Da Vinci Code
Essay title: Da Vinci Code
Themes:
1. The human world is encoded with meaning.
2. The centrality of human relationships, especially male-female relationships.
3. The power of belief, and the need to believe.
4. The influence of the past upon the present.
Plot:
While in Paris on business, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) receives an urgent late-night phone call: the elderly curator of the Louvre has been murdered inside the museum. Near the body, police have found a baffling cipher. Solving the enigmatic riddle, Langdon is stunned to discover it leads to a trail of clues hidden in the works of Da Vinci – clues visible for all to see, and yet ingeniously disguised by the painter. Langdon joins forces with a gifted French cryptologist, Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou), and learns the late curator was involved in the Priory of Sion – an actual secret society. In a breathless race through Paris, London and beyond, Langdon and Neveu match wits with a faceless powerbroker who appears to work for Opus Dei – a clandestine, Vatican-sanctioned Catholic organization believed to have long plotted to seize the Priorys secret. Unless Langdon and Neveu can decipher the labyrinthine puzzle in time, the Priorys secret – and a stunning historical truth – will be lost forever.
Characters:
Jacques Sauniиre- Though he dies in the prologue, the presence of Jacques Sauniиre, curator of the Louvre, hangs over the novel until the end. In addition to being curator, he was Grand Master of the secret society the Priory of Sion, which was dedicated to safeguarding the Grail secrets. Sauniиre gave up contact with his own wife to keep his granddaughter safe, and he raised her himself.
Robert Langdon – Professor of Religious Symbology at Harvard University. A well-respected scholar. At the beginning of the story, he is in Paris to give a lecture on his work. Having made an appointment to meet with Jacques Sauniиre, the curator of the Louvre, he is startled to find the French police at his hotel room door.
Sophie Neveu – the granddaughter of Jacques Sauniиre. She is a French government cryptographer. She was raised by her grandfather after her parents, grandmother, and brother were killed in an automobile accident when she was a girl. Her grandfather used to call her “Princesse Sophie” (French for Princess Sophie) and trained her to solve complicated word puzzles.
Bezu Fache – a captain in the DPJF, the French equivalent of the FBI. Tough, canny, persistent, he is in charge of the investigation of Sauniиres murder. From the message left by the dying curator, he is convinced the murderer is Robert Langdon, whom he summons to the Louvre in order to extract a confession. He pursues Langdon doggedly throughout the book in the belief that letting him get away would be career suicide.
Silas – an albino devotee (erroneously called a “monk”) of Opus Dei who practices severe corporal mortification. He was orphaned in Marseilles as a young man, fell into a life of crime, and was imprisoned in the Pyrenees until accidentally freed by an earthquake. He finds refuge with a young priest named Aringarosa who gives him the name Silas.
Bishop Manuel Aringarosa – the world-wide head of Opus Dei and the patron