User:Elhecht

Religion and the Return: Homer’s Odyssey and Ron Howard’s The Da Vinci Code

Throughout history, the dominant religion of a region is often the inspiration, influence and defining feature of the literature that emerges from its culture. An apt example of this is Homer’s epic poem, the Odyssey, which incorporates Greek mythology and ancient Greek Paganism into the saga of Odysseus, king of Ithaca and hubristic hero, and the adventures he faces on his voyage home from the Trojan War. Centuries later, Ron Howard’s film The Da Vinci Code serves as another example; this literary work considers figures and legends associated with the origins of Christianity in Professor Robert Langdon’s pursuit of the Holy Grail. These two men—Odysseus and Professor Langdon—are the heroes of their stories and these stories, according to Joseph Campbell, an expert on comparative mythology, follow an analogous pattern that reappears in any and every story of a hero’s journey. Campbell’s literary analysis, The Hero With a Thousand Faces, conceptualizes the monomyth – a “standard path of the mythological adventure of [a] hero” (30) – and asserts that “[t]he return and reintegration with society, which is indispensable to the continuous circulation of spiritual energy into the world… is the justification of the long retreat” (36). While the two religions—ancient Greek polytheism and modern Catholicism—are tremendously different from one another, each protagonist’s relationship with religious influences during his journey contribute to the successful completion of his quest.

Family Relations (or lack thereof)

Neither of these heroes is a child or descendant of a deity, although they both encounter and outwit such characters on their quests. In Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus—a mortal man—uses his cunning to escape from Polyphemus, the son of Greek sea-god Poseidon, after being trapped and nearly eaten on Polyphemus’s island (223-224). Robert Langdon, a University professor of religious iconology in The Da Vinci Code, employs his expertise in the history of religion and ancient religious symbols, and his ability to decipher cryptic codes and riddles, to advise Sophie Neveu—a descendant of Jesus Christ—on her quest for the Holy Grail. Odysseus and Langdon, unaffiliated with any divine bloodline, each posses some quality that gives them an advantage over the celestial characters they meet: Odysseus’s aptitude for concocting life-saving stratagems and Langdon’s proficiency in the subject matter he teaches. Without these characteristics, our heroes would not be able to orchestrate the elaborate schemes necessary to succeed in returning across Campbell’s monomyth’s “threshold of adventure” or completing their mission. Langdon’s extensive knowledge of religious history leads him to associate a bleeding cut he inflicts upon himself while shaving with the Rose Line, a primitive prime meridian, which directs him to another ancient symbol that conceals the Holy Grail and the answer to the riddle: his boon. Similarly, Odysseus’s boon, the restoration of his authority over his household and jurisdiction, would have been impossible to achieve had he not cleverly scammed himself out of harm’s way and into the competition that won him his wife.

However, Odysseus’s cunning alone is not responsible for his return to his palace. Athena, the “bright eyed” Greek goddess of wisdom, and master of manipulation, appears to Odysseus in several instances throughout the text in order to aid him in returning to Ithaca: the kingdom over which he rules. In Darrell Dobb’s article, “Reckless Rationalism and Heroic Reverence in Homer's Odyssey," he suggests that

Odysseus’ adventures, the obstacles he confronts and overcomes in winning his return, summon the special excellences that define him as a hero. The most celebrated of these excellences is, of course, Odysseus’ remarkable intelligence. But the most critical of these excellences… is reverence. By reverence I mean the correct perception of and respect for the sacred. (492-493)

Athena’s final hoax involves concealing Odysseus’s identity, disguising him as an old vagabond, so that he can infiltrate the palace undetected and overthrow the suitors that challenge his title (trans. Fagles 296). Similarly, in order to ensure her safety, Sophie’s identity is hidden from her by an elaborate ploy fabricated by a secret Christian society, the Priory of Sion, and her parents and grandparents: Jesus and Mary Magdalene’s progeny. Furthermore, the identity of the Holy Grail itself, Langdon’s boon, is hidden by an extravagant ruse coordinated by the Church in order to preserve a male-dominated society.

