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Realism In Angels And Demons

Decent Essays

The opposing sides of good and evil, religion and science, power and intelligence, and knowledge and ignorance have been battling for centuries. Loyal and faithful believers aid both halves and have affected the world we live in today. Dan Brown is a renowned author who has penned many books in his Robert Langdon series that explore these conflicts. The first book, Angels and Demons, focuses on the clashes of the Catholic Church and scientific institutions around the world. In it, Robert Langdon must find a bomb planted in Vatican City by a science advocate before it goes off, annihilating the Pope, his cardinals, and the entire Catholic Church. However, Brown’s fourth book, Inferno, examines the problem of overpopulation while analyzing Dante’s …show more content…

Dan Brown does this perfectly in Angels and Demons, because while there are a few differences between his fictional world and ours, they are not large enough to affect the realism at all. In the last chapter of the novel, Robert Langdon receives a letter from the new pope, saying “the world seems a better place today...maybe questions are more powerful than answers” (Brown 473). While the Pope and the plot of the story are fictional, it's easy to believe it could be happening right now, because the world after the novel ends is exactly the same as it is today. This concludes the story well and leaves the reader feeling satisfied with the ending and the environment Brown has created. However, he creates a completely different world with his ending in Inferno. Because Robert Langdon doesn’t find the plague in time, releasing it into Italy, his world is different from ours. On his plane ride home, he thinks of his allies and “the two courageous women who were now in Geneva, meeting the future head-on and navigating the complexities of a changed world” (Brown 559). Brown outright states that his environment that he has created for Langdon and his characters isn’t the same as ours. While Langdon’s world is infected with a dangerous disease, ours is perfectly fine. The reader …show more content…

However, these two books are contrasting in the strength of their endings, by whether or not Robert Langdon is able to save the world, how closely the fictional world resembles ours, and if the antagonist receives any punishment. These three techniques affect how the reader feels after finishing the novel, whether it concerns Robert Langdon on his quest to dismantle the bomb hidden in Vatican City in Angels and Demons, or watching him race through Italy as he attempts to contain the world’s deadliest plague in Inferno. Both of these books question the truth in religion and science, two strong opposing forces that cannot peacefully coexist. Dan Brown challenges us to choose a side. Do we place our hopes in facts and figures, or will we blindly follow our faith into the darkness? Only you can

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