The Narrative Characteristics of The Da Vinci Code

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Advances in Literary Study, 2020, 8, 119-132
https://www.scirp.org/journal/als
ISSN Online: 2327-4050
ISSN Print: 2327-4034
DOI:
10.4236/als.2020.83010 May 11, 2020 119 Advances in Literary Study
The Narrative Characteristics
of The Da Vinci Code
Peng Zhao
Lecturer in British and American Literature at Zhongbei College, Nanjing Normal University, Danyang City, Jiangsu Province,
China
Abstract
The paper attempts to reveal the narrative characteristics of
The Da Vinci
Code
from the perspective of feminist narratology. Based on interpretation
of
embedded narrative, the author discovers that structure of the story is co-
vertly inscribed with male domination over female character. In analysis of
sequential communal voice, it is proved that Langdon collaborates with
Teabing to indoctrinate Sophie with patriarchal ideology, which further de-
monstrates the novel is fraught with textually marked male hegemony and
female marginalization.
Keywords
Embedded Narratives, Actantial Model, Sequential Communal Voice,
Female
Marginalization, Patriarchal Domination
1. Introduction
Dan Brown’s multi-layered fiction starts from deconstructing the traditional in-
terpretation of Leonardo’s artistic works, develops by self-reconstructing the
symbolic system of the artistic and religious world, and terminates with an inde-
finite, thought-provoking ending. The novel purports to expose an ancient con-
spiracy of Vatican and the Priory of Sion, which according to Dan Brown con-
ceals the marriage and offspring of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene. In the
critical circle of
The Da Vinci Code
, most of scholars tend to label
The Da Vinci
Code
a feminist text in post-modernistic literary context, regardless of various
perspectives and theories adopted by them. Under such academic circumstances,
the author applies the feminist narratology to analyze the narrative characteris-
tics of
The Da Vinci Code
, to justify that female character in the text is domi-
nated by male narrators, and is suppressed to be speech-absent and consigned to
How to cite this paper:
Zhao, P. (2020).
The Narrative Characteristics of
The Da
Vinci Code
.
Advances in Literary Study, 8
,
119
-132.
https://doi.org/10.4236/als.2020.83010
Received:
April 15, 2020
Accepted:
May 8, 2020
Published:
May 11, 2020
Copyright © 20
20 by author(s) and
Scientific
Research Publishing Inc.
This work is licensed under the Creative
Commons Attribution International
License (CC BY
4.0).
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Open Access

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DOI:
10.4236/als.2020.83010 120 Advances in Literary Study
an objective, marginal status in the narration. This thesis attempts to interpret
the narrative structure and voice of the novel from feminist perspective on three
levels: “story”, “narrative discourse” and “narrating”. The feminist interpretation
of the novel is not to reduce its literary value to political value but to be of great
help to further studies on this novel.
2. Brief Review of the Feminist Narratology
For some twenty years in history, feminism and narratology have entailed sepa-
rate inquiries of antithetical tendency: the one general, mimetic and political, the
other specific, semiotic and technical. Robyn Warhol illustrates some compelling
reasons in
Feminisms
:
an Anthology of Literary Theory and Criticism
as ac-
countable for their incompatibility. At first, the technical vocabulary (neology)
of narrative poetics has alienated feminist critics who maintain special political
concerns. Secondly, feminists are distrustful to the conceptual universe which is
organized into the neat paradigms of binary logic in the traditional theory. Then
“It is readily apparent that virtually no work in the field of narratology has taken
gender into account […]. This means […] the narratives which have provided
the foundation for narratology have been either men’s texts or texts treated as
men’s” (Warhol & Diane, 1991: p. 612). This indicates the cannon on which
narrative theory is grounded has been relentlessly, if not intentionally, man-
made. If the two domains converge on some common issues, a double-edged ef-
fect would be achieved. On the one hand, the introduction of gender factor and
social properties in the interpretation of narrative discourse can make up for the
deficiency of narratology in its ideological orientation. On the other hand, the
application of the techniques of narrative poetics in the exploration of feminist
writing will make the feminism more objective. In 1980s, Feminist narratology
entered the critical arena in North America as an interdisciplinary criticism that
draws on both structural narratology and feminist criticism. “Feminist narratol-
ogy shares some common grounds with traditional rhetorical narratology, such
as concerns for the intention of author’ s creation and the rhetorical effect of
narrative structure, but their distinction is quite obvious for feminist narratology
emphasizes in addition the “sexual politics” of the narrative structure” (Shen et
al., 2005: p. 276).
