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CONSERVING THE BALANCE:
FRANK HERBERT'S DUNE
AS PROPAGANDA
BY
BARBARA ANN SILLIMAN
A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE
REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
IN
ENGLISH
UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND
1996
UMI Number: 9702075
UMI Microform 9702075

Copyright 1996, by UMI Company. All rights reserved.
This microform edition is protected against unauthorized

copying under Title 17, United States Code.
UMI
300 North Zeeb Road
Ann Arbor, MI 48103
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DISSERTATION
OF
BARBARA ANN SILLIMAN
APPROVED:
Dissertation Committee
Major Professor
I — —______
DEAN O F THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND
1996
ABSTRACT
Conserving the Balance: Frank Herbert's DUNE as Propaganda examines
Herbert's masterpiece work of science fiction literature as a form of propaganda.
It evaluates the source of the propaganda, the avenues of dissemination of the
propagandists elements, and the successes and failures of the attempts at
propagandizing.
The first chapter is devoted to a short history of American twentieth
century science fiction with a longer section devoted to the various literary
criticisms of the genre. The criticisms cover a period from the early 1950s until
the early 1990s and range from a general view of the genre and its legitimacy as
literature to specific criticisms, such as American heroic, mythic, and feminist. A
beginning review of propaganda criticism is made as well.
The second chapter evaluates the issues and themes of Dune using
several accepted critical analyses. These include historical, heroic, epic,
psychological, gender (masculist and feminist), religious, and ecological critical
approaches.
The third chapter focuses on the propaganda issues in Dune. First, a brief
survey is made of Herbert's views on science fiction and its writing, followed by
important biographical circumstances which influenced the writing of the novel.
A more complete review of the nature of propaganda in literature and the
formulation of propaganda in Dune is made evaluating the setting, cultural
analogies, ecological constraints, evolution of the hero, religion as a sociopolitical
and cultural force, the place of women and drugs in the culture of Dune, and the
deviants and the natural order of things in the ecology of Dune.
The fourth chapter assesses Herbert's achievement in Dune, evaluating
the success and failure of the propaganda messages being received by the
target-reader. The film version is evaluated along with book and film reviews to
finally measure the success and failure of Herbert's propagandist efforts.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Acknowledgements can become like Academy Award acceptance
speeches. If you let yourself, you can thank everyone from your first grade
teacher to the janitor who let you in so you could slip that really important note
under the professor's office door. Instead, I will try to be brief, but in no way
should my brevity be interpreted as a lack of gratitude, respect, or caring for
those people who are named. As with any massive undertaking, like this
dissertation, there are many people who have been instrumental in the creation
of the written product whether they are professors, family, or friends.
Dr. Wilfred Dvorak was invaluable to me as my advisor. My choices of
topic and critical analysis are a direct result of his encouragement and
enthusiasm. He never told me that I could not do this. He had confidence in my
abilities and the importance of my work. His advice and support were
inestimable to me.
Prof. J. Morton Briggs and Dr. Walter Cane were exceptional members of
my dissertation committee. With kindness and humor they assisted me with the
finer points of dissertation writing. Dr. R. B. Reaves and Dr. Paschal C.
Viglionese very generously gave their time as members of my examining
committee, sharing with me their wit and reassurance.
There are several members of the faculty of the English Department
whose advice and friendship have meant a great deal to me. Among them are
iv
Dr. Lois A. Cuddy, Director of Graduate Studies; Dr. Karen Stein, Chairperson;
Prof. Sue Fisher Vaughn; Dr. Pamela Marks; and Dr. Dana Shugar. The
department secretaries, Beverly and Cheryl, should also be acknowledged for all
their free therapy sessions and their help in all those "little things" that can
complicate life.
I give a special thanks to Lucinda Ugorji, the interiibrary loan librarian at
the Providence campus of the College of Continuing Education. She worked
very hard to get me the research materials I requested, as if it were her own
dissertation. She relentlessly pursued obscure journals and books. Much of
what is included in this dissertation is a direct result of her velvet tenacity.
Without my friends I would have been lost. Sy and Toni Berg let me live in
their home outside of Ithaca while I took working vacations. They drove me to
Cornell University's humanities library and tolerated my computer printouts, index
cards, and other such nonsense. They even let me sleep in late and win at
poker. I especially want to thank Glenna Andrade and Mary Braga who read my
early chapters and gave me insights into my errors before I made a fool of myself
with my committee; Dr. Amrit Singh and Dr. Prem Singh who supported me
through my master's thesis as well as my dissertation with their friendship and
advice; Valerie Everett, Patricia Laffey, and Thomas Gibson who were my
bosses at my part-time job and who, in their own way, aided me in completing
my dissertation; Linda Myers and Celeste Nadwomy, and all of my friends at Our
Lady of Fatima Hospital who put up with my discussions of the fine points of
dissertation writing with good humor and great compassion; and Anne J.
Arvidson who sustained me with movie breaks, Chinese food, chocolate
anything, and the ultimate wisdom: "It ain't brain surgery."
Most importantly, I thank my parents who put up with a lot of
inconvenience, frustrated tears, and exuberant cheers. They endured a lot of
stupid human tricks. They supported me emotionally, psychologically, and
financially, letting me live with them as I worked toward my graduate degrees.
Without them I could not have done any of this.
I dedicate this dissertation to my parents, Riverda O. Silliman , Jr., and
Marie M. Silliman.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv
CHAPTER ONE Science Fiction: A Twentieth Century Phenomenon
I. Introduction 1
II. A Brief History of Science Fiction 3
III. A Review of Science Fiction Criticism 8
A. Eclectic Approaches to Science Fiction 9

B. Mythic Approaches to Science Fiction 14
C. Feminist Approaches to Science Fiction 19
D. Propaganda Approaches to Science Fiction 24
IV. The Place of Dune in Twentieth Century

Science Fiction 31
CHAPTER TWO Issues and Themes in Dune
I. Introduction 33
II. History 34
III. The Hero 39
IV. Epic Structure 46
V. Psychology 55
VI. Gender 66
VII. Religion 71
VIII. Ecology 77
IX. Conclusion 82
CHAPTER THREE Propaganda Issues in Dune
I. Introduction 84
II. Herbert's Views of Science Fiction 85
III. Important Biographical Circumstances
Influencing Dune 87
IV. The Nature of Propaganda in Literature 94
V. The Formulation of Propaganda in Dune 99
A. Setting 100
B. Cultural Analogies 103
vii
C. Ecological Constraints 105
0. Evolution and the Hero 106
E. Religion as Social, Political, and
Cultural Force 113
F. The Place of Women in the Culture of
Dune 117
G. The Place of Drugs in the Culture of
Dune 121
H. Ecology of Dune: Deviants 130
1. Ecology of Dune: The Natural Order of
Things 133
VI. Summary and Conclusion 137
CHAPTER FOUR Assessment of Herbert's Achievement in Dune
I. Introduction 139
II. Reader Reception 143
III. Dune as Film 149
IV. Final Assessment: Herbert's Uneven Success 156
BIBLIOGRAPHY 161
viii
I
Chapter One
Science Fiction: A Twentieth Century Phenomenon
I. INTRODUCTION
Science fiction as literature is a twentieth century phenomenon. Many
critics can trace its roots into the nineteenth century with regard to writers such
as Jules Veme and H. G. Wells and stories such as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
and Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Some critics have gone
even farther back in literary history to Thomas More's Utopia, works by medieval
Christian scholars, and essays by ancient Greek philosophers as part of the
family roots of science fiction. This fiction, however, is bom out of a necessity
which arises from the marriage of scientific explanations of the unknown with the
need for wonder and imagination in the human experience.
By the end of the nineteenth century scientists had discovered that germs
caused illness and death. They also discovered such wonder drugs as quinine
to battle against malaria, and penicillin to fight against infection. Diseases were
being cured, and humanity's life expectancy was constantly rising to new, older
ages, so that mankind seemingly became indestructible. With rail travel
improving and permanent settlements being forged in the midwest and prairie
territories, the image of the young American nation as a significant political and
economic power in the Americas was sharply improving.
Within this time of scientific discovery-where miracles were being
I
produced by men and not God, where humanity's gaze turned from peering
skyward to gazing through a microscope in search for answers, and where new
and more marvelous inventions were being created-humankind's faith in a
marvelous supreme being was challenged. Explanations changed from "God's
will'' to more earthly versions when the same questions arose concerning the
cause of disease, the theory of electricity, and the ability to fly. Faith in God was
no longer the only weapon in mankind's arsenal against those forces of nature
which assaulted the mind, spirit, and body. Faith in science became the new
belief system for humanity. Trust in the properties of aspirin and airplanes
replaced spirituality and superstition.
The scientific age of discovery was well represented by men whose
inventions are the bedrock of twentieth century American culture. Thomas Alva
Edison gave the world the incandescent light bulb, the phonograph, and motion
pictures, while Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, all in the second
half of the nineteenth century. In the early twentieth century Henry Ford's
assembly line gave the general public access to inexpensive horseless carriage
transportation, and, at the same time, the Wright Brothers proved that man could
fly.
Humankind's confidence in itself grew in leaps and bounds. If smallpox
could be conquered, voices allowed to travel through wires from one home to
another, and people lifted up into the air to fly between cities and countries, what
other strange and marvelous things could also be accomplished? There arose
an imagination which was seemingly infinite. Out of that imagination sprang a
new form of literature which reflected the scientific achievements and the
unlimited self-confidence of people in general and of Americans most
particularly.
In its early twentieth century forms American readers embraced science
fiction passionately, reveling in its fantastical stories of spaceships, special
weapons, monsters, and life on other planets. Humanity, represented by such
privileged white males as Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, and Superman, fought
exotic enemies and always won. This adolescent fiction, aimed exclusively at
young white males, not only reflected the giddy optimism of Americans during the
years of progress, invention, and discovery, but also fulfilled a very real need
among many to escape the devastating effects of post World War I and the Great
Depression.
This chapter will briefly examine the history of science fiction, especially
as it arises in America. Then it will review the critical responses to American
science fiction from the mid-twentieth century to the present. Finally, it will show
where Frank Herberts novel Dune is placed in American twentieth century
science fiction.
11- A BRIEF HISTORY OF SCIENCE FICTION
Science fiction secured a strong position in twentieth century America as
one form of male adolescent literature. These stories were uncomplicated
paeans to American know-how and ingenuity. The heroes were strong men who
4
were wholesome and just, and who fought against the foes of democracy and
patriotism. Many times these enemies had names which began with a title of
royalty, such as Lord, Duke, Baron or even King, which only reinforced their
anachronistic evil rule over good and noble folk.
It is from these simplistic adventure stories that modem adult science
fiction springs. To appreciate this new genre it is important to understand its
evolution as popular fiction. As scientific discovery and invention escalated, so,
too, did science fiction stories become more and more popular with adolescent
males (and females). The nineteenth century parentage sits firmly in the works
of Mary Shelley, Robert Louis Stevenson, Jules Veme and H. G. Wells. Verne
and Wells, however, are considered each a pater magnus of twentieth century
science fiction. Whereas Verne's stories in translation were received as primarily
boys' adventure tales, it was Wells who took these seemingly adolescent tales
and transformed them into adult stories.
With a respectable education in biology and physics [Wells]
combined a journalist's agile intelligence and lively curiosity and an
impudent disregard for established tradition. He . . . transformed
[adventure stories for boys] into something new and astonishingly
subtle.. . . [Using] domestic realism he interwove sturdy threads
from all the earlier kinds of imaginative narrative that are now
recognized as antecedents of science fiction; but he handled these
potentially unconvincing ingredients so expertly that they merged
into the pattern without incongruity. (Stevenson 21)
Wells bridges the gap between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries with
his books, then called scientific romances. James Gunn posits that Wells traced
his influences back to Jonathan Swift's "system of ideas and his satirical vision of
humanity", and it is this "purer concern for ideas" which later science fiction
writers would embrace (Gunn, Future 37).
Gunn further notes that for the first time in human history, man was
looking ahead to a possible future instead of embracing an unattainable past;
e.g., the Judeo-Christian Garden of Eden, the Golden Age of Greece. Scientific
enlightenment gave humanity the possibility of change and advancement,
replacing the religious doctrine that humanity must accept suffering through
earthly life in order to be rewarded after death with heavenly peace and
happiness. "Science fiction was humanity's literary response not only to the
perception that science and technology had become important in human affairs
but to the fact of change" (Gunn, Future 36).
It was in the post-World War I era that science fiction (as a name for this
writing style) was christened. In the 1920s pulp fiction magazines appeared
which were devoted exclusively to mostly poorly written space adventure stories
and aimed at a young and unsophisticated audience. Hugo Gemsback, for
example, a publisher and editor of some of these magazines, established
Amazing Stories in 1926, and "three years later [1929] he created the word
'science fiction' to describe what he was going to publish in a new magazine
6
called Wonder Stories" (Gunn, Future 37). Referring to the level of quality in
these magazines, Michael McClintock notes that the pages needed to be filled; if
good was not available, then bad was used. "The bad never completely drove
out the good, but it did become much more visible, and, if a writer had any
pretensions to literary esteem, he might write a science fiction story, but he
would never submit it for publication in Amazing or Galaxy" (McClintock 19).