Role of Women: Da Vinci Code

The role of women in religion, and thus literature, is something of a fluid concept. In ancient Greek mythology, women (especially goddesses) had more domestic, political and sexual authority than what exists in many contemporary denominations of Christianity. Odysseus’s wife Penelope, for example, entertains many suitors and sexual partners during her husband‘s absence (trans. Fagles 96); several other female characters, especially Calypso and Circe, consort with men, even Odysseus, without ever marrying. The concept of the sinfulness of sex was nonexistent in ancient Greek religion, and also to some extent in early Christian ideology. According to Langdon, although premarital sex is considered a sin in modern interpretations of Christianity, the practice of Hieros Gamos (a sacred and symbolic sexual ritual) was not condemned until the Catholic Church appropriated control of societal values and norms. In the Odyssey, Homer portrays the importance of women by enabling goddesses to exert their authority over men: Circe enchants Odysseus’s crewmen and turns them into pigs (239). In The Da Vinci Code, Langdon and Sophie consult Leigh Teabing, an obsessed Grail expert, who supposes that the depiction of the apostle John in Leonardo da Vinci's painting "The Last Supper" was, in reality, a woman. He interprets several logistical characteristics of the painting, and employs his hypothesis that da Vinci was a member of the Priory of Sion, to infer that the figure to the left of Jesus, supposedly John, is actually Mary Magdalene. Christian teachings confirm that Jesus loved and favored "John," his companion; if the reader accepts Teabing's theory, interpreting the term "companion" at its original meaning—spouse—and the explanation that John is Mary Magdalene, then Mary Magdalene would have been Jesus' wife. Had Jesus' love been for a woman, as opposed to the male apostle John, this passage, and this relationship, would create a rationale for ascribing worth to women in terms of Christian ideals.

Role of Women: Odyssey

The attitudes portrayed in both the Odyssey and The Da Vinci Code are concerned with misogyny in some way. However, while Homer’s Odyssey epitomizes misogynistic viewpoints, portraying female characters as underhanded like Athena, whiny like Calypso, and even docile and subsidiary like Penelope—constrained to her bedroom and starkly obedient to her twenty year old son (trans. Fagles 383), a major theme in The Da Vinci Code challenges the underestimated intelligence and religious significance of women. After decoding several obstacles coordinated by the Priory of Sion, Langdon consults Teabing, to no avail, concerning a clue he cannot decipher and bringing the quest to a halt; the men do not consider that Sophie might be able to recognize the clue until after they have exhausted their own resources, but she is able to interpret it immediately, thereby confronting and discrediting the notion that men are innately more intelligent than women. Additionally, Teabing implies that the Holy Grail, which is generally recognized as the chalice that Jesus drank from at the Last Supper, is not an object at all, but that it is the bloodline of Jesus (a daughter) conceived by Jesus and his wife, Mary Magdalene, before he was crucified. In Sandra Miesel’s analysis, "Dismantling the Da Vinci Code," she explains Teabing’s allegation, concerning the identity of the Holy Grail—the most sought after treasure in history—and asserts that“[o]ver the centuries, the Grail-keepers have been guarding the true (and continuing) bloodline of Christ and the relics of the Magdalen, not a material vessel” (1); thus, the object of every Grail-seeker’s quest has not been a majestic goblet or glass, but in fact, the feminine. She rationalizes this switch by comparing a woman’s anatomy to the construction of a chalice: “a woman’s body is symbolically a container… [Mary Magdalene] was the vessel that held the blood of Jesus Christ in her womb while bearing his children." (18). These hypotheses, if corroborated by the Church, would credit women with a tremendous value within the Christian faith, although to date they do not.

Justice

Furthermore, both texts touch on the idea that attaining authority and merit may be possible by correlating oneself with the Divine. Homer ascribes the highest legal authority to the religious figures: Athena proclaims justice and ends the war between Odysseus and the suitors (485). The presence of hubris—so much pride or arrogance that a man considers himself like a god—yields negative outcomes for both heroes, even though their circumstances are considerably different: Odysseus’s hubris encourages him to assume that no matter what sticky situation he encounters (or creates), he will escape unscathed as a result of his strength, courage and intellect; although the cunning Odysseus consistently prevails over his dangerous adventures, the fate that he will return to Ithaca had already been established at the time of his birth, according to Greek fatalistic tradition. Thus, his life was never at stake. However, his carelessness, on account of his hubris, did cost many of his friends and crewmen their lives (292). Langdon, on the other hand, is not hubristic, but he does confront two men who are: Silas, a self-proclaimed angel and servant to the “Teacher” who commits multiple, heinous crimes in order to further his grail quest and self-mutilates himself in the name of religion as punishment for his sins, and Teabing, the “Teacher” himself, who organizes the entire scam, killing Sophie’s uncle, implicating Langdon as a suspect and manipulating him into defeating the obstacles that stand between Teabling and the Holy Grail. In The Da Vinci Code, the highest legal authority is ascribed to the state: neither Teabing nor Silas, acting illegally and ethically suspect, succeed on their grail quests while Langdon and Sophie, largely law abiding and morale, do.

