Book Summary: The Da Vinci Code
Linda Venter
Grade 12 A
18 May 2015
The Da Vinci Code
Dan Brown
593 Pages
Corgi Books
Plot Summary
The story of The Da Vinci Code begins at the Louvre, set in modern day France, where the museum curator Jacques Saunière is persued by an albino monk named Silas. He ends up being fatally shot, but not before he manages to pose his own body to mimic that of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Vetruvian Man. This action prompts the French police to summon Robert Langdon, a Harvard University professor who teaches religious iconography and symbology, who is in the city on business. The police captain Bezu Fache explains to Langdon that he was summoned to help decode a cryptic message that Saunière wrote during the last few minutes of his life, which includes
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He wishes to solve the mystery of the Grail to discover why Saunière was murdered and to bring peace to his granddaughter. Sophie Neveu is Jacuques Saunière’s granddaughter and a cryptographer working for the French Police. She assists Langdon in his search for the Grail so as to unravel the mystery surrounding her grandfather’s death. The monk Silas is after the Grail to appease his Teacher – a mysterious figure who appealed to his deeply religious side to seek out the Grail – for reasons unbeknownst to him. Sir Leigh Teabing (who turns out to be the “Teacher” and also the main antagonist of the book) is Robert Langdon’s friend and successful academic who specialises in the Holy Grail. He sets the events of the book in motion by ordering Silas to seek out the Grail, which leads him to hunting down Saunière and eventually murdering him. Bezu Fache is the Captain of the Direction Centrale de la Police Judiciaire and believes Langdon is the murderer, leading him to persue them until he realises who the real murderer is.
Conflict
The main source of conflict in the book resides in the mystery of the Holy Grail, and what the discovery of it will lead to. The Priory of Sion intends to keep its existence a secret, not only due to the repercussions the descendants of the bloodline will face, but also the religious and historical repercussions. Various outside parties seek the Grail for different purposes, some more antagonistic than other’s. The book concludes with the mystery of the location of the Grail being solved, but not revealed to the outside world, as is the Priory’s intentions.
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