From this haphazard midwifery was bom the view that science fiction was throw
away fiction and unworthy of serious literary critical study.
Because of a paper shortage during World War II, publication of the pulp
magazines was suspended. They re-emerged in the postwar boom era and
quickly regained their following. Among the writers of this postwar resurgence
are those who are considered the founders of modem science fiction writing;
e.g., Robert Heinlein, James Blish, and Isaac Asimov. The 1940s became "the
time of the ‘hard’ science fiction story, the time of the sort of story referred to by
Kingsley Amis as having the 'idea as hero.' Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein in
particular exemplify this period . . . “ (Zelazny 59).
Samuel Delany, Fredric Jameson, and Sharona Bel-Tov all attempt to
categorize the various decades after the re-appearance of science fiction in the
late 1940s in an effort to establish an evolutionary time line. Delany, for
example, notes that critics have called the late 1940s and early 1950s as the
time of "'sense of wonder"' with the '"literature of ideas'" coined for most of the
1950s. Delany also considers the mid-1960s to 1981 as "'new wave'" (Delany
7
233). In contrast, Jameson restates Asimov's stages theory of American science
fiction with adventure for 1926-1938, technological for 1938-1950, sociological
for 1950 to 1965, and new wave/aesthetic for 1965 to 1982. Finally, Sharona
Ben-Tov breaks with tradition and categorizes not by time line but the "basic
types of American science fiction." She states these are the 1950s "hard"
science, modem mainstream, space fiction, women's fiction, and cyberpunk
(Ben-Tov 6).
By the 1960s, literary criticism of science fiction (which by then is called
SF by writers, readers, and critics) began to secure a place in SF's climb up the
ladder to academic respectability. Ronald Lee Cansler concludes in 1968 that
"science fiction has come of age and does not need to be defended to most
readers as a viable and important form of literature” (Cansler 944). It is not a
leap of faith to conclude that those young boys and girls who read the SF
magazines in their youth grew up to be the writers, academics, and critics who
joined together to legitimize this form of literature. It is their voices which shape
and secure the site wherein SF is placed in the academic canon. They strive to
define, to organize, to elevate, and to reshape the genre. Those who become
fiction writers place higher goals for themselves regarding structure, setting,
story, and characters. Those who become literature analysts help point the way
for the new works and assist in the understanding of those works which are
already part of established SF literature.
8
III. A REVIEW OF SCIENCE FICTION CRITICISM
One of the major aims of early criticisms of SF concerns the writers'
descriptions of unproven science within the text. SF writer Fletcher Pratt, as
early as 1953, takes his peers to task for "forcing a solution" in order to complete
a story. He maintains that "writers of science fiction should ascertain something
about scientific facts bordering on, if not directly connected with, their stories"
(Pratt 75). He further admonishes that "when new details are pulled out of the
hat as a surprise for the reader they be wholly consistent with what he has
already been told, and that they do not contradict anything he has been told"
(Pratt 76). The attack is not only against the amateurish writer but also against
the writer whose wholecloth approach to SF is to simply place the characters on
a space ship or in a Lunar colony with no regard for the scientific evidence of the
story or the logical assumptions made by the reader.
Pratt not only directs his remarks to the bad writer, he also is concerned
with the "hard" science writer. This author focuses all attention to the plot and
the science with little left over for the characters. "[Sjcience fiction characters
are ordinary to the point of being boring, [and] if science fiction is to get the most
out of its enormous resources, it must learn to present character with greater
realism" (Pratt 80). The “hard" science writer places plot before character
development similar to the action-adventure writer of Westerns, detective novels,
and war stories.
A. Eclectic Approaches to Science Fiction
Not all critics of SF are looking to support or elevate it. But in his attempt
to denigrate SF, Edmund Crispin actually brings out one of SF's qualities. He
states that "it is about us, here, now-about us as we have been shaped by our
genesis, our biology, our environment and our behaviour” (Crispin 865). He does
not appreciate that SF writers attempt to see the present more clearly by placing
its problems and triumphs in a future time and space. His criticism about the
human element in the stories echoes Pratt and is a valid observation about
"hard" SF. However, he also considers SF as "Scientific Materialism," which he
states results in "a high degree of skepticism about Man's importance, combined,
equally inevitably, with a very strong tendency to deride Man's self-importance"
(Crispin 865).
At the same time, however, Mark Hillegas writes that SF is a cultural
phenomenon expressing two elements common in Western culture. The first is
"the Baconian faith that by systematic investigation of nature man can master the
secrets of this mysterious universe and in so doing improve the human condition"
(Hillegas 26), and the second is "the belief that the universe is a machine,
indifferent to man and lacking a divine plan or purpose" (Hillegas 27). He
examines these elements as they present themselves in dystopic, post-
apocalyptic, and space fictions.
Bruce Franklin discusses the dichotomous nature of SF in the printed
transcript of the 1968 MLA Forum on Science Fiction. "The thing, of course,
which made science fiction not respectable was that it was a popular art form. It
has been from the beginning-certainly of modem science fiction-a literature of
the people . . (Clareson 70). At this same Forum, Frederik Pohl talks of his
role as an SF writer.
To be an sf writer is to be a time-binder-lt is to try to look ahead to
see not only what is likely to fall upon us by way of science and
technology, but to see what the side effects and the consequences
and the second and third-order derivatives of these things will be.
(Clareson 87)
In 1968 Darko Suvin presented his “definition of SF as the literature of
cognitive estrangement' (Suvin, Poetics 372). This seminal work of SF criticism
is the standard against which most other critics compare and contrast their
theories. He attempts to describe what SF is and to shape how it should be
perceived by academics and genre critics. "Taking the kindred thesaurus
concepts of science for cognition, and fiction for estrangement, I believe there is
a sound reason for calling this whole new genre Science Fiction . . . " (Suvin,
Poetics 12). He considers SF to be "educational literature" which is “irreversibly
shaped by the pathos of preaching the good work of human curiosity, fear, and
hope" (Suvin, Cognition 14).
Early in his argument Suvin states that "aliens-utopians, monsters or
simply differing strangers-are a mirror to man just as the differing country is a
mirror for his world" (Suvin, Poetics 374). He then presents his definitions of
II
estrangement as the effect of "factual reporting of fictions . . . confronting a set
normative system . . . with a point of view or glance implying a new set of norms"
(Suvin, Poetics 374). He also notes that SF is subject to cognitive glance
because it "sees the norms of any age, including emphatically its own, as unique,
changeable . . (Suvin, Poetics 375). Later in his essay he restates the case
again that "the cognitive nucleus of the plot co-determines the fictional
estrangement in SF" (Suvin, Poetics 381).
Suvin separates myth, fantasy, and fairy tale from SF based on the
"cognitive" aspect of estrangement and presents a definition for discussion.
SF is, then, a literary genre whose necessary and sufficient
conditions are the presence and interaction of estrangement and
cognition, and whose main formal device is an imaginative
framework alternative to the author's empirical environment.
(Suvin, Poetics 375)
Suvin considers that SF in the twentieth century serves to diagnose and
give a warning and call toward understanding and action as well as-an d perhaps
most importantly--"a mapping of possible alternatives" (Suvin, Poetics 378).
Stressing that the SF writer should not be perceived as an oracle or prophet, he
continues to posit that any art is neither "pragmatic truth nor fiction fact" (Suvin,
Poetics 379). Citing that "'extrapolative modelling1is oriented futurologically," he
then discusses what he calls the "analogic modal in SF."
The objects, figures, and up to a point the relationships from which
this indirectly modelled world starts can be quite fantastic (in the
sense of empirically unverifiable) as long as they are logically,
philosophically and mutually consistent. (Suvin, Poetics 379)
Finally, Suvin concludes his argument by setting up the three axioms by
which SF should be criticized. The first is to evaluate the masterpieces and then
apply those standards to all other works within the genre. The second is to
demand from SF a higher level of cognition than that of its average reader; “the
strange novelty is its raison d'etre." The third, finally, is to insist, as a minimum
requirement, that SF be wiser than the world which it addresses.
Even more importantly, [significant SF] demands from the author
and reader, teacher and critic, not merely specialized, quantified
positivistic knowledge (scientia) but a social imagination whose
quality, whose wisdom (sapientia), testifies to the maturity of his
critical and creative thought. (Suvin, Poetics 381)
The theme in SF to seek out a new life and/or a better life permeates
much of American literature and can be traced back to mainstream writers such
as James Fennimore Cooper and the American Transcendentalist movement of
the nineteenth century. What the New World represented to the colonizing
Europeans and what the westward expansion meant for nineteenth century
Americans is now reestablished within the SF landscape of Lunar and Martian
colonization and expansion onto other worlds.
The aspect of the frontier as a place for renewal and rebirth has been
13
used by other American writers (“the myth of the Frontier is normally associated
with American life and letters"), but Willis McNelly observes that the frontier is not
only geographic, but it is also symbolic. "The vitality of American life, epitomized
by the phoenix-like Adamic hero" becomes a part of the renewal theme of SF.
Space is an unlimited frontier "where man's seed will make him truly immortal" in
the utopian view, but if the frontier "becomes exhausted and the hero is shown to
have feet of clay, the dystopia theme will inevitably emerge." Thus, the idea as
hero, whether prelapsarian hero or manifested frontier, is, according to McNelly,
one of American literature's great themes. (McNelly, American Dream 10-12)
McNelly sees within SF's substitution of idea for hero (for the more
traditional person as hero) the placement of SF within the mainstream of
American literature. Citing R.W.B. Lewis' theory of the vitality of the American
vision of life as a major contribution to narrative art, McNelly states that "the
literature of ideas known as science fiction has become a contemporary version
of the Adamic myth: it can be illuminative, cautionary, or optimistic by turns, and,
indeed, perhaps redemptive in its nature" (McNelly, American Dream 10).
Robert Conquest also discusses SF as seemingly uniquely American but
only as a small comment within a larger essay. He does not acknowledge the
contributions to SF made by writers in England, France, Russia, Poland, and
Germany, for example. He seems to support that the chauvinism of American
SF is more than apparent with its American-style of English as the universal
language for the galaxy and/or for Earth colonists, the US Constitution as the
14
only model of government from which all other governments spring, and
American customs being the customs overlaid upon the entire human race.
American SF may present a “one planet, one people” philosophy, but in reality
the "one planet, one people" will all be Americanized. As Conquest discusses
the uniformity of American SF terms (e.g., blaster, subspace, hyperspace, space
warp), he mentions almost as an aside that
One of the oddest of these bits of terminology is the currency of the
future, which is almost always the "credit." And that, I think, is a
convenient symbol of the absence of chauvinism in this largely
American or Anglo-American art. Of course it is usually the
Western culture which is projected, at least, into the near future, for
obvious reasons. (Conquest 363-364)
B. Mythic Approaches to Science_Fiction
Another ongoing debate among critics of SF concerns the use of myth
within the literature. Gail Landsman tells us that, for the first time in the history of
Western culture, modem humanity does not have its own religious mythology.
Although mankind, in its arrogance, has revelled in the unmoumed loss of this
irrationality, she contends that humanity actually suffers "unspeakable pain and
intolerable emptiness" due to the loss (Landsman 989). Thus, human beings
have forced the culture to produce a new mythology in the form of SF. "Stripped
of any mythology we can believe in, we are left with only artificial substitutes.
And so perhaps this is where science fiction comes in-as compensation for the
15
imaginary world our culture has destroyed for us, as an attempt to recreate the
mythology we have lost" (Landsman 993).
According to Janice Neuleib, SF creates a mythos for its readership,
sharing a common function with myth for mankind. She discusses SF stories
and states: "Myths and fairy tales tell us how to deal with a hostile and
frightening world. Great science fiction teaches us the same lesson by showing
this world displaced to another time and place" (Neuleib 110). Peter Nicholls
concurs when he analyzes man's myth-making tendencies, stating that the major
similarity between SF and myth is “the construction of imaginary worlds, which
by way of analogue or metaphor help us to understand the workings of our own"
(Nicholls 23).
Jeanne Murray Walker begins her discussion of myth and SF by stating
that "science fiction functions as a modem mythology" and further on stating that
"science fiction, like myth, articulates by analogy the primary patterns evident in
society" (Walker 145,147). She reiterates the theory of myth attributed to
anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss that "when human beings create myths, they
remove objects from their everyday contexts and lodge them within a narrative
structure in unusual but highly logical relations intended to express speculative
versions of social order” (Walker 147).
Walker's argument, then, is that, like myth, SF stories cross generational,
cultural, and racial barriers. Its embrace by a multilevel society reflects its debt
and influence by the dominant myths of Greek, Roman, and Judeo-Christian
16
societies. The stories of Athena, Aeneas, Job, and Lazarus are all part of the
Western mythic experience and dominate how Western civilization orders its
society, and SF continues this mythic tradition in its stories about cultures and
civilizations in another time and another place.
