Hello once again!
I thought it would be a good idea if I found discussion questions for The Da Vinci Code but apparently you can only discuss the book after you've read the whole thing so that didn't work.
So I decided to make up a few questions on my own!
1. Has Silas really changed, or does he only think that he's changed?
2. What does Silas's name hint about his character?
3. What is your guess as to why Sauniere wanted to meet Langdon?
4. What do you think Sophie saw her grandfather doing that made her never open any of his letters or call him?
5. Collet says that "Fache needs this arrest desperately," which is why he is so intent on arresting Langdon. Do you think this is the reason, or is there another reason that Fache is keeping hidden?
6. WHAT IS THE KEYSTONE??????
7. Who is more in danger: Sophie or Langdon? Sauniere called Sophie to say that she was in grave danger, but she has less idea of what is going on than Langdon does. Langdon is being hunted by the police, and once Opus Dei finds out there is no keystone, they might go after Langdon. Thoughts?
8. Where else can you find PHI in your everyday life?
9. Did aonyne fgirue out the pzulze bferoe Lgndoan did?
10. Is there more to Sister Sandrine than meets the eye?
I hope these questions make it easier for people to write their comments, and hopefully people wont be overlapping in what they're saying because there are plenty of questions to go around :)
~Brianna
Just a quick question:
ReplyDeleteAs Dan Brown has already stated that this novel is based on factual information,is any of the connections between them real or purely fictional?
I'd like to address question 10, and really just the whole character of Sister Sandrine in general. I definitely believe that there is more to her character than meets the eye. In the scene where Silas had asked Sister Sandrine to return to bed, she actually stayed in the darkness to assess his actions. "The sudden dread in her soul made it hard to stay still. For a fleeting moment, she wondered if this mysterious visitor could be the enemy they had warned her about, and if tonight she would have to carry out the orders she had been holding all therse years" (Brown 90).It is apparent that she is not as naive nor as innocent as Silas would hope her to be. She knows that there is an enemy against her Church, and has been given orders to stop the impeding force. In this sense, she is similar to Silas; both have specific orders from a higher authority to defend their belief system.
ReplyDeleteI feel that Sister Sandrine is important to the entire plot. While she is not directly related to the murder, her character forshadows the dangers that are to come. When awoken in the middle of the night, it is stated that "the chills rose through her flesh as she felt an unexpected apprehension" (Brown 42). Her intuition acts as a guide for the rest of the plot.
Stacy - for the anagram, I don't think the sequence holds any importance of order for the anagram. Langdon states that "He wrote the sequence out of order to tell us to apply the same concept to the text" (Brown 98). The sequence is in a random order to show that what follows is also in a random order. And being that Langon is a professor on symbols, anagrams would be easy for him to solve.
ReplyDeleteOk, first of all, I wouls just like to say that this was the most awful place to leave off because the end of chapter 21 had the biggest cliffhanger I have ever read in my life.
ReplyDeleteBut I would like to answer the question about why Fache needs the arrest desperately. I think he was a part of the murder ot Sauniere and his partners and if he does not manage to get Langdon arrested for the crime, the evidence will lead to Fache, getting him in trouble. Langdon was a very easy person to target because his name was written by Sauniere's body and Sauniere had a planned meeting with Langdon for the same day he was killed. All Langdon had to do was say the wrong words that could be twisted enought to make him sound guilty. This would take Fache off the hook along with all others who tok part in the crime.
Because Langdon is being falsly targeted and because he is now a wanted man, I believe he is in more danger than Sophie. Sophie is Sauniere's niece, meaning if one if them is being targeted, then the other might become targeted soon after. Sauniere was already killed and as a reader, we know his murderer is gone and off to find the keystone. Langdon is still being targeted for no apparent reason. Sophie's connection to the murder is obvious; Langdon does not exactly know how he is connected or why he might be connected. This makes it more dangerous for him.
This would be the second time my post disappeared today... let me try again. Here is half:
ReplyDeleteTo comment on the author’s style, Brown continues with the suspense of his story line as to what the code really means. Each chapter of Langdon's story reveals another part of the plot but in order to figure out the whole thing, you have to keep reading. While I think that it makes the book really interesting it also becomes annoying that everything is so drawn out, especially since we are supposed to stop and comment on what we read before moving on.
and last part:
ReplyDeleteHer ability to perceive danger is important because she continues to watch Silas even after he tells her to leave. If the people who warned Sister Sandrine of the intruder were the members of the brotherhood, does she know about the fake keystone that someone might try to take or possibly other brotherhood secrets? Even though the brothers lied about the keystone being in that Church, what does Sister Sandrine's knowledge of a possible danger mean for Silas and the Opus Dei? If the brotherhood did take these precautions to make their lie seem more real, could they have set up other things in case of this kind of situation?
and the middle post which disappeared again (this post goes between the other two, it's kind of hard to make sense out of order):
ReplyDeleteRelated to Brianna's question about Sister Sandrine and if she is more than meets the eye, I think that her character is mysterious in a way and she definitely has more importance than one would think at first. At the end of chapter 19, for example, she leaves Silas to pray by himself but she watches him silently from upstairs. Brown writes, "She wondered if this mysterious visitor could be the enemy they had warned her about, and if tonight she would have to carry out the orders she had been holding all these years" (Brown 90). This comment reveals that Sister Sandrine was previously informed of a possible intruder.