American scholar Susan S. Lancer is regarded as the initiator of feminist nar-
ratology on account of her research on the issue, and her
The Narrative Act
:
Point of View in Prose Fiction
published in Princeton University Press in 1981
was the first to associate the narrative forms with feminist criticism, which in-
augurated the practice of feminist narratology although the term was not for-
mally adopted in this book then. As a formalist scholar, Lancer is deeply influ-
enced by feminism, Marxism and speech act theory and she is the first to pro-
pose the theoretical framework of feminist narratology, besides some practical
analyses. Her studies were succeeded by some academic papers on feminist nar-
ratology by Brewer, Warhol and Mieke Bal, whose concerted efforts helped to

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bring feminist narratology in to bloom in 1980s. “Maria Minich Brewer is one of
precursors of feminist narratology, and he criticizes the structural narratolgy for
the overlook of social, historical context in its practice, in his article titled
A
Loosening of Tongue
:
From Narrative Economy to Women Writing
published
in 1984. He examines the narrativity of women writing and associates it with
“sexual politics” in the analysis. In 1986, Robyn R. Warhol published
Toward a
Theory of the Engaging Narrator
, in which he discusses narrative strategy from
feminist perspective. In the interim from 1980s to 1990s, there appeared two
important works on feminist narratology—one was
Gendered Intervention
:
Narrative Discourse in the Victorian Novel
by Robyn R. Warhol, the other was
Toward a Feminist Narratology
by Susan S. Lanser. The two American scholars
made further explorations on the main objective of feminist narratology, basic
standpoint and research approaches and carried out more systematic practical
criticism in these books. Since 1990s, feminist narratology has flourished for its
disputatious nature in a macro-political scope and concrete scientific studies in
the forms and structures of literary works. The conflict and fusion between the
two provide a new vision on the traditional narratology with consideration to
the social and gender significance in the narrative analysis, and the employment
of narratology in the feminist criticism enlarges the perspectives to the interpre-
tation of literary works. Their interdependence and counterpoint not only ena-
ble the structural narratology to survive but also make the feminist narratology
one of the most influential branches of postclassical narratology.
In
Toward a Feminist Narratology
, Lanser argues “feminism interprets a lite-
rary work from mimetic perspective, while narratology analyzes a literary text
from semiotic perspective. Literature is an interwoven area between the two: it is
representation of reality from mimetic perspective, and the reconstruction of
language from semiotic perspective” (Lanser, 1992: p. 613). Realizing the duality
of a narrative discourse, feminist should pay attention to the structural characte-
ristics to make more scrutinous and minute analysis of the narrative by applying
narrative theories. But some feminist scholars regard literary theory as the phal-
logocentric discourse of the patriarchy, which is to be subverted in feminist crit-
icism, thus they are likely to resist the structural narratology. To erase the skep-
ticism of some feminist to structural narratology, Warhol asserts, in
Gendered
Intervention
, narratology does not essentially entail gender bias. His argument
bases on three aspects:
1) Narratology aims to analyze the structural features of a literary work but
not to make comment on it, which does not necessary involve hierarchical
relationship typical of patriarchy; 2) Narratology is a dynamic and open
system and a diversity of literary texts are to be included into its scope to
enrich the theory, although the early theoretic framework is constructed on
the male literary texts; 3) The construction of the ‘gendered-discourse poe-
tic’ consists of two steps: narrative analysis serves as the first, and the
second step is to associate narratology with historical context to examine

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the relationship between the characteristics of literary works, and the gend-
er concept in historical context (Warhol, 1989: pp. 14-16).
The often-asserted goal of feminist criticism has been to reveal, criticize and
subvert the “patriarchal discourse”. In terms of feminism, discourse designates
that the language as semiotic system, writing techniques, thinking system, phi-
losophical system and symbolic system of literature, and discourse represents
an implicit mechanism of power-relationship, which has received a great deal
of attention by feminists. Dale Spender’s
Man Made Language
(1980), as the
title suggests, considers that “women have been fundamentally oppressed by
male-dominated language. If we accept Foucault’s argument that what is ‘true’
depends on who controls discourse, then it is apparent that men’s domination
of discourse has trapped women inside a male ‘truth’” (Selden et al., 2004: p.