Not surprisingly, a dominant pattern in science fiction, as in myth, is
exchange, which cultural historians have described as the form of
society itself The fact that science fiction focuses on
exchange helps to explain its kinship with myth on the one hand
and its large and collective audience on the other. As cultural
historians have shown, myths-even ones which present
alternatives to the current political, economic, sexual, religious or
geographical ordering of the society-help people understand their
places in relationship to others. (Walker 149)
Walker notes that myths set out to reconcile conflicts in social values in the
"paradigm of exchange" and concludes that “to think of science fiction in terms of
the metaphor of exchange helps us to understand the genre" (Walker 153,154).
William Lomax supports the notion that myth is part of the origin of SF.
Reviewing Northrop Frye's observations on myth, he notes that myth is a linear
ancestor of modem SF, and, as these myths break up in the forward evolution of
civilization, "one branch [provides] the metaphorical patterns of literature and the
other the conceptual ideas underlying the culture as a whole" (Lomax 243). As
the Christian mythical culture began to erode, there was a need to replace the
conservative mythology of Christianity with a more liberal or “open" mythology
which Lomax states began with Romanticism of the eighteenth century and
finally found a home in modem SF. "This is the role of landscape in modem
science fiction-to dramatize the need for a new totalizing myth in a world
fragmented by the loss of the old" (Lomax 253). But he modifies the relationship
of SF and myth by clearly stating that SF "does not create myth; rather, it
dramatizes the need for mythmaking in a world without a vital totalizing myth.
Science fiction, then, is not simply mythopoeic-it is metamythopoeicf (Lomax
253). It is Lomax's judgment that SF serves the purpose of dramatizing the need
for a unifying myth which "can reassemble the scattered limbs of Osiris," thus
returning to civilization and the world a "shaping structure" which has been
irrevocably lost (Lomax 254).
Darko Suvin, on the other hand, works diligently to separate SF from myth
in the critical arena. He acknowledges that estrangement is a device also found
in myth, but moves SF away from it by attaching the cognitive codicil to his
definition.
The myth is diametrically opposed to the cognitive approach since
it conceives human relations as fixed. . . . [MJyth absolutizes and
even personifies apparently constant motifs from the sluggish
periods with low social dynamics. (Suvin, Poetics 375)
SF, on the other hand, is more open, opposing the concreteness of mythical
explanations by positing the essence of phenomena “first as problems and then
18
[exploring] where they lead to" (Suvin, Poetics 375).
Suvin discusses the mythological tale as a process for religious systems
both ancient and modem because it determines for mankind its relationship with
nature based on a fixed set of beliefs which are believed without question.
Stories, however, are fiction and, thus, are not myths in and of themselves, but
are what Suvin calls "mythomorphic."
In other words,. . . [a SF story], although it uses . . . the
mythological pattern of trial and death with or without resurrection,
is in its message and final impact very different. . . [and] often
diametrically opposed to the religious myth expressing a collective
normative ritual. (Suvin, Genological 261)
Myth shares with SF fictional estrangement, but SF is different from it because of
its cognitive qualifier. Myth is taken as serious and profound posturing whereas
SF should only be taken as fiction-perhaps well written, perhaps enlightening,
and perhaps even spiritually stimulating. SF, nonetheless, simply is literature
and, Suvin warns, should not be treated as prophecy.
To expect from SF more than a stimulus for independent thinking,
more than a system of stylized narrative devices understandable
only in their mutual relationships within a fictional whole and not as
isolated realities, leads insensibly to critical demand for scientific
accuracy in the extrapolated realia. Editors and publishers of such
"hard" persuasion have, from the U.S. pulp magazines to the Soviet
19
agitprop, been inclined to turn the handmaiden of SF into the slave
of the reigning theology of the day
(Suvin. Genological 263)
C. Feminist Approaches to Science Fiction
Although the debate concerning myth vs. SF takes up a great deal of
critical space, feminism is engaging in significant debate regarding SF.
Feminists have spoken out strongly about the lack of female writers in SF, the
shallowness of the female characters, and, in some instances, the complete lack
of female characters. All the heroes are men. All the scientists are men. All the
leaders are men. At least, they were. Feminist critics have been at the forefront
of change and, albeit slowly, many errors and omissions are in the process of
correction. Although there were women SF writers since the 1930s, they
disguised their identities under gender-non-specific names and their writings
were "constrained by a dominant male ideology that, at work within science
fiction, peripheralizes the role of female characters" (Lefanu 179).
In 1976 Mary Kenny Badami wrote a scathing article addressing the anti
feminist sins of commission and omission within SF. Up to the date of her
article, Badami states, women's roles in SF have been negligible. She calls this
syndrome "The Invisible Woman" and declares vehemently that women are
ignored as characters, fans, and writers of SF. She relates reviewing a
bibliography of SF novels compiled by George Fergus from a female perspective.
In all of published SF to that point, less than ten were published before 1960,
with the list totalling only sixty novels.
She breaks down the formula for "The Invisible Woman" being used by
SF writers as: "Men fight. Women breed. Anatomy is destiny" (Badami 9). She
makes a special case for "hard" SF being a man's world due to its being written
by men with the technological focus on the rational male and the emotional
female. Quoting from Alexei Panshin, she notes that the problem perhaps is
"less a neglect of women than [an] overemphasis on men" (Badami 14). She,
however, does not let SF off the hook. What she wrote in 1976 still is significant
in the mid-1990s since the transformation to a better, more accurate,
representation of women is not complete.
Overall, then, the portrayal of women in science fiction has been
deplorable. Our lack of representation is the first and most basic
complaint. Moreover, those few women characters who figure in
stories are seldom memorable, are rarely depicted outside of a
relationship with a male protagonist, and almost always behave
according to conventional role patterns and sexist assumptions.
(Badami 10)
Susan Wood is less vitriolic, but nonetheless corroborates Badami's
suppositions. Instead of playing up SF's negative non-feminist past, she
supports the writers who are attempting to change the gender landscape and
explores the deficit of character for both genders.
Thus any criticism of science fiction's failure to depict believable
women characters really brings up two points. One is primarily
literary: the need for science fiction to replace all the cardboard
characters, he-men as well as she-devils, with functioning people.
. . . The other is primarily social: the need for SF to actually do
what it pretends to do, that is, envision genuinely new cultures and
societies. (Wood 11)
Wood may understand the genesis for the lack of accurate female
depictions in SF, but she is unrelenting in her promotion of better stories and
characters for SF women. She finds that, while women characters have
increased, they are presented as castrating anti-male seductresses, maternal
earth mothers, or breathless virgins. Wood spends time reviewing Robert
Graves' analysis of the Triple Goddess--virgin/matron/hag--and how these three
versions of female are the only ones seemingly visualized by SF writers. In what
she calls "the only fiction that allows us to play God," Wood wonders "why not
depict a nurturing male" in SF when instead
we do have plenty of images of women in SF. Many of them,
however, are degrading to all people, and most of them are one
dimensional, the lowest common denominator of social stereotypes
that are already passe. (Wood 17,18)
Lester Del Rey agrees with Wood and considers the influx of women SF
writers as the foundation upon which a change for the better is structured. He
concurs that in the past "science fiction had generally been the province of the
22
male writer, like most forms of adventure fiction" (Del Rey 28). He deems the
emergence of female SF writers as "the healthiest and most promising [change
in SF] for the future" (Del Rey 28).
By 1989 the winds of change had blown fresh air into SF writing. Sarah
Lefanu reports on the opportunity female authors have seized, using SF "to
explore sexual politics" and suggesting that "this might be seen as the
beginnings of a popular feminist fiction" (Lefanu 179). With the 1970s and the
new influx of writers-especially women writers-SF "opened up for the
exploration in fiction of political ideas, and in particular those of the developing
women's liberation movement" (Lefanu 180). Writers such as Octavia Butler, C.
J. Cherryh, and Mary Gentle attempt to break the boundaries by giving authority
to females and non-white characters, but Lefanu posits that their work still suffers
because of “their use of traditional narrative frameworks" (Lefanu 188).
Nonetheless, she praises their efforts and achievements as the beginning steps
which show women able to write competent, entertaining SF. "Strong female
characters now appear regularly in science fiction without any necessarily
feminist political intent" (Lefanu 190).
One of the more bizarre manifestations of female writer empowerment in
SF was documented in 1992 by Constance Penley. It is called "slash lit,"
referring to a code designation using a slash mark joining two initials. Slash lit is
not the sole property of SF but has found a home with the male characters found
in several film and television stories. Found in underground fan magazines
(called slash zines) written by heterosexual women, the slash lit stories revolve
around the bonding of two hero males who in their mainstream stories are
partners and friends, but in the slash zines are gay lovers. Sexually explicit-
many with detailed illustrations-these stones explore the possibilities of
leader/authority figures in a love/sexual relationship while maintaining the respect
inherent within their job categories or military ranks. Penley calls this the "female
appropriations of a popular culture product" (Penley 484).
Penley focuses on the many and various manifestations of slash lit
surrounding the "Star Trek" characters of Kirk and Spock (in slash lit known as
K/S). Attempting to understand the psychological need for women to write male
homoerotica, she sees K/S as fantasy substitutions to fill a need women feel in
their traditional SF and in real life.
Thus, even though Kirk and Spock have to overcome the usual
obstacles of the romance formula . . . when they do get together,
they do so as a couple in which love and work can be shared.. . .
[W]e still live in a patriarchal culture, and it is thus still not possible
to imagine two women . . . who go out and save the galaxy once a
week. (Penley 490, my italics)
As Penley asserts, and others before her and since agree,
disenfranchisement of women in society in general and literature specifically
exists. Social and cultural conditions and attitudes may be changing, but the
change is slow and painstaking. Many women are anxious for change to occur
24
much more quickly, and their disappointed frustration can be recognized in this
slash lit underground art form. As with any art form, there is hope for SF
regarding women's characterizations and issues. As Lefanu states: "Science
fiction is not monolithic, and . . . it has from the beginnings been a literature of
inquiry, allowing comment and critique . . . " (Lefanu 179). Feminist criticism is
the latest in a system of literary inquiry into SF which defines, analyzes, and,
ultimately, elevates the writing and reading of the literature.
D. Propaganda Approaches to Science_Fiction
With all the comments about positioning, politicizing and radicalizing the
writing of SF, there arises another criticism, that of propaganda criticism, which
needs to be explored. The Oxford English Dictionary defines propaganda as
“any association, systematic scheme, or concerted movement for the
propagation of a particular doctrine or practice" (OED v. VIII 1466). The first role
of literature -any literature-is to entertain its readers. Within these stories,
however, are propaganda elements which support our own prejudices about our
society, culture, and personal beliefs and reinforce our disdain for any processes
which fall outside of our realm of acceptability. Literature also may force the
reader to look outside of himself and his society in order to evaluate and possibly
change customs and mores to better his society. What also may, and does,
occur within literature is the author's manipulation of characters and events to
persuade the reader into embracing the author's personal point of view. In 1926
W.E.B. DuBois was concerned with covert and overt presentations, remarking:
25
All art is propaganda and ever must be, despite the wailing of the
purists I do not give a damn for any art that is not used for
propaganda. But I do care when propaganda is confined to one
side while the other is stripped and silent. (DuBois 296)
Many times science fiction has given a voice to those who refuse to be "stripped
and silent" with regard to their political and sociological passions.
Propaganda and persuasion are very much the same but, at this point in
time, differ in their connotations with the general public. The word propaganda
was coined by the Roman Christian church of the 17th century when it sought to
organize its missionary efforts under one bureaucratic umbrella called the Sacra
Congregatio de Propaganda Fide, which, translated in English, is the Society for
the Propagation of the Faith (Fraser 7). In the twentieth century, however,
propaganda achieved its present negative connotation. Soviet communism
created the agitation and propaganda section of the Central Committee of the
Communist Party (known as the agitprop) and Josef Goebbels headed Hitler's
Reich Ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda (Griffith 244, Foulkes
2). Thus, politicians, educators, and critics diligently work to separate
themselves from the term propaganda by substituting persuasion in its place.
A persuasive campaign that exists with relation to a product is a
sales or marketing campaign; related to an individual it is typically
an election campaign . . . . Campaigns mounted by those opposed
to our view are typically “propaganda campaigns." The term
26
propaganda has come to have such a negative connotation that the
word is rarely employed in common usage except in a pejorative
sense. (Andersen 314)
Winston Brembeck and William Howell attempt to defuse the negativity of
propaganda by placing it within a neutral definition of persuasion. "Propaganda,
too, is considered a form of persuasion. It may be said to be a type of
persuasive campaign designed to influence large numbers of people. . . "
(Brembeck and Howell 19).
