdalene and The Da Vinci Code: How Brown interprets feminine Leadership in Religion." (n.d.).
Giannini, John. "The Sacred Secret: The Real Mystery in The Da Vinci Code." Jung Journal: Culture & Psych 2 (2008): 63-84 .
Kennedy, Tammie M. "Mary Magdalene and the Politics of Public Memory: Interrogating "The Da Vinci Code"." Feminist Formations 24 (n.d.): 120-139.
Brown, Dan. The Da Vinci Code: A Novel. New York: Doubleday, 2003. Print.
Brown, Dan, 1964-. The Da Vinci Code : a Novel. New York :Random House Audio, 2003
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