Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code: Rethinking History, Symbols, and Mythology
Khadiza Akhter buuni.academia.edu
In The Da Vinci Code Dan Brown merges the theory of &#39;the sacred feminine&#39; and the Holy Grail to create a hybrid narrative against the homogenized version approved by the Roman Catholic Church. As stratagems for his narrative, he reinterprets
Myth can often be seen to supply a response to the yearning of the world, and the legend of the Holy Grail is no exception. The latest version of the quest, Dan Brown’s novel The Da Vinci Code, reveals the two sides of the coin that make a mythic symbol mysterious, unattainable, and yet so tantalisingly real. On the one hand, the goal must inspire us to reach beyond the everyday world toward a greater reality, where mystical qualities and moral certitude rest alongside abundance and healing. On the other, this very ‘sacred space’ cannot actually be realised in material terms, as the very nature of the mythic realm impels the goal to be continuously shifted beyond the grasp of we ordinary mortals. Sadly for readers whose interest may have been piqued by the plot of Brown’s telling of the age-old romance, this quest stumbles over itself in an attempt to over-subscribe to its facet as material fact, and is thereby dissolved of any real power in its other aspect, that of inspiration. For Brown’s premise, tying as it does the idea of the Grail to the specific historic moment of Mary Magdalene’s relationship with Jesus Christ, ultimately empties the quest of any real hope at all. Unless, that is, we are actually willing to believe not only that they shared wedlock and a child, but that their descendents may offer some kind of political challenge to an oppressively patriarchal religious regime on our behalf.

Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code(2003) –henceforth DVC-has acquired a matchless reputation and it has been privileged with incomparable studies which have reached the utmost scope of controversy since it was supposed to rock the foundations of Christianity because of Jesus Christ's marriage and to none other Mary Magdalene (1) , the uprightness of the Holy Bible, and the deity of Jesus, which, the three topics, lie behind Jesus Christ's and Mary Magdalene's marriage. Such a controversy has led the researcher to investigate a number of expert historians' and documentary studies to shed light on the backbone of the present study: Did Brown break or repair taboos in his novel? Or, let us ask, what is his real purpose as regards the above three tabooed topics? The researcher has intended to analyze a number of extracts taken from the novel focusing on those related to the deity/humanity of Jesus and His alleged marriage to Magdalene. The analysis will be based upon the information, which is, as Brown claims, taken from pieces of "fact-based historical and scientific evidence ". These pieces are related to the sexuality of Christ and the assertions of His marriage to Magdalene. Thus, the study aims at answering the question whether Brown broke or repaired the three tabooed topics mentioned above. To answer these questions, the researcher has analyzed his, Brown's, pieces of evidence which he claims are "accurate, true and well-researched" for they are completely taken from actual documents and sources. The analysis will be linguistic-religious. It aims to ascertain whether this evidence is accurate or erroneous, and subsequently, to judge whether Brown had broken or repaired the taboos in his novel.

One of the more controversial films of 2006 was the highly anticipated The Da Vinci Code, based on Dan Brown’s best-selling novel. Most criticism focused on the historical and religious problems in both the novel and subsequent film, leading some to claim that the storyline represented a type of radical feminism in its presumed secret marriage between Jesus and Mary Magdalene that led to “the greatest cover-up in history,” and ultimately the suppression of "the divine feminine" in the Catholic Church. Using insights derived from feminist theology and myth, this study examines this claim through a close analysis of both novel and film, focusing both on the mythic narrative and individual characters. It concludes that The Da Vinci Code does not present a feminist mythic narrative, but instead presents another version of the heroic quest myth that functions to reaffirm masculine power, under the guise of a faux feminism. Ultimately both novel and film fail to develop a truly transformative rhetoric but instead reinforce traditional beliefs about gender in the culture