Propaganda shares many qualities with rhetoric but differs from it in a very
significant way. Rhetoric analyzes literature from the viewpoint of word selection
and placement within the argument. George Trail talks of Orwell's use of
language and semantic structure in one of his essays. "Orwell's 'rule' [is] 'Never
use the passive where you can use the active . . (Trail 577). Patricia Bizzell
and Bruce Herzberg begin their General Introduction to their text on rhetoric by
listing the meanings of rhetoric, two of which are “the use of language, written or
spoken, to inform or persuade; the study of the persuasive effects of language..
." (Bizzell and Herzberg 1). Rhetoric, then, is more linguistic deconstructionism,
looking at the word choice, phrase choice, and sentence construction building
blocks upon which a persuasive argument is assembled.
Propaganda is more global in its persuasive agenda. It is concerned with
philosophies and concepts. It is the end product of the rhetorical building blocks.
George Orwell in the 1950s echoes what W.E.B. DuBois had stated in 1926.
Reproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
A.P. Foulkes quotes Orwell:
n[A]ll art is to some extent propaganda . . . . [Propaganda in some
form or other lurks in every book, that every work of art has a
meaning and a purpose-a political, social and religious purpose
" (Foulkes 4, 6)
Darko Suvin seems to agree when he posits that literature is not an
isolated entity. Rather, it is a fixed assemblance of characters, settings, and
incidents "producing meanings, values, and structures of feeling . . . within a
given socio-historical context" (Suvin, Narrative 1). What Suvin describes as
context, Foulkes describes as interpretant; i.e., the elements of society, culture,
custom, language, and personal experience which influence the reader to
interpret the writing in a particular way. Citing Charles Morris' semiotics theories
and using his second definition of interpretant, Foulkes describes his version of
interpretant as that mixture of many influences upon readers which gives them
'"a disposition to respond in certain ways under certain circumstances"' (Foulkes
23). Context is not only the historical and social setting at the time of the
authorship of the novel, but also the historical and social setting at the time of the
reading of the novel.
The reader (Morris's interpreter) becomes an active participant in the final
creation of the novel, because it is the reader who accepts the author's
information and processes it, giving the final explication of the text. If this
explication agrees with the author's intentional or perhaps subconscious
28
message, then the novel is a successful piece of propaganda. It is imperative,
especially with regard to SF, that the target reader/interpreter embrace the ideas
within the text without any conscious awareness of the author's stylistic
manipulations. At the same time, however, the target reader/interpreter must
feel privileged and comfortable processing the information so that its assimilation
will be complete. "Credibility is probably the most important key to the
effectiveness of any propaganda" (Griffith 246).
Suvin argues that SF is "educational literature . . . irreversibly shaped by
the pathos of preaching the good word of human curiosity, fear and hope" (Suvin,
Genological 271). Accepting SF's role as educator, Suvin accepts as de facto
that SF is a propagandistic tool. In discussing the propaganda of Soviet
communism and Marxism, William Griffith clearly states that the "task of
communist revolutionaries, therefore, is primarily to achieve consciousness
themselves and transmit it via education (that is, propaganda) to the proletariat"
(Griffith 239, my italics).
Foulkes explains that there are four distinctions within the general
definition of propaganda. Borrowing from Jacques Ellul, he lists them as “1
political and sociological propaganda; 2 agitation and integration;
3 vertical and horizontal propaganda; 4 rational and irrational propaganda"
(Foulkes 10). Using Foulkes's divisions, within SF literature, the most commonly
used is agitation and integration. However, with agitation and integration,
elements of politics and sociology occur and the attempts at propagandizing can
29
be vertical (from the omniscient head to the receivers below) or horizontal (peer
influencing peer) as well as rational or irrational. The four distinctions are aimed
at the major influencing factors or sources of propaganda while also containing
as elements within the major factor parts of the others. In the instance of
American SF, the second definition of agitation and integration is the most
applicable since the political, sociological factors are many times covert and
subtle, the sense of a vertical or horizontal influence is subverted within the text,
and the rationality or irrationality is not easily apparent because of the fantasy
futurism of the settings.
Agitation propaganda is "usually subversive and oppositional," seeking to
disrupt and/or destroy the established order (Foulkes 11). It is the choice of
revolutionaries and political critics/satirists. Integration propaganda is the polar
opposite of agitation; it supports and promotes the status quo. George Szanto
calls this the "common sense" approach and discusses how this is used in the
reinforcement of established norms of behavior. "Such intentions always seem
natural, logical, commonsensical, straightforward-they are based in assumptions
which declare that things cannot be otherwise . . . " (Szanto 10). Arnold Rogow
examines integration propaganda at length with regard to the sexuality within
mass media entertainment and the advertising to promote products from
transportation to clothing to food. Viewer/interpreter identification of seif with the
(popular successful) group becomes an on-going goal.
Any failure to achieve a self that includes identification with the
30
aspirations of the body politic is a danger to the integrity of the
commonwealth. It diminishes the chances of orderly agreement,
and increases the strength of factors that provoke coercion.
(Rogow 165)
The ultimate in propagandistic technique is censorship. The four
distinctions mentioned by Foulkes are active and participatory. They work within
the culture and society of the group being influenced. The propagandist(s) must
create information or misinformation and then distribute it among the target
audience. Censorship, however, is passively pernicious. Hans Speier explores
a form of censorship in examining euphemisms. The concept of enforced
ignorance of the group is the same. "As long as the masses are illiterate and no
right to education and active participation in politics is recognized, the need for
communication between the rulers and the ruled is small" (Speier 265).
Authors exercise a form of censorship by their choices of inclusion and
exclusion. How characters are created demands decisions about gender, color,
education, personality, philosophy, and--in the case of SF-planet of origin. The
author positions these characters as protagonist or antagonist, main character or
supporting character, initiator or conduit of action.
The author also decides the location of the story, its environmental
surroundings, its time placement, and its sociopolitical and religious culture(s). In
addition to the big details, the small ones are just as significant. The choice of
weaponry-and the level of competence-becomes part of character
I
31
development. Selection of companions of either or both genders for the different
players and their subsequent interactions with these companions are options
which the author must sort through.
IV. THE PLACE OF DUNE IN TWENTIETH CENTURY SCIENCE FICTION
Frank Herbert's Dune is an important case study in SF and is considered
the first major work of new wave SF. Herbert makes distinct choices in the novel
when creating the characters and situations on the desert planet, and (although
literary authorial censorship is tame compared to the more aggressive political
and governmental brands) by making choices he exercises control over the
dissemination of information advanced by the story to the reader. Arrakis
becomes a character within the text, and there is much discussion about the
ecology of the planet and its potential for improvement. He sets the action within
an extremely distant future (approximately the year 10,200) which had regressed
govemmentally to an imperial feudal state. The leaders are all male, and the
females are relegated to covert activities of power. Religion is recognized by
way of the Orange Catholic Bible (which “contains elements of most ancient
religions" [Herbert, Dune 525]) and the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood. There is a
political and religious messiah figure in the teenager, Paul Atreides, and a
mystical belief system among the Fremen tribal peoples.
There are omissions within the text which will be addressed more fully
later in this dissertation. The first omission is of any people of color. Both the
enemies and the allies of Paul Atriedes are seemingly Caucasian; not even the
32
servants are of color (a real possibility since the novel was written in the early
1960s). There are no female leaders; this is understandable within the
regressive patriarchal system of the empire, but the Fremen culture also does
not allow for female leadership. The closest the reader gets to a female authority
figure is Paul's concubine, Chani, but her role is significantly diminished when
she begins her sexual life with Paul. There are no positive homosexual figures;
in fact, the major, brutal, horrific, and grotesque villain of the novel is a diseased
corrupt homosexual pedophile.
The major focus of this dissertation is the analysis of Herbert's SF novel
utilizing propaganda criticism which will involve investigating the author's choices
and the effect of contemporary interpretants on his decision processes. With
reference to other critical theories (such as feminist and myth), the novel's issues
and themes will be investigated in Chapter Two to determine which side of the
philosophical fence Herbert apparently stood. The major focus of the remaining
chapters will involve a review of Herbert's social and political influences and
resultant philosophies, and how he incorporates these influences and
philosophies within Dune. The investigation will attempt to determine if Herbert's
final product is a successful or unsuccessful propagandistic expression of his
personal agenda.
33
Chapter Two
Issues and Themes in Dune
I. INTRODUCTION
Many authors have their novels analyzed from cultural, psychological, or
feminist critical viewpoints, and the same is certainly true of SF novels. It may,
however, be more imperative to criticize SF novels because of their influence on
the numbers of people who choose this genre for their entertainment. Critical
analysis is a benefit to many readers, because it helps them to focus more
clearly on the themes and issues within a novel. It can result in a heightened
appreciation for the talent of the author as well as a greater awareness of the
subtleties in the construction of the story and characters. SF, with its futuristic
settings and real science background, is an excellent candidate for critical debate
because of its mixture of unreality/fantasy in its futurism and reality in its science.
Frank Herbert's Dune is at the center of several analytical debates. The
evaluation of the novel covers several disciplines within critical analysis through
which scholars seek a better understanding of the structure, setting, characters,
religion, and politics within the lengthy story. It is a complex, dense novel which
can be read as a highly detailed SF action-adventure, but it is much more. It is a
novel which mixes hard science with soft science within a classic epic structure.
James Gunn discusses this mixture with regard to Dune and posits that
Dune, for instance, leaves readers with conflicting reactions
34
because the ecology is hard, the anthropology and the psychic
abilities are soft, and the structure is palace intrigue. This may be
the reason for its success,. . . readers attracted by the structure
can enhance their enjoyment with richness of other kinds. (Gunn,
idacd 79)
The following sections illustrate that Dune also allows Herbert to explore several
issues including history, the hero, epic structure, psychology, gender, religion,
and ecology as well as the role of leadership and human freedom in what he
envisions as mostly a deterministic universe.
II, HISTORY
John L. Grigsby compares Herbert's vision of the distant future of
humanity with Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy. He sees the two different SF
series as having similarities but with “Herbert's reversing of Asimov's
assumptions about the importance of mental sciences and technology" (Grigsby,
Reassessed 175).
Both Asimov and Herbert employ the "restoration of civilization theme" as
well as the concept of a great empire in decline (Grigsby, Reversed 151). Both
authors also utilize the establishment of manipulative religious systems on
primitive planets to lay the groundwork for the rise of new empires. Whereas
Asimov uses psychohistorians to guide the new empire through its gestation and
birth, Herbert uses a pseudo-religious order, the Bene Gesserits, to actively
orchestrate the intermixing of the bloodlines of the noble houses for the ultimate
goal of creating the definitive leader of humanity. Both stories include a
iconoclastic group of traders who are independent and powerful. However
similar these stories may be, they are "very opposite in their conclusions"
(Grigsby, Reversed 153).
Grigsby suggests that Herbert is more "philosophically perceptive" in his
Dune series than Asimov is in his Foundation series. In as much as Asimov
concedes to a beneficent paternalism of control to avoid barbarism in the
evolution toward a new Empire, Herbert suggests that a certain amount of
barbarism is important, perhaps even necessary. Grigsby posits that "Herbert
feels that all men must have the freedom to be creative and contribute to
civilization in any way they can or want to if society is to avoid stagnation, a far
greater danger than barbarism in the present age" (Grigsby, Reversed 153). He
concludes that Herbert has made the superior choice over Asimov, considering
that his ending to the Dune series is a comment of important philosophical value
about not only the future but also the present and the past as well.
Just as Asimov borrowed from Gibbon's history of the Roman Empire, so
too Herbert borrows from the known to formulate the unknown by utilizing his
knowledge of the Roman Empire to inform his novel and its characters. Herbert's
Empire of the Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV bears a strong resemblance,
according to Joseph M. Lenz, to the empire of the caesars. Both the ancient
Roman Caesars and the future emperor from the House Corrino rule through the
use of feared imperial legions. The Landsraad of the Great Houses is a form of
Senate which attempts to balance the emperor's powers. The Emperor himself
plots against his own family and is brought down in disgrace by a barbaric tribe
of religious fanatics. There are gladiatorial games which utilize slaves and
prisoners for the amusement of the House Harkonnen and its guests and for the
education of the populace (Lenz 43*44). As Lenz describes it, "Herbert uses
Rome to characterize the old empire gone awry" (Lenz 46). However, he
structures this future empire on the medieval model, with barons and dukes, with
political marriages to strengthen alliances, and the medieval codes of honor,
courage, and valor in battle. Peter Brigg postulates that, since many SF novels
are set in a medieval society, "feudal dictatorships are assumed to be the form to
which governments will progress" (Brigg, Consistent 12). Brian Aldiss defends
Dune's pseudo-medievalism when he comments: "For all its seemingly
mediaeval setting, Dune is a thoroughly futuristic novel" (Aldiss 399).
