On The Narrative Art Of The Da Vinci Code

The thriller novel, The Da Vinci Code, becomes Dan Brown'sgreatest success soon after its publication in 2003. Being well receivedworldwide, the novel succeeds both in rekindling the popular readers'interest in European religion, history, architecture and arts, and inarresting the eye of serious scholars from different disciplines. It is safe tosay the great popularity of this novel becomes a modern-day culturalphenomenon well worth the attention of literary critics. Although The DaVinci Code is widely acclaimed by many famous critics at home andabroad, there are few articles that address research on the narrative art ofthis novel. Most western scholars give their attention to its controversialreligious subject, while only a very few articles by domestic researchersgive a survey of the novel's language style or fictional techniques, leavingsome issues remaining inadequately expounded, such as its fiction genre,narrative perspective, temporal and spatial expression. However, thepresent thesis argues that both the artistic and commercial success of TheDa Vinci Code not only rely on its intriguing plot, but also on Brown'sexquisite narrative art, which will be given due attention in the thesisthrough a systematic study of the novel's narrative structure, narrativestrategies and techniques.The first characteristic of the narrative art of this novel, the thesis holds, is an integration of dead serious subject matters in an amusinggenre fiction. What accounts for the wide readership of this novel is itsfirm grasp on the contemporary readers' fascination in thriller, detectiveand other popular fiction genres, and their curiosity about unknownmatters. The second characteristic is the novel's perfect combination ofgeneric conventions and postmodern fictional techniques. For the sake ofa better esthetic effect, Brown consciously makes modification to thetraditional fiction genres. The third characteristic is embodied by thedelicate narrative techniques of the novel, especially the shifting narrativeperspective and filmic temporal and spatial expression.Aiming at revealing the narrative art of The Da Vinci Code inrespect of its successful blending of elite and popular taste, traditional andpostmodern techniques, the present thesis is accordingly divided intothree parts: narrative structure, narrative strategy and narrative techniques.It begins with a literature review of the novel ahd a brief introduction tothe topic, objectives and methodology of the thesis. Chapter 1 is devotedto an analysis of conventions of genre fiction, especially in its narrativestructure, and that of the impact of postmodernism on genre fictionwriting and reading. Chapter 2 elaborates on the conventional narrativestructure of The Da Vinci Code and its remarkable suspense designing.Chapter 3 centers the discussion on the postmodern traits of the novel,among which its antiauthority subject matter, intertextuality, open ending and blurring of fact and fiction are highlighted. Chapter 4 gives amicroanalysis of the two noticeable aspects of the narrative text, namely,shifting narrative perspective and filmic temporal and spatial expression,by recourse to Genette's narrative theory. At last, the thesis concludes thatthe narrative art of the thriller novel, The Da Vinci Code, embodiesBrown's every endeavor to cater for the taste and esthetic demands ofcontemporary readers by integrating serious subjects, profoundknowledge and postmodern concepts into genre fiction writing, and thatBrown has therefore set a perfect example for contemporary novelists.