Paper:13,New Literature,Sacred Feminine with references to "The Da Vinci Code"

           

Paper: New Literature

 Topic: Sacred Feminine With reference to The Da Vinci code

 Introduction:

Since its publication, “The Da Vinci Code “has been the controversial novel. What makes this novel controversial is that Dan Brown weaves a story about a museum curator with secret life, a historian and how the church has been on a bloody rampage for several years trying to cover up the  “Truth “about Jesus and Marry Magdalene.

Along with Mary Magdalene’s untimely historical death, Dan Brown has also incorporated the concept of Sacred feminine. By deconstructing the story of Bible, he tried to show the facts of Mary Magdalene’s life and relationship with Jesus. Compared to other character Mary Magdalene’s role is shorter in Bible and she is not given enough importance, instead of giving respect to her she has been portrayed in negative sense, While in Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code “she has been playing a critical role.

Here, 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 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 of 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.

Dan Brown has shown Mary Magdalene as a symbol of the lost Goddess, but he never refutes the history of Mary Magdalene as a disciple of Jesus, making her devotee to the faith, he merely suggests that the way that church spread horrible rumors about Marry Magdalene and removing texts from the bible that portrayed her in favorable light is interestingly surprising. As Christianity took over, Opus Dei was given responsibility to hide all that evidence which were in favor of Mary Magdalene and the secret of her marriage with Jesus. As Jesus was divine life, it might have created controvrsary if his relationship with Magdalene reveals before public.So, to hide this relationship from society, follower of Christian religion started blaming Mary Magdalene. The hidden agenda behind portraying Mary Magdalene in negative sense was to undermine the appeal to Mary Magdalene as a warrant for Women’s’ leadership, and to undermine the position and power of woman.

But 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 the God but refused 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 she is able to give birth to new life bit 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 is 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 the Mary Magdalene in 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.

 To celebrate sacred feminine, he brings with the fresh idea and questions the traditional thinking of not only Christian religion but also all that religion which believes that only man can carry the bloodline of family. As he shown in the novel that Mary Magdalene was married to Jesus and they had daughter Sarah, he propounded the story by showing that Sophia Neuveu is the Grand Daughter of Mary Magdalene and Jesus. Sophia has been shown as the bloodline of Jesus, and she is having that divine spirit within her, which reader feels frequently as the story moves.

Even she has been given a symbolic name “Sophia”, which means Wisdom. In the Christian religion Sophia is honored as goddess of wisdom by the Gnostics. So, in the novel Sophia Neuveu stands for the wisdom. She has been presented as highly intellectual personality. In the very Beginning of the novel, we are shown that Jacques Sauniere is killed by Silas; Police finds a symbol of Venus on Sauniere’s body. 

To understand this symbolism, that asks Robert Langdon for help as he is a symbol gist. Here the pentacle symbolizes the equality of man and women capability. Here police find that Robert and Sauniere were supposed to meet today but before they could meet. Sauniere is killed. So Police thinks that Robert has killed Sauniere, and starts investigation against him .At this pint of time, Sophia Neuveu comes and by using her intellectual she informs Robert Langdon that he is in Grave Danger.

Sophia’s intention of saving Robert Langdon is to reach to the murderer of Sauniere as he was her Grandfather. Sauniere had told her to meet him as he wanted to reveal one secret to her. Unfortunately he is killed and the secret remain secret but Sophia with the help of Robert wants to reveal that secret. Dan Brown has shown her as strong personality with high intellectual. The way she saves Robert Landon from the police and the way she drives the car, the way she explained the Cryptex to Robert Langdon, and this all things proves that Dan Brown has in real sense shown the Female leadership through Sophie Neuveu.

The way Sophia has been portrayed in the novel proves that Dan Brown has tried r his best to prove that being worshiper of Goddesses is ultimate way to get closer to divine spirituality. Sophia is not only intellectual but also has divine power of touch. When Sophia finds that Robert has Travel Phobia, she just touched Robert’s forehead and in moment Robert feels better and relaxed. This links her with Jesus as he has also the power of touch. At this point of time we feel that woman can also carry the bloodline of family, here we find that blood line is carried from Grandmother to Granddaughter Here, Brown also makes satire on male-dominated society. He by and large suggests that society needs to change its mentality that only Man can carry the bloodline of family.