Herbert also uses a fictional internal history--a future history of the human
race-from which he borrows with gusto in order to inform Dune's place in its own
time with its own problems and solutions. Lorenzo DiTommaso suggests that
this future history of the Imperium plays an essential role in the "grounding and
development of the numerous plots in Dune, while also advancing . . . a major
theme in the book" which he calls the "Vitality struggle" (DiTommaso 311). He
describes the "Vitality struggle" more clearly as "Imperium/Stagnation/-
Compartmentalization vs. Arrakis/ Vitality/Growth" (DiTommaso 312).
By giving the human race a past which it must embrace, all who live in
3 l
chaos and random selection of the universe is what Herbert wishes the target
audience to extract from (and take with them out of) the novel and its sequels.
"Ecology was no longer simply a theme, but had become an aesthetic strategy"
in writing the trilogy and, later, the additional three sequels (Touponce 13).
Herbert also wants the target audience to have a very healthy distrust of any
form of leadership, whether it be governmental or corporate, and especially of
charismatic leaders.
Herbert demonstrates the practice of his own philosophy when he writes
an ending to Dune which is seemingly unfinished. According to Lenz, Herbert
"refuses to give his story a close, the one narrative moment when process stops.
His is an open text, one that both invites and refutes interpretation" (Lenz 48).
Parkinson agrees, stating that "the Dune novels, having left their author's control,
become to some extent the product of others' perception of them" (Parkinson
24). Herbert describes Dune's ending best when he states that "I refuse,
however, to provide further answers to this complex mixture. That, after all, fits
the pattern of the fugue: you find your own solutions; don't look to me as your
leader" (Herbert, Superhero 101). Herbert may wish to distance himself from the
role of leader, but he certainly must accept his role as propagandist. It is up to
the target audience to decide if Herbert is successful in the presentation of his
propaganda messages.
38
the use of atomic weapons against human targets (Herbert, Dune 519). Battles
are reduced to hand-to-hand combat, and the training and defensive
mechanisms are designed for individual use and protection. W ar no longer is
fought at an antiseptic distance; rather, it becomes close and personal.
The limited nature of war in the Imperium, encompassing such rigid
structures as kanly, the Dictum Familia, and the rules prescribed by
the Great Convention, was augmented by both the development of
the personal field-generating shield and the reintroduction of the
value of the human factor in combat Dune reintroduced the
grand conceptions of personal combat and heroic elitism, the
presence of crack forces such as the Sardaukar and the Fremen,
and the inclusion of personal weaponry like the kindjal, the slip-tip,
the shigawire garrote, and the maula pistol. (DiTommaso 313)
Thus, the emphasis of war has shifted from unavailable technology to personal
combat training.
The democratic philosophy of shared equality among all peoples is
replaced by what Herbert calls "faufreluches: the rigid rule of class distinction
enforced by the Imperium. 'A place for every man and every man in his place'"
(Herbert, Dune 518). This system of hierarchy supports and completes the
Imperium for without it the people would be ungovernable. Within this concept of
faufreluches is the Bene Gesserit quest for the humans among the people. The
test Reverend Mother Gaius Helen administers to young Paul Atreides via nerve
conduction is a test to determine whether or not he is human. NIW e Bene
Gesserit sift people to find the humans Our test is crisis and observation"
(Herbert, Dune 10). DiTommaso posits from Herbert's structured society that it is
plausible to deduce that he believed humans are inherently unequal (DiTommaso
311). The denial of movement between the classes in the Imperial feudal society
of Dune makes upward mobility impossible. The entire concept of twentieth
century democracy-the American Dream that any person can rise above his/her
birth and achieve greatness~is inconceivable. Even a seemingly honorable and
caring man as Duke Leto does not marry his concubine Lady Jessica because it
might interfere with a possible future political marriage which might improve his
position in the Empire and the Landsraad. His leadership, courage, and ability
count for nothing; only a strategic marriage will move him up in the senate of the
Great Houses. Paul in wake of his victory over the Emperor also accepts the
inequality factor by allowing himself to marry the Imperial Princess Irulan so that
he is made Emperor by means of inheritance rather than his successful coup
d'etat.
UL.J[fc!JE.HEBQ
History is a canvas upon which Herbert paints the story of Paul Atreides
who is the true hero of the novel. He places this 15-year-old ducal heir in a time
and a place which irrevocably changes him emotionally, politically, and
psychologically. It is a deterministic universe, part Greek and part Calvinist,
where the gods seem to shape the life of the new leader and where that young
40
leader's fate is predestined. In Dune. Herbert "goes on to explore with
extraordinary sophistication and honesty the paradoxical and limited ways in
which human freedom manages to exercise itself in a largely deterministic
universe" (Wymer, Perceptions [1977] 11). Herbert writes "to heighten and
expose a central concern with what it means to be a human being" (Wymer,
Perceptions r19751111).
With an historical base as wide as the ancient Roman Empire, and a
culture and society imitating the pageantry of the European middle ages, the next
element Herbert gives the reader is a traditional hero-Paul Atreides. Paul is
brother to many of the ancient heroes of mythology, and in keeping with the
adherence to the element of the Roman Empire, Herbert may have been inspired
by Virgil's The Aeneid.
Just as the ideal of Rome symbolizes permanence and unity in a
world of political change, so The Aeneid signified permanent
literary achievement amidst ever-changing critical values and
judgments. At the same time that. . . Herbert [rejects] the Roman
model [he relies] on The Aeneid. the scripture that canonizes that
model, to construct the new empire. (Lenz 44)
Paul is similar to Aeneas in several ways which leads readers and critics to
believe that the ancient founder of Rome is the inspiration for the future founder
of the new Arrakian empire. His "career follows Aeneas’ pattern. Paul Atreides
is a noble exile, fleeing the ruins of one dynasty and chosen to found another"
(Lenz 46). Willis E. McNelly posits that the surname Atreides refers back to the
ancient Greek House of Atreus (McNelly, Archetypal 16). The House of Atreus,
however, "was an ill-fated house.. . . A curse seemed to hang over the family,
making men sin in spite of themselves and bringing suffering and death down
upon the innocent as well as the guilty" (Hamilton 346). In keeping with the
destruction of an empire, a descendent of Atreus is Agamemnon, who led his
troops against Troy in support of his brother, Menelaus, whose wife, Helen, had
been "abducted" by Paris, a prince of Troy. Troy is destroyed, but so too are the
families of Menelaus and Agamemnon. As the Dune series progresses, the
choice of the House of Atreus to be reborn as House Atreides is more than a
coincidence.
McNelly suggests that it is possible "to trace, for example, many of the
characteristics which Lord Raglan ascribed to the hero-pattem" regarding Paul,
as does Timothy O'Reilly in his biography of Herbert (McNelly, Archetypal 16). In
fact, Lord Raglan listed twenty-two items which he found to be part of the hero
myths in many different mythologies, both pagan and Judeo-Christian. With
Oedipus receiving a perfect score, he rated other major heroes, with these
heroes scoring quite high according to his criteria. These criteria are:
(1) The hero's mother is a royal virgin:
(2) His father is a king, and
(3) Often a near relative of his mother, but
(4) The circumstances of his conception are
1
42
unusual, and
(5) He is also reputed to be the son of a god.
(6) At birth an attempt is made, usually by his
father or his maternal grandfather, to kill
him, but
(7) He is spirited away, and
(8) Reared by foster-parents in a far country.
(9) We are told nothing of his childhood, but
(10) On reaching manhood he returns or goes to his
future kingdom.
(11) After a victory over the king and/or a giant,
dragon, or wild beast,
(12) He marries a princess, often the daughter of
his predecessor, and
(13) Becomes king.
(14) For a time he reigns uneventfully, and
(15) Prescribes laws, but
(16) Later he loses favour with the gods and/or
his subjects, and
(17) Is driven from the throne and city, after
which
(18) He meets a mysterious death,
43
(19) Often at the top of a hill.
(20) His children, if any, do not succeed him.
(21) His body is not buried, but nevertheless
(22) he has one or more holy sepulchres.
(Raglan, Hero 178-179)
Items 14 through 22 are part of a discussion of Paul as he appears in the two
sequels, Dune Messiah, and Children of Dune. Items 1 through 13, however,
refer to Paul in the first novel of the series.
Paul's mother, Jessica, is a royal concubine of hidden lineage. We leam
later in the novel that Jessica's mother was a Bene Gesserit lady who
successfully seduced, through subterfuge, the homosexual Baron Vladimir
Harkonnen. As a lady of royal blood, Jessica is paired with Duke Leto Atreides
who rules the planet Caladan; this position makes him closer to a king than to a
duke of a small territory of land. Perhaps he may be a near relative of his
concubine since the Bene Gesserit are the only ones who know the truth of the
lineage of the women whom they train.
The circumstances of Paul's birth are certainly unusual since Jessica was
under orders from the Sisterhood to give birth to a daughter. He is believed to be
the Kwisatz Haderach, "a male Bene Gesserit whose organic mental powers
would bridge space and time," the most awesome human alive (Herbert, Dune
522), thus fitting the criteria of being reputed to be the son of a god. In fact, he
possesses god-like powers and passes them on to his twin children, Ghanima
44
and Leto. (They make their first appearances in Dune Messiah.) It is at his pre
birth as the Kwisatz Haderach that his maternal grandfather, Baron Harkonnen,
begins to plot against his life. At puberty (his birth passage from child to adult)
the Baron has plotted the death of Paul's entire family, and again, after he
emerges as the Kwisatz Haderach and is called Muad'Dib, the Baron plots to
destroy him and his Fremen followers.
After the first attempt on his and Jessica's lives, they both are spirited
away to safety among the Fremen people, again in his puberty, and learns the
Fremen ways from the leader of the Sietch Tabr, Stilgar. He is “reared'' by this
foster parent in the far country of the Sietch. The reader knows nothing of Paul
before the age of 15 and only rudimentary information about his three years in
the Sietch before reaching his "manhood" by taking the Water of Life and
launching his offensive against the Beast Rabban and the illegal government,
beginning his acquisition of his future kingdom. He is successful in his coup
d'etat against the Emperor and the Baron, he marries the Imperial Princess
Irulan, and becomes Emperor after Shaddam IV's enforced abdication from the
Golden Lion Throne.
Paul also fits within the criteria of the hero's rite of passage, delineated by
Joseph Campbell. According to Campbell
The standard path of the mythological adventure of the hero is a
magnification of the formula represented in the rites of passage:
separation-initiation-return: which might be named the nuclear unit
45
of the monomyth.. . . [W]hether presented in the vast, almost
oceanic images of the Orient, in the vigorous narratives of the
Greeks, or in the majestic legends of the Bible, the adventure of the
hero normally follows the pattern of the nuclear unit above
described: a separation from the world, a penetration to some
source of power, and a life-enhancing return. (Campbell 30,35)
Paul's separation begins early in the novel. Not only is he tom from Caladan, the
only home he has ever known, but he also is forcibly removed from his new
home on Arrakis. He must escape from his captors, with his mother in tow, and
forge together a new life out of adversity.
Paul's initiation/penetration to a new source of power is two-fold. First he
penetrates and is accepted into a formidable force-the Fremen community. He
joins them and wins them over to him becoming the new leader of Sietch Tabr,
the first to do so without killing the current leader (Stilgar). Instead, he gives
Stilgar more power and authority as his second in command. Secondly, he
penetrates the power of his own mind by drinking the Water of Life (a poison)
and attempting to change it on the molecular level within his own body to a non
toxic substance. By doing this, he elevates his own mental abilities and
awareness to a height never before accomplished by another human being, thus
proving that he is the Kwisatz Haderach, the male Bene Gesserit.
Paul's life-enhancing return is for his new people as well as for himself.
His new abilities give him fresh strength and also give the Fremen the final
impetus needed to rise up against their oppressors. They fight to reclaim their
planet and their right to self-rule. They fight with determination and vigor, and,
with the help of Paul, they succeed. Their chosen leader becomes the ruler of
the Empire and the destroyer of their enemies.
The story's hero thus combines two figures. As [the new] Duke
Atreides, Paul belongs to the old order, figuring Aeneas, the
founder and father of empire. As Muad'Dib, he heralds the new
order, figuring Moses, the prophet who delivers his people . . . to
the promised land. (Lenz 47)
IV. EPIC STRUCTURE
Having delineated a hero so well, Herbert must put him in a structure
which will be equally as classic as his protagonist. Herbert utilizes many
elements of classic epic structure to make Dune more than just an action-
adventure story. In a discussion of this structure Robert Cirasa states that, if a
work impresses the reader as being epic in nature, then it suggests "the very
basic and holistic nature of the appeal which so distinctively characterized epic
narrative" (Cirasa 196). He observes that first and foremost an epic is a story
which is well-told and not didactic, and he quotes from C. M. Bowra's argument
on epic narrative, Heroic Poetry, to corroborate that an epic '"is concerned with
the great doings of men, [and] tells stories because men like to hear them. The
poet wishes not to instruct but to delight his audience"' (Cirasa 196). He goes on
to state that the epic exposes the reader “to broader issues of human
experience" where the reader's realization of life becomes expanded (Cirasa
198).