128). From this point of view some feminists strive to contest men’s control of
discourse and some advocate women writers to adopt the “stronger” discourse
of men if they wish to achieve social equality with them. In narrative poetics,
discourse represents the technique level: the written words or the means by
which the content is communicated as discussed in the introduction of this
thesis. There lie obvious differences between feminism and feminist narratol-
ogy in terms of the subject matters considering the analysis of the three-level
of a narrative: story, narrative discourse, and narrating. Feminism tends to fo-
cus on the story level to reveal the distortion of female characters, the expres-
sion of female experience, female consciousness, position, identity, and the
reconstruction of female subjectivity in the process of reading. “But on the
story level feminist narratology mainly concerns the structural features and
relationship: 1) the sexual discrimination embodied in the structure of men’s
literary works; 2) the differences in structures between stories written by men
and those by women” (Shen et al., 2005: pp. 284-285). Contrary to feminism,
the focus of feminist narratology mainly dwells on narrative and narrating lev-
el for which feminist narrative poetics bridges the polemic feminism with the
systematic and scientific studies of narrative poetics, and makes the two mu-
tually reinforced.
3. The Narrative Structure of The Da Vinci Code
The Da Vinci Code
follows the traditional principles of thriller fiction by starting
with a ruthless murder and developing with suspense through the detective
process. The narrative mode of classical detective fiction provides
The Da Vinci
Code
with sophisticated clues and breathtaking suspense emerging in the
process of deciphering the mysterious, symbolic codes in the paintings of Leo-
nardo and in the anagrams of Sauniere. The renowned curator Jacques Sauniere
is interrogated by an albino monk for the whereabouts of something mysterious
his brethren possess. Sauniere lies to the albino about the hiding place of the ob-
ject that his brethren guard, only to be shot on the chest and informed of the
death of the other guardians of his brotherhood. Deceived by Sauniere, the albi-

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no monk is set on his quest of the object that Sauniere’s brethren try to protect,
as he confirms the whereabouts given by the four guardians refers to the identic-
al place. In the fifteen minutes before his drawn-out death, Sauniere tries to pass
on the secret to finish the mission with which his brethren have been entrusted
for centuries. He spends the last minutes of his life arranging his own body in
strange fashion: stripping off every shred of clothing, arms and legs sprawling
outward like Da Vinci’s The Vitruvian Man surrounded by a large circle, draw-
ing with his own blood a five-pointed star, the pentacle centered on his navel,
and writing a bizarre message with series of numbers and three lines of words.
The last line of the message goes like this: “P.S. Find Robert Langdon” (Brown,
2003: p. 74). It is the last sentence on the parquet floor of the Louvre’s Grand
Gallery that involves Sophie Neveu and Robert Langdon into the inquiry of the
symbolic world and the Holy Grail quest.
The summary made in the preceding paragraph is the first-degree narrative
because other narratives are embedded in it and it serves as the primary struc-
ture of the story. In
Narrative Discourse Revisited
, “Gerard Genette has illu-
strated the basic structure of embedded narratives with the help of a naive
drawing using stick-figure narrators and speech-bubble narratives” (Genette,
1988: p. 85). In Figure 1 below, first-degree narrative A contains a second-degree
narrative B.
If the underlying structure of the novel is generalized in a sentence, it should
be “Jacques Sauniere wants Sophie Neveu to reveal the secret”. Some critics
recommend that the generalization of the first-degree narrative be “Jacques Sau-
niere hands down a secret to Sophie Neveu”. The former designates that the se-
cret is still left to be interpreted and revealed by Sophie, while the latter means
the secret is crystal clear to her. If the primary structure of the story is genera-
lized with the second sentence, it is needless for Dan Brown to continue the sto-
ry any longer concerning the purported theme of
The Da Vinci Code
. Thus in
The Da Vinci Code
, the first-degree narrative A in Figure 1 is “Jacques Sauniere
wants Sophie Neveu to reveal the secret”, and the second-degree narrative B
should be “revealing the secret” or the “Holy Grail quest”.
The actantial grammar with its discussion on the semantics of event and role
Figure 1. Structure of embedded narrative.