As the story moves we start feeling that Sophia is losing her strong personality, it makes the reader confuse that whether Brown has remained faithful to sacred feminine or not because in the beginning she has been portrayed as string and intellectual but how Brown has made her dependent is surprising. Even though she herself is cryptologist she asks Robert Langdon to solve the puzzle and read the cryptic language for another clue. I t seems illogical that who is cryptologist and could not solve the puzzle We as reader do not realize even that when and how the power comes in Robert and Lea teabing hands and the starts empowering Sophia by guiding her. She becomes merely puppet of Robert and Lee Teabing as the story moves further. Here, reader finds it problematic that if Brown wanted to celebrate sacred feminine than why he made Sophia dependent and treated her as innocent child or as an ignorant??

More than that I f Brown wants to show female sacredness and the power of female than he would have not chosen Robert Langdon as scholar of symbology and he could have think of female character to help Sophie. Here we found the male mentality towards woman. We do not know that why he choose male not female. It makes reader to think that how far he has remained faithful to female sacredness.

Now, if we look at the end of the novel, we again feel that Brown has remained loyal to sacred feminine, at the end when Sophia and Robert reach to the last clue they find that Holy Grail is not last supper but as a tomb of Mary Magdalene! It shows womanhood. Tomb of woman can be taken as her sacredness or if we look from virginity it is not so. It is a literally symbol of womanhood! Pagan believes in equality of man and woman but this idea is removed from Christianity.

In the novel Brown has used the symbolism of sacred marriage, Sacred marriage is not simply a literary device used by Brown. It is a historical rite found in Goddess lore and witchcraft. Sacred marriage, or herios gamos, is a central tenet of the sacred feminine as it relates to the Goddess. And Union with the goddess was of paramount importance for rule on earth. The sacred marriage rites between the Goddess and the Sumerian king were to secure the fertility of the land and to legitimize the king’s rule. According to Brown,

“The once hallowed act of Herios Gamos – the natural sexual union between man and woman through which each became spiritually whole – had been recast as a shameful act.”

Brown goes on to underscore his point by commenting further, “It (Herios Gamos) was a spiritual act. Historically, intercourse was the act through which male and female experienced God. The ancients believed that the male was spiritually incomplete until he had carnal knowledge of the sacred feminine. Physical union with the female remained the sole means through which man could become spiritually complete and ultimately achieve gnosis – knowledge of the divine.” Langdon, one of the central characters of Brown’s novel, concluded his thought by adding, “man could achieve a climatic instant when his mind went totally blank and he could see God.”

But as Christianity took over, follower of it started considering it as sinful act, they tried to project the mentality that women’s ability of give birth and this act of giving birth is something impure and unclean, the hidden agenda behind projecting this idea was to establish the patriarchy in the society. But as we awaken from the repressions of the patriarchy we need to reclaim the sacred feminine both for our individual spirituality and for the well being of the planet. Our ecological devastation points to a culture that has forgotten the sacredness of the earth and the divine mother, as well as denied the feminine's deep understanding of the wholeness and interconnectedness of all of life.

So what does it mean to reclaim the sacred feminine? How can we feel it in our bodies and in our daily life? Every woman knows this mystery in the cycles of her body, which are linked to the greater rhythms of life, the cycles of the moon. And she feels it in a calling to reconnect with the power and wisdom she carries within her, a deep knowing that is not found in books but belongs to her very nature. The feminine carries a natural understanding of the interconnectedness of life, how all the parts belong together. She instinctively knows how to respond to the needs of her children, how she feels for their well being even when they are not physically present. And in her body she carries the greatest mystery, the potential to give birth: to bring the light of a soul into this world.

It’s not in Christian religion only that women’s act of giving birth is considered as an unclean or something impure, even in Hindu religion this act is considered as the same. Today even, when any woman in gives the birth to new life, for few days she has been treated as impure woman. Family members keep distance from her. In other religion women is not allowed to enter in some particular era of temple and denied to go in front of the priest of that religion. Why women is consider as impure or evil when she is the only who is capable of creating new life, why her divine ability is considered as something unclean and ugly. How these men forget that their origin lies in the woman? How this male dominated society ignored women because of whom the whole universe is still exists.

What we do not realize is that this patriarchal denial affects not only every woman, but also life itself. When we deny the divine mystery of the feminine we also deny something fundamental to life. We separate life from its sacred core, from the matrix that nourishes all of creation. We cut our world off from the source that alone can heal, nourish, and transform it. The same sacred source that gave birth to each of us is needed to give meaning to our life, to nourish it with what is real, and return us to a relationship with the wholeness of life.

Conclusion:

Of course men also have a need to relate to the sacred feminine, to be nourished by her inner and outer presence. Without the sacred feminine nothing new can be born. We all need to reclaim the living power and trans formative potential of the sacred feminine, to feel her connection to the soul and the earth. Only through working together with the sacred 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.