A distinction is made by Patrick Parrinder between romance and epic
when he notes that "the inclusion of history marks the contrast between the epic
and the romance . . . [because the] desirable (including the deliciously horrifying)
takes precedence in romance over what is realistically plausible" (Parrinder 91 -
92). As such, the heroic deeds which are recounted in the epic are supposed to
have actually happened. "The epic is thus a secular or historical narrative of
events and deeds that constitute the heritage, or provide the key to the destiny,
of the people for whom it is written" (Parrinder 92-93). The traditional epic
concerns itself with "heroic conflict and resolution" (Parrinder 102) which
becomes transferred into science fiction. He asserts that there are criteria for
calling any SF novel an epic.
However, the principal ground for calling some science fiction
"epic" as opposed to "romantic" is that it deals with future or
alternative history. The plausibility such stories share with realism
is as essential as the heroic deeds and fateful contests they share
with modem fantasy. (Parrinder 93)
As Parrinder states, the sequence of events in the epic are supposed to
have already happened and as such are a part of history. Arguments can be
made that no such historical figures (e.g., Adam, Aeneas, Hercules) exist as
written. Paul Atreides certainly does not exist, since he is not supposed to be
48
bom for another 10,000 years and on a planet other than Earth. It is the
assumption of fact, of truth, which gives the epic and its hero plausibility and
allows the reader to accept the written account of his deeds as authentic. Thus,
it is the perception of the reader which gives credence to the epic and its hero.
Both Robert Cirasa and Michael R. Collings refer to Dune as a SF epic
and delineate the reasons which they believe substantiate their claims. Cirasa
lists the commonly shared characteristics of epic structure which Dune imitates.
He states that Dune is concerned with: (1) great events; (2) great figures; (3)
exceptional martial confrontations typical of heroic poetry; (4) heroic ethos; and
(5) engagements of epic suspense through the use of prophetic conventions
(Cirasa 205-206). Collings, however, states that, to view SF as epic, the reader
must look beyond the surface conventions found in traditional epics. Instead, the
reader should "concentrate on several essential elements of the epic" and the
ways in which "they provide structure and form" to a SF novel, such as Dune
(Collings 132).
Collings's first element involves the exploits of the hero which in Dune is
Paul Atreides. This hero must be "elevated beyond common mortals by
particular traits" since the character which the epic defines is "superior to other
men" (Collings 132-133). Paul is introduced to the reader in the first few pages
of the novel during his test of humanness by Reverend Mother Gaius Helen.
Paul is unusual because he is the son of a Bene Gesserit who has been
ordered to produce only female children. He has been trained not only in the
ways of warfare and diplomacy, but also in the ways of the Bene Gesserit. He is
gifted with the skills of a mentat and can instantly compute alternatives and
solutions to problems. By birth he is of noble lineage. By training he is an
exceptional warrior. During his banishment, he is trained in the fierce fighting
ways of the Fremen and becomes their leader. He elevates his place in Fremen
culture by ingesting the Water of Life, surviving the poisonous test, and
becoming aware of many possible futures. He becomes a formidable enemy to
the Empire and a messiah to the Fremen outcasts. "His actions, like those of the
traditional epic hero, are of worldwide (in this instance, galaxy-wide) impact. In
classical epic the hero performs actions which alter irrevocably the history of his
world . . . . Through his actions on Arrakis, Paul alters the face of his universe"
(Collings 133). Paul is a reluctant messiah, not quite actively embracing his role
with the Fremen people, but reluctantly leading them in order to remove the
Harkonnen scourge and restore the Atreides legal and hereditary right to rule
Arrakis.
Paul as epic hero is placed within the structure of power but never at its
top, thus making the reader aware of the placement of this character in the
traditional division between rex and dux, i.e., between king and leader. The
classical heroes, such as Odysseus and Aeneas, are leaders of their people
(dux) but are subject to a higher governmental authority (rex). Paul is a subject
of the Emperor, but he is a leader of the Fremen people. He is more similar to
Aeneas, a nobleman of Troy and leader of the outcast survivors of Troy's
50
destruction, because each becomes the highest secular ruler of his people by
founding, through bravery in battle and belief in his personal destiny, a new
empire.
Collings's second major element of the epic is the location of the action
which occurs. The epic is a "narrative on a grand scale . . . . In each work T h e
Odyssev. The Iliad. The Aeneid. and Paradise Lost], however, the definition of
meaning in the universe is altered. The epics attempt to create order out of the
chaos that results whenever human society undergoes drastic changes"
(Collings 134). The novel is primarily set on the planet Arrakis, but also involves
the planets Caladan, Geidi Prime, Kaitain, and Salusa Secundus. Arrakis is the
planet commonly known as Dune and the only known source of the awareness
spice, melange. Caladan is the home planet of the Atreides, Geidi Prime is the
seat of Harkonnen power, and Kaitain is the seat of the Imperial Court. Salusa
Secundus is the prison planet and training site for the elite Imperial sardaukar, or
soldier-fanatics.
There is chaos on Arrakis because of the Harkonnen dictatorship which
forces many Fremen to live underground in caves while planning the overthrow
of their oppressors. There is additional chaos when Paul leads the Fremen in
attacks against the spice harvesters, thus effectively shutting down the
exportation of melange which is a necessary drug for the Spacing Guild
navigators and the unofficial coin of the realm for the imperial houses.
The Guild wants Paul killed, the Beast Rabban is under strict orders from his
uncle (Baron Harkonnen) to maintain the supply of the spice at all costs, and the
Great Houses are unnerved by the upheaval while the Emperor plots sub rosa
with the Guild and the Harkonnens against the Fremen uprising in order to
maintain his authority and position.
Paul's heroic "journey of enlightenment" is two-fold; he journeys literally
underground by hiding in the Fremen subterranean caves of the Sietch Tabr as
well as other sietches. He is believed to be dead by his enemies (Baron
Harkonnen) and his friends (Gumey Halleck). He secretly travels to the lowest
cave in which the captive small sandworm is imprisoned. Taking the poisonous
secretion of the sandworm, he goes into a coma ("a death-like trance") for three
weeks with only his mother to save him from premature burial. "Like other epic
characters, Paul emerges from his journey armed with vision and truth and with
the power to create order, stability, and justice in a world of disorder, instability,
and injustice" (Collings 135).
Paul also experiences visions which assist him to survive and also
frighten him in their magnitude. He attempts ingesting the Water of Life because
his visions fail him and he can no longer see future events. When he emerges
from the coma, his visions are restored but at a substantially heightened
strength, almost terrifying in their intensity. He sees the Fremen jihad which will
begin with the triumph over the Harkonnens and the Emperor. He also sees
what his children, Leto and Ghanima, refer to in the sequel novels as the Golden
Path; i.e., the path which humanity must take in order to assure its future
52
survival. "Through such visions, the epic transcends the immediate concerns of
readers and involves itself instead with the fate of nations and of worlds"
(Collings 135). These visions haunt him, but he continues forward with his plan
to avenge the murder of his father and restore the House Atreides as the rulers
of Arrakis.
The form of the epic is just as important as the content, and Herbert is
careful to follow the traditional conventions. As Collings points out, the opening
of the classic epic is with an invocation to a god or muse or a statement of
position wherein the author acknowledges the purpose for which he is writing his
story. “Lacking a muse to invoke, Herbert provides a propositio, a brief opening
statement of the purpose of the narrative in a headnote from the 'Manual of
Muad'Dib' by the Princess Irulan" (Collings 136). This opening statement, written
above the first chapter and in italic print, quickly sends the reader the message
that this is no ordinary tale and is about no ordinary person.
The novel also begins as most epics begin; i.e., in media res or in the
middle of things. Paul is 15 years old when the story begins and we have no
appreciable knowledge of his early years. The first action of the novel is the trial
of the box and the gom jabbar, confirming that not only is he human, but
exceptionally so. There is information which is given to the reader as he
progresses through the novel which tells of Paul's unusual birth, of his mother's
role within the Bene Gesserit sisterhood, and of his paternal and maternal
grandfathers, among other items. "Only as the reader becomes immersed in the
53
complex history of vendetta and kanly, of treachery and intrigue between
Harkonnen and Atreides, does he fully understand" (Collings 136).
Background information many times is revealed in the epic by means of a
war council or a dinner. Aeneas explains how he arrives on the shores of
Carthage at a banquet given by Dido. In Paradise Lost, we learn of the war in
heaven during a council meeting of Lucifer and the condemned angels. In Dune.
Herbert uses both devices. Duke Leto calls a council meeting soon after the
Atreides arrive on Arrakis. At this meeting, he, Qumey Hallek, Thufir Hawat, and
Paul discuss the reasons why they are now on Arrakis, the treachery of the
Harkonnens, and the possible sabotage to the Arrakian capital perpetrated by
Harkonnen soldiers and sympathizers. Some days later, the Duke and the Lady
Jessica give a banquet at which Arrakian traders, bank and guild officials, and
Paul are present. Additional information about Arrakis and its inhabitants is
given as well as "a definition of Paul's emerging powers" (Collings 136). It is
shortly after the banquet that the plot to usurp the Atreides is put into action.
Ritual funerals are also a part of the epic tradition. Collings notes that in
the novel "death is ritualized" (Collings 136). Paul is challenged by Jamis not
long after he first enters the sietch for sanctuary. He does not wish to fight and
his lack of aggression is first seen as a mocking of the Fremen tribal rules.
When he realizes that he must fight to the death, he honors himself and his
opponent with a clean and fair battle, mortally wounding his opponent. He
reluctantly participates in the rites of the dead which includes the dehydration of
54
the body and the reclamation of the corpse's water volume. This water is given
to Paul as his right. When he is asked to speak, he imitates those who have
gone before him and honors Jamis by calling the man his friend and then
spontaneously shedding tears.
"I was a friend of Jamis," Paul whispered.
He felt tears burning his eyes, forced more volume into his voice.
"Jamis taught me . . . that. . . when you kill. . . you pay for it. I
wish I'd known Jamis better."
Blindly, he groped his way back to his place in the circle, sank to
the rock floor.
A voice hissed: "He sheds tears!"
It was taken up around the ring: "Usui gives moisture to the dead!"
He felt fingers touch his damp cheek, heard the awed whispers.
Jessica, hearing the voices, felt the depth of the experience,
realized what terrible inhibitions there must be against shedding
tears. She focused on the words: "He gives moisture to the dead."
It was a gift to the shadow world-tears. They would be sacred
beyond a doubt. (Herbert. Dune 314)
By following the funeral ritual and, by involuntary crying, showing respect for the
deceased, Paul has "cemented the relationship between himself and the
Fremen, allowing him to mold them into the most devastating troops in the
Empire" (Collings 137).
55
V. PSYCHOLOGY
Epic structure is imitated by Herbert, and he places Paul among the
mythic heroes. He has built upon known history for his plot and given his story
its own multi-millennia history. Within all this borrowing of ancient structures is
also many modem concepts which Herbert interweaves within the story. Among
them is a psychological base upon which Herbert places his characters and
within which the reader can explore some of the themes of the novel. Herbert
utilizes Freudian and Jungian theories to build the infrastructure of character
development.
According to Susan McLean, there are several underlying psychologically
based Freudian themes in Dune which she lists as "Oedipal conflict, fear of sex,
and fear of women" and which she posits addresses “in particular, the anxieties
and aspirations of the adolescent males who still make up a large proportion of
science fiction readership" (McLean 150). Peter Brigg also presents a
psychological approach to understanding Dune and other Herbert novels but
from a Jungian rather than a Freudian theoretical base. He proposes that
Herbert uses "Jung's concept of the collective unconscious" in many of his
novels, especially noting the Dune trilogy among them (Brigg, Getting 195).
In Dune Herbert takes Jung's theory of collective unconscious and applies
it overtly to the Bene Gesserit sisters in general and to Paul Atreides in
particular. Jung states: "The collective unconscious contains the whole spiritual
heritage of mankind's evolution, bom anew in the brain structure of every
56
individual" (Jung 45). By ingesting melange through his daily food intake on
Arrakis, Paul's mental abilities are heightened and expanded. "The spice
changes anyone who gets this much of it, but thanks to you, I could bring the
change to consciousness. I didn't get to leave it in the unconscious where its
disturbance can be blanked out. I can see it'" (Herbert, Dune 196). Because of
this he is able to tell his mother that her father is the Baron Harkonnen, their
sworn enemy, whose essence is buried in his cellular material. In the sequel
novels, Alia is plagued by her grandfather, the Baron, who perverts her and leads
her to destruction. Young Ghanima and Leto, Paul's twin children, use an
ancient Egyptian pharaoh ancestor to control the other voices demanding to be
heard and communicate with each other in the ancient Egyptian language. As
Brigg notes, "Once Paul Atreides, his mother Jessica, Chani and Alia have
ingested the melange, they are in various states of community with members of
their genetic unconsciousnesses" (Brigg, Getting 195).