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ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIn response: to Olivia’s comment about Fache’s involvement with the murder. Though Fache is clearly seen as an enemy of Langdon as he tries to pin the crime on him, the truth of the matter is that Fache may have been simply following his orders. As the Director of the Judicial Police, Fache is given the task to solve impractical cases that would lead to both time and money being wasted. One of the details that places Fache as a “good guy” is that he is described by his subordinates, “The captain attended mass and confession with zealous regularity…A photo of Fache with the Pope now hung in his office” (Brown 53). In addition, Fache had angrily stated, “These priests should be hanged twice! Once for their crimes against children. And once for shaming the good name of the Catholic Church” (Brown 53). The religious appeal that Fache has in the Church supports the fact that he is a man of morals and justice. As a devote man of the Church, Fache must uphold the honor of his religion, and as the captain of the Judicial Police, he must also uphold the law of the land. Thus, Fache may initially be portrayed as an evil person, but in actuality he may simply want to redeem himself. “Bezu Fache despised many things… but few drew more wrath than the U.S. Embassy” (Brown 67). Since Langdon was an American, Fache may have feared that if Langdon was indeed the killer, Fache would never have the chance to bring him to justice because the U.S. Embassy would intervene.
ReplyDeleteOne of the most interesting details of the novel is the introduction of Sophie Neveu. Though she has already admits to being the granddaughter of Sauniere (Brown 77), Sophie is a character who is more than what meets the eye. As Brown allows us to enter the thoughts of Sophie, Sophie was raised to have a “passion and aptitude for cryptography…a product of growing up with Jacques Sauniere” (Brown 83). This little detail about Sophie’s past reveals a lot about what the future may lay in store for Langdon and her. Sauniere dies after writing a puzzle that was addressed specifically to Sophie as he uses her initials and places himself in a replication of the Vitruvian Man. The riddle left behind was later to be deciphered as “Leonardo Da Vinci, The Mona Lisa” (Brown 105) represents a series of puzzles that Sauniere had left behind for her daughter to find. As Sophie grew up solving puzzles that her grandfather had made for her, it must have been logical for Sauniere to leave puzzles behind for Sophie to find the truth and the reason she is in danger.
ReplyDeleteThe importance of Langdon currently resembles a treasure trove of information. The background that Langdon has immersed himself in may contribute to the plot or help to explain certain details that would confuse others. Langdon’s flashback to the meaning of “phi” and his “career’s worth of symbology and history came crashing down around him” (Brown 112) may foreshadow his future involvement with the mystery. As Sophie represents the main detective of the novel, Langdon may have been involved to help educate Sophie as she learns more and more of the truth about her grandfather. This would be a reasonable explanation to why Sauniere wrote, “P.S. Find Robert Langdon” (Brown 74). Because Sauniere knew her daughter would follow the trail of puzzles that he had left behind for her, but feared that she would never fully comprehend the importance of the journey she is about to embark on if she doesn’t have a guide that knows the meaning of the clues. Thus, this could be the major role of Robert Langdon within the book.
Why did Sauniere write the puzzle specifically to Sophie? Did he not trust the group that he was in that got three other members killed?
ReplyDeleteBen, I do not think he does not trust them, I think more that he trusts his granddaughter the same if not more. You learn from Sophie that there was a strong bond and trust between both herself and Sauniere, and it is because of this that Sauniere leaves the messages to her. He wants her to figure it out, because he knows she can, raising her to think like him. And also he knows that she will not tell, because they made that promise when she first found the key. At that time, he said that he will tell her the secrets, which she must not tell anyone else, when the time has come. The reason he writes the puzzle for her is because that time has come for her to learn everything.
ReplyDeleteAlso, connecting a post by Jena in the last group of comments, she said "Fache is angry that women were allowed to become agents... Is Brown trying to say something about society degrading women? Or is it that it is just another quality of Fache that adds to the reasons why people dislike him?" I really like this point, and I believe it is further connected to Sister Sandrine (referring to question 9 here).
ReplyDeleteAt this point in the book, I view Fache and what Brown is trying to say about women as one in the same idea; that women have been degraded for so long, as explained by Langdon after they find the writing on the Mona Lisa, that now society cannot change their views, showed by the fact Fache cannot come to accept women as equals to him and his male co-workers.
By adding the character of Fache, his antifeministic (even a word there? haha) quality, and the views of Priory of Sion, Brown is pounding in the idea to the readers of how low females are looked upon.
To counter this, Brown added Sister Sandrine. She is there in the church on part of the brotherhood. They have let her, a female of all people, in on some, if not all, of their secrets; she is the one safe-keeping the brotherhood's secrets, to some extent, for we do not know if the true key stone is there or not yet.
Going back to Jena's question, for what I know and understand right now, Brown is trying say something about society degrading women, and that something is how some people, like Fache, still are in the old way of thinking, degrading females, while there are others, like Priory of Sion brotherhood, that like the balance of female and male. Does anyone agree or disagree?