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relationships in sentence and the examination of textual unfolding of action as a
pattern of practical reasoning provides a suitable springboard from which to
launch an analytical overview of the narrative structure. “Algirdas J. Greimas
points out that actants and predicates are two big classes to make up the ‘seman-
tic syntax’, and they combine with each other to form the semantic kernel or
nucleus of a textual micro-universe” (Budniakiewicz, 1992: p. 75). The actantial
grammar is an extrapolation of the syntactical structure which cast subject, verb,
and object as roles in a kind of dramatic representation. “A semantic mi-
cro-universe can only become or be defined as a meaningful whole insofar as the
underlying structure can rise into view as ‘a simple spectacle’, as an actantial
structure” (ibid 76). “An actant is a class of actors whose members have an iden-
tical relation to the aspect of telos (teleology of the fabula) which constitutes the
principle of the fabula (Russian formalist term for story), and the shared relation
is called the function” (Bal, 1985: p. 26). The most important relationship is be-
tween the actor who follows an aim and that aim itself, which may be compared
to that between subject and direct object in a sentence. The subject-actant as-
pires towards a goal or an object-actant, and the intention of the subject is in it-
self not sufficient to reach the object, so there are always positive powers to faci-
litate the achievement of the aim or negative powers to block it. The power in
many cases not a person but an abstraction: e.g. society, fate, time, human trait,
cleverness, etc. “In principle the subject and the power predominate more, or are
more active in a grammatical sense, than object and the receiver, because they
are the agent, or the (grammatical) subject, either of the function of intention/
evasion or of giving/receiving” (ibid 28).
In the first-degree narrative of
The Da Vinci Code
as generalized in the pre-
ceding paragraph, the subject actant is Jacques Sauniere who aspires to bring
about Sophie Neveu’s revealing of the secret. And the object actant is a matter or
a state Jacques Sauniere aspires to reach—Sophie Neveu’s revelation of the se-
cret. In this sense, the sender is Jacques Sauniere, and the receiver is Sophie Ne-
veu, and the primary structure of
The Da Vinci Code
is characterized as male
characters’ domination over female character. The male characters are depicted
central, active, while the female character marginal, passive.
The positive power represented by Jacques Sauniere’s intricate, symbolic
clues can facilitate Sophie’s achievement and govern the whole process of the
“Holy Grail quest”. The negative power represented by the albino monk’s in-
tervention tries every means to prevent Sophie’s “Holy Grail quest”. If these
power blocks are considered in the “sexual politics” of the narrative structure,
Sophie is further marginalized to take an objective position in the primary
structure. The positive power represented by the subject actant—Sauniere re-
mains in the background to govern and guide the Holy Guest throughout the
whole story.
A second-degree narrative is a narrative that is embedded in the first-degree
narrative. In
The Da Vinci Code
, “Sophie Neveu’s striving to reveal the secret”

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serves as one half of the second-degree narrative while the albino monk’s inter-
vention occupies the other. As a result, the second-degree narrative is made up
of a parallel narrative structure. The two parallel narratives of the second-degree
narrative are constructed in the story consecutively. The same argument is held
by Fu Hui on the construction of the second-degree narrative: Sophie’s Holy
Grail quest is the main narrative clue to promote the diachronic development of
the story and the albino monk’s intervention is the subordinate to enrich the
synchronic expansion of the story. In the second-degree narrative Sophie’s role
changes from object actant into subject actant for she causes or undergoes func-
tional events to some extent in the second-degree narrative. The last line of Sau-
niere’s message: “P. S. Find Robert Langdon” entails that Robert Langdon is to
enter the stage as a helper to Sophie in their quest of the Holy Grail in the
second-degree narrative. It is the presence of helpers and opponents that makes
a story suspenseful and readable. In the parallel narrative, the object both the
protagonists and the antagonists endeavor to get is the truth of the Holy Grail,
therefore it is important to understand the positional meaning of the object as an
intersection of relationship lying on two relational axes (see Figure 2). The
achievement of the object in the story indicates the terminal of the main dra-
matic movement of the story, the Holy Grail quest and the peak of the narrative.
The object is the site of conflict and competition between protagonist and anta-
gonist, which may serve as one instrument for generating the global unity of the
story.
The actantial model is a “staggered” system of relations that telescopes the
passage of all actantial situations into one spatial summation. Within this
passage two situations, in particular, stand out as representing the most
important meanings of the model and they both start from the decisive
culminating point, one looking backward to the initial situation and the
other forward to the final situation (Budniakiewicz, 1992: p. 217).