Conclusion

Although these two tales come from separate eras, cultures and ideals, religion influences the heroes in both. Odysseus successfully completes his adventure largely due to the goddess Athena’s divine intervention, and Langdon’s return, and final assent, is his return to religion itself. Had religion not influenced these tales, Odysseus may have died in battle, or at the hands of a natural disaster, and Langdon’s journey would have no end at all. Thus, religion is the driving influence behind the completion of the heroes’ journeys, and their return across the threshold of adventure on Joseph Campbell’s monomyth.

Reflection

Outside of an academic, literary context, arguments concerning the Da Vinci Code tend to have an extremist, religious slant. As an attempt to stray as far from this as possible, I constructed my literary analysis to resemble a Wikipedia article. In Marshall McLuhan's article "Understanding Media," he suggests that "the medium is the message" (McLuhan 7). In the case of my remediation project, Wikipedia is my medium. Wikipedia is a Web 2.0 community that emphasizes collaboration: users have the ability to create and edit an online encyclopedia article. It has the reputation of staying factual and unbiased. It is my hope that the connotation of the Wikipedia layout will evoke an informative tone so as not to spur an extremist reaction, but instead a contemplative one. To achieve this, I created a Wikipedia account, created an article and linked several key words to other Wikipedia articles and images. Thus, the message portrayed in my remediated essay should connote Wikipedia's mission statement.

The pre-remediated assignment was an analysis of Odysseus and Robert Langdon's "returns," respectively, on Joseph Campbell's monomyth cycle, and the medium of the archetype was print. This remediation, from print to the Web, replaces the necessity for print altogether: this format still accomplishes the purpose of my initial assignment, to analyze these two subjects, but it also goes further to impress upon the reader a feeling of legitimacy, regardless of the article's content, as Wikipedia is a hugely popular and respected e-encyclopedia.

However, a limitation I encountered with the Wikipedia article medium is its ability to easily distract: Wikipedia tags several key words in an article and creates hyperlinks to related Wikipedia articles. Furthermore, some of the links are unrelated--i.e. Penelope, Odysseus's wife in Homer's Odyssey, was automatically tagged to Lady Penelope Rich (an English noblewoman). Another drawback of the remediation of an argumentative essay to the Wikipedia platform is the angle of the article-in that Wikipedia strives to be as unbiased as possible, as it is an encyclopedia, and the paper I began with had a distinct thesis and a poignant argument throughout.

My primary goal in creating an online version of my original text was simply to make it more accessible to a larger pool of people. However, with such a controversial topic--Mary Magdalene as the apostle John and it's potential ramifications--I saw the potential for extremist feedback. Thus, the appeal of utilizing Wikipedia in this circumstance was to relate a purely academic/unbiased discussion of the topic, as the purpose of the original text was to explore this topic in terms of Joseph Campbell's monomyth, not to argue the validity of that theory presented in "The Da Vinci Code."

I feel that I achieved my initial goal, as Wikipedia articles often appear in general google searches, and etc., but I also think that by employing the Wikipedia format, I decreased the chance that this article will receive extremist feedback because of Wikipedia's reputation. In the spirit of Web 2.0 and the WIki community, your feedback is welcome and encouraged!

Thanks for your time, Emily Hecht

Bibliography

Campbell, Joseph. The Hero With a Thousand Faces. 2nd ed. Princeton UP, 1968.

Bolter, Jay David, and Richard Grusin. Remediation Understanding New Media. New York: The MIT, 2000. Print.

The Da Vinci Code. Dir. Ron Howard. Perf. Tom Hanks and Audrey Tatou. DVD. Columbia Pictures, 2006.

Dobbs, Darrell. "Reckless Rationalism and Heroic Reverence in Homer's Odyssey." The American Political Science Review 81.2 (1987): 491-508. JSTOR. Web. 20 July 2009.

Homer. The Odyssey. Trans. Robert Fagles. 3rd ed. New York: Penguin Books, 2006. Print.

McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. The Medium is the Message. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company. 7-21.

Miesel, Sandra. "Dismantling the Da Vinci Code." Crisis Magazine. Sept. 2003. Web. 20 July 2009.