The Bene Gesserit sisters-and Jessica while in exile with the Fremen--
become Reverend Mothers by ingesting and changing to non-toxic the poisonous
Water of Life. This allows them to merge their personal consciousness and
unconsciousness with the series of consciousnesses held in communion with the
dying Reverend Mother who is to be replaced. The ceremony is described in
detail by Herbert when Jessica undergoes the ritual as she agrees to replace the
aged Fremen Reverend Mother.
Too late, Jessica saw what was happening: the old woman was
dying and, in dying, pouring her experiences into Jessica's
awareness as water is poured into a cup. The other mote faded
back into pre-birth awareness as Jessica watched it. And, dying-in-
conception, the old Reverend Mother left her life in Jessica's
memory with one last sighing blur of words.. . .
And the memory-mind encapsulated within her opened itself to
Jessica, permitting a view down a wide corridor to other Reverend
Mothers until there seemed no end to them. (Herbert, Dune 357,
358)
Another facet of Jungian theory is the concept of anima/animus. In
essence, Jung declares that in all of us we carry aspects of our opposite gender.
Males contain within their personalities aspects of the feminine, and females
contain aspects of the masculine.
The animus corresponds to the paternal Logos just as the anima
corresponds to the maternal Eros.. . . I use Eros and Logos
merely as conceptual aids to describe the fact that woman's
consciousness is characterized more by the connective quality of
Eros than by the discrimination and cognition associated with
Logos. In men, Eros, the function of relationship, is usually less
developed than Logos. In women, on the other hand, Eros is an
expression of their true nature, while their Logos is often only a
regrettable accident. (Jung 152)
58
Carl Jung discusses both the positive and negative elements within
anima/animus. "[W]hen animus and anima meet, the animus draws his sword of
power and the anima ejects her poison of illusion and seduction.. . . In both its
positive and its negative aspects the anima/animus relationship is always full of
animosity; i.e., it is emotional, and hence collective" (Jung 153*154).
Herbert explores these theories of collective unconscious and
anima/animus in a special way. He creates a society of women who exercise
their animus elements (i.e., wielding power~a paternalistic concern for preserving
bloodlines, a need to direct genetic patterns within a relatively small group) while
they actively utilize their stronger anima to seduce men in power and create the
illusion of subservience. They, however, are unable to tap into the male
memories of their collective unconsciousness. In the first chapter of the novel,
Herbert has the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen tell Paul, within the explanation of
the Truthsayer drug, about their knowledge of a male body memory and their
inability to embrace it.
"The drug’s dangerous," she said, "but it gives insight. When a
Truthsayer's gifted by the drug, she can look many places in her
memory-in her body's memory. We look down so many avenues
of the past. . . but only feminine avenues." Her voice took on a
note of sadness. "Yet, there’s a place where no Truthsayer can
see. We are repelled by it, terrorized. It is said a man will come
one day and find in the gift of the drug his inward eye. He will look
where we cannot-into both feminine and masculine pasts."
(Herbert, Dune 13)
Toward the end of the novel, Paul ingests the Water of Life and is the first
male ever able to change the poison to a non-toxic substance. Although he is in
a death-like trance for three weeks, when he awakes he uses his ability to merge
his consciousness with his mother to force her to take him to that place which
women fear. He becomes consciously both animus and anima. "He is the
Kwisatz Haderach, male and female" (O'Reilly 80). In his explanation to Chani of
what has occurred, Paul interprets the dual nature of himself and of the human
personality.
Paul said: "There is in each of us an ancient force that takes and
ancient force that gives. A man finds little difficulty facing that
place within himself where the taking force dwells, but it's almost
impossible for him to see into the giving force without changing into
something other than man. For a woman, the situation is reversed.
. . . These things are so ancient within us," Paul said, "that they're
ground into each separate cell of our bodies. We're shaped by
such forces. But when you look inward and confront the raw force
of your own life unshielded, you see your peril. You see that this
could overwhelm you. The greatest peril to the Giver is the force
that takes. The greatest peril to the Taker is the force that gives.
It's as easy to be overwhelmed by giving as by taking." (Herbert,
Dune 445)
Fantasy and SF share one similarity which is perhaps why both subgenres
are considered interchangeable in book store directories. They are not so much
escapist fiction as much as they are wish-fulfillment or problem-solving. McLean
reviews Bruno Bettelheim's theory of fairy tales ("fairy tales help children to
understand and accept their own feelings" [McLean 150]) and applies it to SF.
She talks about the "therapeutic effects of fantasy. Like dreams, it addresses
feelings that are too threatening to be confronted consciously, but unlike dreams
it suggests solutions to the problems it examines" (McLean 150). McLean
begins her critical analysis from Freud's theory of dreams because of her belief
that SF provides in literature what dreams are supposed to provide; i.e., “a safe
outlet for repressed emotions" which would reduce the force of these emotions in
governing behavior (McLean 150).
McLean suggests that the Oedipal conflict is one of the hidden but implied
themes of Dune. She cites the age of the protagonist (15 years of age at the
beginning of the novel) and notes that the teenager has a closer relationship to
his mother than to his father. This distance from the father and the
overwhelming beauty of the mother sets up the Oedipal conflict in the boy. He is
preparing for leadership as the heir apparent to the Dukedom of Caladan and is
praised by his teachers-Gumey Hallek in self-defense, and Thufir Hawat in
mental agility skills and analysis. He is able, at least in his own analysis, to lead
and to be heard as a serious voice of authority. He proves his ability to handle
diplomatic interchange during the banquet given on Arrakis shortly after moving
to that planet. His mother is his mentor in Bene Gesserit techniques, and this
proximity gives him a closer attachment to her than traditionally would occur in
the homes of the nobility; i.e., she otherwise would have been a figurehead with
a nanny or governess as his mother figure and companion. He rejects her tearful
mourning over the death of Leto, himself unable to shed any tears for his father.
He symbolically sleeps with her in the small survival tent during their escape
when they are buried alive together after a sandstorm. It is during this night in
the tent that Jessica comes to the awareness that Paul is no longer a child, no
longer speaks in a young voice, but has emerged as a man, a leader. She
mourns the loss not only of her husband but of her young son as well. She
continues, however, to work for Paul's protection and physically restrains Stilgar
when they are first in the caves in order for Paul to escape to safety.
Paul has in effect exchanged places with his father as he protects and
leads his mother to safety in the desert. He speaks with Jessica, not as a
subservient son but first as an equal partner and then as her superior. She
responds by not only fearing for her son but she also learns to fear him and his
power as well. He, in turn, fears his mother's attempts to control him through her
protection of him. "Paul himself comes to fear his mother, transforming his own
desire for her into her desire to swallow him up, to control his life completely.
Ultimately, Paul settles for acting out his Oedipal fantasies in surrogate" when he
usurps the Emperor, symbolically killing him, and marrying his eldest daughter, a
62
wife substitute (McLean 151*152).
Paul does not need Jessica, and she sees her own Bene Gesserit training
in Paul as he bypasses and ultimately rejects her for a Fremen common girl,
Chani. He punishes his mother because of her manipulation of him-*from the
womb when she determines that her child will be a boy, and through life as she
trains him in preparation for the day when he might possibly become the Kwisatz
Haderach. He symbolically transfers this punishment to Princess Irulan whom he
marries but with whom he refuses to consummate the marriage. He rejects the
Emperor's daughter both as a noblewoman and as a Bene Gesserit. "In Dune,
he was able to overcome his attraction to his mother by symbolically splitting her
character in two, so that he could love her nurturant side, represented by Chani,
while rejecting her powerful, threatening side, represented by Irulan" (McLean
152).
Fear of sex and fear of women coincide many times in Dune but some
non-female-oriented sexuality is evident in the novel. The most obvious is the
grotesque homosexuality of the main villain, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen. He is a
monstrously overweight male who can only move around through the use of
suspensors strategically placed on his body. His body becomes almost non
male, in the sense that he is round and soft, almost feminized. He is among the
villains who "are associated with self-indulgent, aberrant, or sadistic sexuality,
while the sexuality of the heroes is characterized by restraint, tenderness, and
affection" (McLean 153). The Baron uses sexuality as a weapon of power,
63
calling for captured slave boys for him to sexually ravage and then destroy. "'And
did I not say too that you were to check all slave boys sent to me and that you
were to do this yourself. . . personally?" (Herbert, Dune 366). He almost drools
thinking of the sweet boyish bodies of the similarly-aged Paul Atreides and Feyd-
Rautha, the Baron's nephew and heir-apparent. ("'Ah, but the lad [Paul] has
such a sweet young body,' the Baron said" [Herbert, Dune 19]. "Beloved Feyd-
Rautha And such a lovely body. Really a lovely b o / [Herbert, Dune 240-
241].) He gloats over the drugged body of Duke Leto, fondling him obsessively.
"Those touching fingers! Leto watched the fat hands, the glittering jewels on
baby-fat hands-their compulsive wandering" (Herbert, Dune 181).
Lust is also a part of the personality of the Baron's Mentat-Assassin, Piter
de yries. His reward for masterminding the overthrow of the Atreides on Arrakis
is the ownership and molestation of the Lady Jessica. Piter, however, is
described in less than manly terms. “He was tall, though slender, and something
about him suggested effeminacy" (Herbert, Dune 164). When given a choice
between the beautiful Jessica and whatever he might wish to do with her, and
the chance to rule Arrakis (’"With it you could have many women . . . and more'"
[Herbert, Dune 165].), Piter chooses the greater power and the abundant number
of women.
Feyd-Rautha is different from his uncle only in the gender he chooses with
which to have carnal pleasure. He too uses slaves-female ones--who are
housed in the pleasure wing of the Harkonnen palace. Feyd has made an
64
attempt on his uncle's life by positioning a poisoned needle in the thigh of one of
the boy pleasure slaves. "This old fool saw through the shielded needle you'd
planted in that slave boy's thigh. Right where I'd put my hand on it, eh?"'
(Herbert, Dune 370). As his punishment, the Baron forces his nephew and heir
to personally kill all the slave women in the pleasure wing. The Baron knows too
well that by removing Feyd's outlet for his voracious sexual appetite--his rite of
dominance over captive defenseless females-he will frustrate the young
lecherous man almost beyond endurance.
McLean demonstrates the coexistence of the fear of sex with the fear of
women by looking at the several mothers-both real and spiritual-who are a part
of the life on Arrakis. She, too, refers to Jung in her analysis. "The witches in
fairy tales, according to Jung, are one representation of the child's image of the
Terrible Mother who wishes to swallow or destroy the child" (McLean 154).
One Terrible Mother the reader meets is Reverend Mother Gaius Helen
Mohiam. She administers the test of humanness to Paul when, out of "the folds
of her gown, she lifted a green metal cube about fifteen centimeters on a side.
She turned it and Paul saw that one side was open-black and oddly frightening"
(Herbert, Dune 7). With his hand in the box, Paul is subjected to intense pain
before he is allowed in Helen's opinion to pass this test. McLean suggests that
the box is a form of a "vagina dentata and the test itself as an image of castration
anxiety" (McLean 154).
McLean argues that the planet Arrakis itself can be seen as a Terrible
Mother. In truth, Caladan and Arrakis are both mothers to Paul. Caladan is a
planet associated with growth and having an atmosphere which is warm, moist,
and safe. As such, it resembles a womb. On the contrary, Arrakis is hot, dry,
and dangerous. It seeks to destroy the life on it and is non-nurturing. She posits
that "Paul's conflicts with the planet mirror his conflicts with his own mother," thus
returning again to Paul's Oedipal complex (McLean 157). She lists three stages
of Oedipal interaction-self-assertion, guilt, and self-destruction-which represent
this mirror imaging, the third occurring in the sequel Dune Messiah. The first
stage deals with a defensive stance against the planet and Jessica, disallowing
either of them to swallow/control him. "The symbolic dominance of the female is
a common feature of puberty rites, showing that a youth has broken away from
his mother and become an adult" (O'Reilly 79-80).
The second stage is more sexually aggressive; i.e., symbolic rape. After
Paul emerges from his three-week near death coma, he in essence rapes his
mother by forcing her to take him to that unconscious place where Bene Gesserit
women fear to look.
The rapport was not as tender. . . but it was a rapport: a sense-
sharing of the entire being. It shook her, weakened her, and she
cowered in her mind, fearful of him.. . .
“Show it to me!" he commanded.
"No!"
But she could not escape him. Bludgeoned by the terrible force of
with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
him, she closed her eyes and focused inward-the-direction-that-is-
dark.
Paul's consciousness flowed through and around her and into the
darkness. She glimpsed the place dimly before her mind blanked
itself away from the terror. Without knowing why, her whole being
trembled at what she had seen-a region where a wind blew and
sparks glared, where rings of light expanded and contracted, where
rows of tumescent white shapes flowed over and under and around
the lights, driven by darkness and a wind out of nowhere.. . .
Presently, she opened her eyes, saw Paul staring up at h e r .. . .