The construction of the second-degree narrative of
The Da Vinci Code
follows
the principle of the actantial model. The true nature or the whereabouts of the
Holy Grail takes an object actant position, an object of conflict and competition
between protagonist and antagonist. Urged by the murder of Louvre curator, the
protagonists Sophie and Langdon with the ambiguous Leigh Teabing set out to
reveal the truth of the Holy Grail; contrary to them the albino monk Silas, and
bishop Aringarosa ordered by the Teacher try every means to conceal the truth
of the Holy Grail. The parallel structure is constructed in such a way as The Pri-
ory of Sion vs. The Vatican, and Good vs. evil. In
Narratologies
edited by David
Herman, the first article entitled “Not (Yet) Knowing: Epistemological Effects of
Figure 2. Syntactic & semantic relations.

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Deferred and Suppressed Information in Narrative” is written by Emma Kafale-
nos to analyze the influence of deferred and suppressed information in narrative
discourse on the interpretation of the story. Without considering readers and
contexts, Kafalenos formulates the following narrative paradigm to describe the
common structural features of narratives:
The Initial Equilibrium [not a function]
A (or a) The Destructive Event (or Reevaluation on Certain Circumstance);
B Somebody Summoned to Solve A;
C C Actant Determined to Solve A;
C’ C The Primary Action Taken by C Actant to Solve A;
D C Actant Being Tested;
E C Actant’s Responding to the Test;
F C Actant’s Getting Authorized;
G C Actant Getting to Special Spatio-temporal Position for H;
H The Major Action Taken by C Actant to Solve A;
I (or Negation of I) H’s Success or Failure;
K Final Equilibrium (David, 1999: pp. 33-65).
In this narrative paradigm, Kafalenos adopts some concepts from other narra-
tive grammars such as “actant” of Greimas, “overall development of a narrative”
of T. Todorov, and “functions model” of Vladimir Propp. By applying Kafalenos
narrative paradigm to analyze the second-degree narrative in
The Da Vinci
Code
, the main narrative clue—Sophie and Langdon’s Holy Grail quest comes
under scrutiny in the follow paragraph to reveal the relative narrative lengths
and status of the characters:
The Initial Equilibrium [not a function]:
The reconciliation between the Priory of Sion and Vatican
A (or a) The Destructive Event: The mysterious murder of Jacques Sauniere,
the Grand Master of the Priory of Sion, who leaves a maze of cryptograms
to be decoded.
B Sophie and Langdon are summoned to solve A in a bizarre set of circums-
tances.
C C Actant (represented by Sophie and Langdon) Determined to Solve A:
They are involved into deciphering the enigma left behind by Sauniere.
C’ C The Primary Action Taken by C Actant to Solve A:
C Actant
Sophie's deciphering of the third anagram:
Madonna of the Rocks
Langdon's deciphering of the 1st & 2nd anagrams:
Leonardo da Vinci and The Mona Lisa
—obtaining the key to a deposit box in a Swiss bank.
D C Actant Being Tested: C actant is challenged to open the deposit box
transferred to them by Sauniere.
E C Actant’s Responding to the Test: They figure out Fibonacci are the ac-
count numbers and extricate the “cryptex” or the “keystone” from the

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bank.
F C Actant’s Getting Authorized:
1) Mutual recognition of each other’s status (receivers of the mission en-
trusted by Sauniere);
2) Realizing their being on a Holy Grail quest (chapter 51).
G C Actant Getting to Special Spatio-temporal Position for H:
1) Sophie & Langdon get to Chateau Villette to find Leigh Teabing, with
the help of whom they crack the first code—SOFIA of the “cryptex”.
2) C Actant (represented by Sophie, Langdon and Teabing) flies to Great
Britain the next morning.
H The Major Action Taken by C Actant to Solve A:
C Actant (represented by Langdon only) figures out the final code—
APPLIE of the “cryptex”.
I (or Negation of I) H’s Success or Failure: Langdon’s epiphany leads him to
the final resting-place of Mary Magdalene (Langdon succeeds in locating
the whereabouts of the Holy Grail).
K Final Equilibrium: The true nature of the Holy Grail and its final wherea-
bouts remain hidden to the public.
In the narrative paradigm above, the components of C Actant undergo changes
during the overall development of the story. By analyzing the narrative lengths
of each component, readers will realize Langdon goes further in the Holy Grail
quest than the other characters—Sophie, Teabing etc. Starting from the same
critical point, Sophie gradually lags behind Langdon and totally lost in the end of
revealing the whereabouts of the Holy Grail. This kind of arrangement of the
narrative indicates that female character is marginalized to obscurity in the
narrative. In the process of decoding the intricate maze of cryptograms, Langdon
outwits Sophie; therefore the male character in
The Da Vinci Code
is superior to
the female character. The structure designed by Dan Brown relegates the female
to a subordinate and inferior status compared with the males’.
