Essay Comparing The Celestine Prophecy And The Da Vinci Code

Knowledge is power; power can lead to corruption. The renowned author Tom Clancy once noted that “The control of information is something the elite always does, particularly in a despotic form of government. Information, knowledge, is power. If you can control information, you can control people” (Clancy). Both of our main protagonists, a narrator whose name is not stated, and Robert, from the novels The Celestine Prophecy By James Redfield, and The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown bear distinct similarities in representing a religious journey to discover such powerful knowledge. Through the role of corruption, the relationships of their companions, and their own character development, these protagonists correspondingly learn of ancient secrets that …show more content…
The government and the hierarchy Catholic church using their power will stop at nothing from preventing the falsification of their two thousand year old religion, which would result from the same knowledge Robert and the narrator are seeking. Through suspense and life threatening situations, the main protagonists really come to appreciate the knowledge they have worked so hard to acquire. In the beginning of Dan Brown’s well-acclaimed novel, The Da Vinci Code, our principal character Robert is seeking the influential knowledge of “The Holy Grail”. He is an unlikely protagonist for the events to come, but manages to get himself wound up in a millennium long secret passed down through the generations involving “The Holy Grail”. In the novel the Grail is referred to as not a chalice, but as a women named Mary Magdalene and a set of documents which just so happen to blaspheme and fabricate both christian and catholic cultures by speaking the ‘truth’ about Jesus Christ. This is where Robert is faced with the terrifying reality that the catholic church has worked so hard to erase, and they do not like the idea of him knowing. Both this novel and The Celestine Prophecy have