The embedded narrative structure of
The Da Vinci Code
can be generalized to
great accuracy by the following “Chinese-boxes models”:
The “Chinese-boxes models” indicates both the relative lengths of the various
narratives as well as their potentially “open” status. In Figure 3, A is the
first-degree narrative, and B embedded in A is the second-degree narrative. B is
constructed on a parallel narrative structure: B2 represents albino monk’s inter-
vention, and B1 represents Sophie & Langdon’s Holy Grail quest. Furthermore, y
Figure 3. Chinese-boxes models.

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with a larger area indicates narrative directed to Langdon, but Sophie accounts
for much smaller area labeled with x. From the analysis above, it is safe to say
that the structure of the story in
The Da Vinci Code
is covertly inscribed with
sexual discrimination and male domination over the female character. The
structural arrangement is implicitly influenced by the patriarchal ideology of the
male author.
4. The Narrative Voice in The Da Vinci Code
“Voice” has been a heated topic in the feminist narratology but it has been ig-
nored in conventional narrative poetics. As a narratological term, “voice” at-
tends to the specific forms of textual practice and avoids the essentializing ten-
dency of its more casual feminist usage. As a political term, “voice” rescues tex-
tual study from formalist isolation that often treats literary events as if they were
inconsequential to human history. The concept of “voice” in feminist narratolo-
gy is adopted from classic narratology for its technical categorization of narra-
tive voices. This concept is applied in feminist narratology to reveal its social and
political indication by combining the technical studies of classic narratology
with the political and ideological concerns of feminism. Feminist narratology is
committed to discovering the historical and contextual reasons for the author’s
choice of specific narrative voice in literature. In feminist narratology, voice fo-
cuses on examining the intertwined relation between social status and textual
structure, and serves as the chief technique to express ideological orientation.
Structuralists consider the relation among narrator, narratee, and narrative ob-
ject only structural, but “Lanser regards it as the site of crisis, contradiction, or
challenge that is manifested in and sometimes resolved through ideologically
charged technical practice” (Lanser, 1992: p. 7). For feminists, the choice of an
appropriate narrator, who takes control of the right of “voicing”, has become the
signifier of achievement of women’s social status and power in the hierarchical
power system. Lanser argues, “Despite compelling interrogations of ‘voice’ as a
humanist fiction, for the collectively and personally silenced the term has be-
come a trope of identity and power: as Luce Irigaray suggests, to find a voice
(voix) is to find a way (voie)” (Lanser, 1992: p. 3).
Lanser’s originality on the subject of narrative voice is manifested in her dis-
tinction of three molds of narrative voice: authorial, personal and communal
voices in
Fictions of Authority
:
Women Writers and Narrative Voice
(1992). In
this book, Lanser explores certain configurations of textual voice in fictions by
women of Britain, France and United States, writing from the mid-eighteenth
century to mid-twentieth, and she defines that “female voice—a term used here
simply to designate the narrator’s grammatical gender—is a site of ideological
tension made visible in textual practices” (Lanser, 1992: p. 6).
In Lanser’s distinction, “authorial voice” identifies the narrative situations
that are extradiegetic, public, and potentially self-referential, and the authorial
mode is directed to a narratee who is analogous to a reading audience; “per-

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sonal voice” refers to narrators (autodiegetic or extra-homodiegetic) who are
self-consciously telling their own histories; “communal voice”, a category of
underdeveloped possibilities that has not even been named in contempo-
rary narratology, means a spectrum of practices that articulate either a col-
lective voice or a collective of voices that share narrative authority (Lanser,
1992: pp. 15-21).
To differentiate the authority of the narrators and narrating characters, Lans-
er’s distinction is to be applied in the successive parts. Dan Brown relates
The Da
Vinci Code
from omniscient points of view and he adopts a “public voice” that
suggests the narration directed toward a narratee outside the fiction. The omnis-
cient narrator is not present as a character in the story, and even outside the fic-
tion; thus the narrator of
The Da Vinci Code
is an extradiegetic narrator. In the
first-degree narrative of the novel, readers cannot discover the textual distinction
between the author and a public, heterodiegetic narrator; so it is safe for readers
to equate the narrator with the author, because “Lanser argues if the distinction
between the (implied) author and a public, heterodiegetic narrator is not tex-
tually marked, readers are invited to equate the narrator with the author and the
narratee with themselves (or their historical equivalences)” (Lanser, 1992: p. 16).
The omniscient narrator, the author Dan Brown claims the “authorial voice” in
the first-degree narrative. The second-degree narrative is also unfolded from
omniscient points of view, but the voice is shared among diverse narrating cha-
racters. The omniscient narrator attends to the synchronic and diachronic de-
velopment of the whole story, while the narrating characters focus on the diach-
ronic development of the Holy Grail quest. “Moreover, since authorial narrators
exist outside narrative time (indeed, outside fiction) and are not ‘humanized’ by
events, they conventionally carry an authority superior to that conferred on
characters, even on narrating characters” (Lanser, 1992: p. 16). As a result, the
male author, Dan Brown as an omniscient narrator in superior to those narrat-
ing characters in the novel. The salient narrative feature of the parallel narratives
in the embedded narratives is the alternation of the role of narrator and narratee
among protagonists in the process of searching for the truth of the Holy Grail.
Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon serves as the initial narrating character for
he is the first among the protagonists to emerge on the scene of the murder.
Langdon is a heterodiegetic narrator in that he is not present as a character in
the story he narrates. Langdon takes a private voice and directs his narration to-
ward the narratees who are fictional characters. The first narratee of Langdon as
a heterodiegetic narrator is Captain Bezu Fache, to whom Langdon explains the
symbolic implication of Pentacle in the pagan religion, the harmony between
male and female indicated by The Vitruvian Man exhibited by Sauniere. Lang-
don’s symbolic interpretation becomes more and more complicated as the narr-
ative develops, so that Sophie as a more adequate narratee emerges in the narra-
tive. Although Sophie is a cryptologist, she is much less sophisticated compared
with Langdon in terms of the interpretation of religious symbols. From Lang-

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10.4236/als.2020.83010 130 Advances in Literary Study
don’s narration, Sophie acquires the knowledge about the “sacred feminine”,
AMON L’ISA symbolizing union between male and female, Vatican’s conspiracy
in early Christianity, Holy Grail as Sangreal, Knight Templar, and the Priory of
Sion. Robert Langdon’s narration actualizes the indoctrination to Sophie with
the worship of the “sacred feminine” and on the symbolism of the Holy Grail,
but his narrating declines after he and Sophie manage to extricate the “cryptex”
from the Depository Bank of Zurich. Incapable of deciphering the first code to
the cryptex, they seek help from Leigh Teabing. Teabing succeeds Langdon’s role
of heterodiegetic narrator to Sophie. If Langdon acquaints Sophie with the femi-
nine symbolic indication of the Holy Grail, Teabing is the terminal narrating
character who persuades Sophie to accept the connection between The Last
Supper and Mary Magdalene, Council of Nicaea and Jesus’ divinity, royal blood-
line (Sang Real) and the Holy Grail, the womb and the holy vessel (the chalice),
Mary Magdalene and the sacred feminine, as well as the subversive interpreta-
tion of some Christian documents. In the second-degree narrative Langdon col-
laborates with Teabing to indoctrinate Sophie besides readers to accept the pa-
triarchal ideology of the male-centered community. The ideology coincides with
the three major premises on which
The Da Vinci Code
is constructed.
In communal narration, narrative authority is invested in a definable commu-
nity and textually inscribed either through multiple, mutually authorizing voice
or through the voice of a single individual who is manifestly authorized by a
community. According to Lanser’s further distinction, “a singular form in which
one narrator speaks for a collective, a simultaneous form in which a plural ‘we’
narrates, and a sequential form in which individual members of a group narrate
in turn” (Lanser, 1992: p. 21). Based on Lanser’s distinction, readers can discern
that Langdon is allied with Teabing to constitute a sequential communal voice in
the embedded narrative, which is quite contrary to Lancer’s observation, for she
argues “unlike authorial and personal voice, the communal mode seems to be
primarily a phenomenon of marginal or suppressed community; I have not ob-
served it in fiction by white, ruling-class men” (ibid 21). The sequential com-
munal voice is most obviously embodied in Chapter 56 of the novel:
Sophie stared at Teabing a long moment and then turned to Langdon. “The
Holy Grail is a person?” […] Langdon could tell they had already lost her.
[…] Teabing apparently had a similar thought. “Robert, perhaps this is the
moment for the symbologist to clarify?” He went to a nearby end table,
found a piece of paper, and laid it in front of Langdon. […] “I should add,”
Teabing chimed, “that this concept of woman as life-bringer was the foun-
dation of ancient religion.” (Brown, 2003: pp. 257-259).
Sophie’s narration is characterized by flashback and recalling of her former
personal experience with her grandfather so she is an extra-homodiegetic narra-
tor. Her narrative is trivial, tentative, hesitant and emotional, which covers a di-
versity of life details: Using Fibonacci numbers, playing Tarot cards for fun, the
Divine Proportion, PHI, cryptex, P.S. etc. Sophie adopts a personal voice to tell

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10.4236/als.2020.83010 131 Advances in Literary Study
self-consciously her own stories, but some of her recollection of the past expe-
rience is interior monologue which should be excluded in the exploration of
personal voice based on Lanser’s theory, such as recalling her experience of Hie-
ros Gamos in Chapter 32. The “authorial voice” (re)produces the structural and
functional situation of authorship. The authorial narrator claims broad powers
of knowledge and judgment, while a personal narrator claims only the validity of
one person’s right to interpret her experience. Unlike authorial and personal
voice, whose singularity corresponds to that of conventional authorship, com-
munal voice arrogates to an individual author the self-reinforcing pretense of
multiplicity. In
The Da Vinci Code
, the male narrators are privileged to take
structurally superior position and to constitute narrating community, while fe-
male character is limited to the narrow scope of her life experience. Based on the
analysis of narrative voice, the novel is characterized as textually marked men’s
hegemony over women. Female character’s voice is suppressed under the perva-
sive male voices. If the controlling of the right of “voicing” signifies the achieve-
ment of women’s social status and power in the hierarchical system, women in
The Da Vinci Code
are apparently lower, weaker than man in these respects.
5. Conclusion
The Da Vinci Code
is a story of the Holy Grail quest, or according to Dan
Brown, a story to rediscover the “sacred feminine” to revive the “Goddess Wor-
ship” and to subvert the traditional Christian culture. On account of the ac-
claimed theme of the story, some critics take it for granted that the novel is a fe-
minist text that strives to rediscover the identity of the female. To erase the am-
biguity concerning the story that purports to do justice to women, the author of
this thesis applies feminist narratology to examining the structure of the narra-
tive and the voice of female character in the novel. The novel is interpreted not
only on its political orientations but also on the narrative structure in which the
political concerns are encoded. To the disappointment of those credulous critics,
the female marginalization and patriarchal domination are pervasively embodied
in the structure of the story designed by the male author. The patriarchal domi-
nation deprives female character of the rights of “voicing” in the narrative, thus
woman in the novel is speech-absent and obscure. The male characters occupy
the subjective position and the female character is forced to take an objective po-
sition. Feminist literary critics regard literary discourse as the site of power
struggle; therefore woman in
The Da Vinci Code
loses the fight against the op-
pression of the patriarchy because her voice is suppressed by the male characters
in the process of narrating. Outside the fiction the male author claims the au-
thorial voice, and inside it the male narrating characters constitute a sequential
communal voice. The female voice is suppressed under the pervasive male’s he-
gemony over the narrative voice. Sophie is taught, in the process of being indoc-
trinated, to internalize the reigning patriarchal ideology and so she is condi-
tioned to derogate her own sex and to cooperate in her own subordination.

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10.4236/als.2020.83010 132 Advances in Literary Study
Three major premises serve as the foundation to the construction of the novel:
1) The worship of sacred feminine precedes the monotheism of early Christiani-
ty. 2) The Vatican has conspired to conceal the marriage between Jesus Christ
and Mary Magdalene. 3) The Holy Grail symbolizes the seeded womb of Mary
Magdalene, who carries the divine ancestral bloodline of Jesus Christ. The novel
purports to rediscover the “sacred feminine” to revive the “Goddess Worship”
and to subvert the traditional Christian culture. But the patriarchal domination
represented by the religious organization, the police and powerful men historical
and present, makes it inconceivable for a male author to fulfill the prescribed
theme of the novel. It is strongly recommended that further studies of
The Da
Vinci Code
should be carried out from the perspective of deconstructionism to
evoke an insightful interpretation of the multilayered story.
Conflicts of Interest
The author declares no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this pa-
per.
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