She staggered up and back, would have fallen had not Chani
jumped to support her. (Herbert, Dune 444)
With Arrakis, Paul also commits symbolic rape, using phallic imagery. On his
final assault against his enemies, Paul blasts through the shield wall and, riding
the phallic-shaped sandworm, penetrates into the Arrakian base of power where
he triumphs. Symbolically, Paul breaches the virginal barrier and enters into the
dark place where he will experience triumph and power.
■YL-BEMDEB
Within Dune. Herbert gives certain characteristics to his heroes and his
villains which fall along gender-association lines. Even the weapons the
characters choose fall along the same lines. "Herbert associates directness,
honesty, and integrity with masculinity and deceit and treachery with femininity..
67
. . The masculine camp favors a phallic blade [representing bravery], whereas
the feminine camp prefers poison, drugs, or mind control [representing
cowardice]1' (McLean 156). Paul uses a blade and, with the Fremen, a crysknife
which are straightforward weapons and unaltered by poisonous substances.
Feyd-Rautha, however, uses a blade and a flip-dart both of which are poisoned.
The Harkonnens break Dr. Yueh's Suk conditioning through torturous mind
control; they also capture the Atreides family by drugging them into submission.
The implication is quite clear. Males are more honorable and use the more
honorable weapon(s). Females are more treacherous and use unethical or, at
the least, cowardly weapons.
Herbert's view of women throughout the novel is consistently dismissive or
fearful. Women's roles are those of manipulation and deceit (Bene Gesserits,
Jessica) or of undying love and devotion to the male (Harah, Chani). Herbert's is
a male-dominated world wherein he sees no need for a change in the status quo.
"[D]espite the thematic emphasis on the female in all [six] novels, the vision of
the female in the Dune [series] remains, from first to last, subordinate,
dependent, a creature of male fantasy, defined by male desire" (Miller 182).
Herbert sees within the subservient status of Dune's women a power structure
for them which is adequate for their needs. (“That which submits rules" [Herbert,
D uds 26].)
Whether it is in the sophisticated Imperial society or the primitive Fremen
culture, women are not held in high esteem. Chani has been trained to fight and
68
kill in order to protect herself and her tribe; however, she easily submits to Paul
and dutifully takes on the background roles of wife and mother, only to serve and
never to share. When Paul kills Jamis in the challenge, he is given all of Jamis'
possessions-including his wife. H,Usul, it's our way that you've now the
responsibility for Jamis' woman here and for his two sons. His yali. . . his
quarters, are yours. His coffee service is yours . . . and this, his woman.. . .
Stilgar said: ’Do you accept Harah as woman or servant?"' (Herbert, Dune 342-
343). Harah becomes Paul's sen/ant and the nanny for his children.
Woman as property is the law in the Imperium which allows for
opportunistic political marriages to be arranged. Paul's need to marry Irulan after
his victory over her father cements his place as Emperor. As the eldest
daughter, she would inherit the Golden Lion Throne; when married, all her
inheritance would revert to her husband, and, thus, he would become emperor.
Jessica is sold by the Bene Gesserits to Duke Leto to be his concubine.
Both Jessica and Chani are allocated the same social position-never of
legal wife, only of mistress-called concubine by Herbert. Although both women
bear the legal heirs of their male lovers, they are on the periphery of their society.
The last lines of the novel refer to this.
A bitter laugh escaped Jessica. ''Think on it, Chani; that princess
will have the name, yet she'll live as less than a concubine-never
to know a moment of tenderness from the man to whom she's
bound. While we, Chani, we who carry the name of concubine-
69
history will call us wives." (Herbert, Dune 489)
Throughout the Dune series Herbert does not allow women to achieve
leadership status. As late as the last novel of the series, the Bene Gesserits--
they are now the protagonists in conflict with a renegade sisterhood-are not in
direct leadership of the Imperium, but are still functioning as religious
communities and training centers for women. "The white Angle-Saxon who will
rule, or the variant version, that men will rule the universe, is an assumption in
countless works including Dune . . . " (Brigg, Consistent 12). Perhaps Herbert
painted himself into a comer by placing his women characters in second-class
status, as they were in the very early 1960s when the novel was being written.
("[I]t may be unfair to cavil at the treatment of women in a genre that is noted for
stereotyping men as Messianic heroes conquering everything before them"
[Friend 50].) However, after 3000 years (the time setting of God Emperor of
Dune^ and later, the Dune women should have reflected the changing roles in
society that American women were undergoing.
This situation [of second-class status] came about at least in part
because the assumptions behind this attitude towards the status of
women tended to be so thoroughly taken for granted as to be
unconscious . . . . The second-class status of women in the
thinking of such [SF] male writers tended to have the same
authority as the laws of gravity: it was a "known fact," and one of
the basic rules of the genre is that in science fiction nothing may
70
contradict a known fact of science . . . . (Monk 16)
Miriam Miller asks why Herbert would not respond, in the Dune series, to
the changing American societal attitudes toward women. She concludes that he
directs his energies poorly by maintaining his female characters to "conform to
the most retrograde notions of biological determinism" (Miller 191).
Ursula K. Le Guin states that "Male elitism has run rampant in SF" (Le
Guin 208). In analyzing women's roles in SF she concludes that SF may exhibit
progressiveness when it comes to hard science and future survival, but, with
regard to social and cultural changes, the genre is “incredibly regressive and
unimaginative" (Le Guin 209). She powerfully presents her dissatisfaction with
this style of male-oriented writing.
In general, American SF has assumed a permanent hierarchy of
superiors and inferiors, with rich, ambitious, aggressive males at
the top, then a great gap, and then at the bottom the poor, the
uneducated, the faceless masses, and all the women. The whole
picture is, if I may say so, curiously "un-American." It is a perfect
baboon patriarchy, with the Alpha Male on top, being respectfully
groomed, from time, to time, by his inferiors. (Le Guin 210).
If there is a flaw in such a strong SF work as Dune, it must be in the
depiction of the women. Within the mythos of the hero and the classic epic
structure, Herbert has the opportunity to show women in a strong light and to
allow, over the course of the Dune series, their elevation in status within the
I
71
Imperium as Paul and Leto II change the face of the empire and Arrakis. Within
all the change which occurs in the Dune society and culture, especially among
the Fremen, there is ample opportunity for Herbert to evolve his women into
strong, first-class members of society. Herbert changes the universe, but he
forgets that half the universe is female. Thus, in the novel Duns, the single best
book of the series, one finds a male-dominated society where even the most
ambitious females' responses are traditional in means and in effect" (Hand 28).
VII, RELIGION
There is an area in Dune which is completely dominated by women and
where they are able to wield a great deal of power. Within this area men are
excluded, and the women find strength in community. "In the Western world,
women have always exerted official or unofficial power in the area of religion.. . .
Thus, in the light of Western history, religion is the most natural and traditional
method for women in a world like that of Dune to gain and wield power" (Hand
25). It is safe to argue that St. Teresa of Avila would not have been able to write
about the doctrines of the Roman Christian church if she had not been a
cloistered nun, safe within the confines of her all-female community.
As a religious order the Bene Gesserits are a sham. They use the guise
of religion to hide their machinations of politics and genetics. By carefully
training young women from childhood they ensure their continued survival; by
hiding the bloodlines of these women from everyone, they guarantee success
and continuation. The Orange Catholic Bible is a philosophical text written in
72
committee over the course of seven years. It represents the amalgamation of
religious philosophies which existed on Earth after the time of the Butlerian
Jihad. "In his statement. . . [about the endurance of the O.C. Bible in the
Empire, Herbert] assents to the enduring quality of religion, but his narrative
largely omits any evidence of spiritual power derived from this religion"
(Anderson 110).
Herbert presents religion as a way of maintaining a power structure
through which the masses of the people in the Imperium are ruled. "Religion is a
tool for the manipulation of the masses" (Anderson 131). It does not function as
a mystical avenue to elevate the soul into spiritual perfection. Instead, religion is
used to give comfort during times of strife (as when Paul quotes from the O.C.
Bible or the Fremen verbalize their prophecies) and/or to erect boundaries of
good behavior as examples to the population.
It is fitting that religion is in the hands of the women in Dune and that they
are called witches. Much of religious ceremony and prayer can be interpreted as
magical, and Lord Raglan considers that “magic is degenerate religion" (Raglan,
Origins 122). In attempting to find a definition of religion, he states that "religion
is the sum total of [humanity’s] beliefs and practices in respect of what we call
the supernatural" (Raglan, Origins 14). Since the Bene Gesserits believe that
their supernatural being, the Kwisatz Haderach, is a product of genetic breeding
patterns and of human materials; that their powers of mental manipulation of cell
structure and chemical formula are learned responses; and that communication
73
with past lives is a normal occurrence, it is only fitting that they be the protectors
of the magic they possess. "[AJII magic was originally in the hands of women"
(Raglan, Origins 107).
A woman's placement at the heart of magic is not an unusual suggestion.
Before science explained how pregnancy was possible, it was a magic held by
women. They absorb the male's sperm and convert it overtime into a human
child. Milk is expressed from women's breasts after a child's birth but stops after
the child is weaned. At menses, blood flow happens for a few days at monthly
intervals which denies the male access to his partner. This routine blood loss in
no way weakens the female as a similar loss of blood from a wound might
weaken a male.
In many cultures, healing-the magic of medicine-is the dominion of the
female. It is only when the power of the medicine magic becomes too great (thus
elevating the women to a higher place in the tribal society) that medicine magic is
transferred to the dominion of the male. The ability to use healing herbs, potions,
and poultices emerges from the magic of cooking. It is the job of the female to
mix together certain materials, stir/mix/blend carefully over a fire, and create a
new substance out of a different substance (batter into a cake, raw muscle into
edible meat). All of this produces the stereotyped witch, staring into her cauldron
as she stirs her magic potion.
Within the novel itself, a common phrase uttered (and sometimes
shouted) by the characters is "Great Mother!" In his "Terminology of the
imperium," Herbert defines the phrase as "the homed goddess, the feminine
principle of space (commonly: Mother Space), the feminine face of the male-
female-neuter trinity accepted as Supreme Being by many religions within the
Imperium" (Herbert, Dune 519). Space is magical. As young students we are all
taught that nature abhors a vacuum, yet with its vacuum, space defies nature. It
is mysterious and unfathomable. It allows movement within it, much like a womb
allows the movement of the fetus. All planets, moons, and suns exist within the
confines of the womb of space. We do not know the boundaries of space and
cannot go outside of it. Like a fetus, we exist-are alive--only while we remain
with the womb of the Great Mother.
Paul's place among the Fremen as their Messiah figure is accepted with
heightened respect and awe. He fulfills their legend of the Lisan al-Gaib ("The
Voice from the Outer World.' In Fremen messianic legends, an off-world
prophet" [Herbert, Dune 522]) and of the Mahdi ("in the Fremen messianic
legend, 'The One Who Will Lead Us to Paradise'" [Herbert, Dune 523]). He
represents God on Dune and thus is considered part of God. He vows to them
that he will change the face of Arrakis into a new Eden, fulfilling the promises
made by the planetologist Pardot Kynes. This makes Paul the creator of
Paradise. He elevates the Fremen above their outcast state and gives their lives
a new meaning. Ultimately, he fulfills what Robert Parkinson calls "the essence
that lies much closer to the heart of the religious impulse . . . . This is why Paul
becomes the Fremen prophet-because he gives their existence significance"
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(Parkinson 19).
David Miller notes that many of Herbert's novels, especially the Dune
series, are overtly religious. He posits that these novels seem to ask the basic
question of religion, which he states is: “Is there a Supreme Being who is
qualitatively different from man" (Miller 146). Within the Dune series there are
three characters whom the less sophisticated population worships. "The
implication is that a sufficiently Complex Superior is indistinguishable from a
Supreme" (Miller 146). He calls Paul the Alpha of the present human
evolutionary pattern. He explains the pattern as the "the circle of each species
. . . in an ascending spiral of increasingly complex being" (Miller 147).
What has happened with Paul and the Fremen is such that they recognize
Paul's superiority to them and to their abilities. In their primitive reaction to him
and his accomplishments, they revere him as the Ultimate Power rather than as
an advanced product of the same evolution in which they themselves participate.
He is not God, and he accepts this as truth. The Fremen, however, do not.
“Thus, they take the Alpha of their instance of the pattern as a Supreme, rather
than as a Complex Superiof' (Miller 147).
The answer to the question of the existence of a Supreme Being seems to
be "No" in Dune and the Dune series. Paul, Alia, and Leto II are highly
advanced, but they are the products of genetic engineering and an accident of
birth. (Even more to the point of accident is the fact that, if Jessica had obeyed
her Bene Gesserit superiors and produced a daughter, none of the events of
76
Dune would have occurred.)
What is engineered in fact by the Bene Gesserits and their breeding
program has been an artificially accelerated evolution of their own species into
an more advanced product of the species. Because of the artificiality of the
evolution, the products of this engineering-Paul and Alia in Dune with Paul's son
Leto II introduced in Dune Messiah-a re out of place and time with the rest of
their own kind. This displacement allows the others within their species to revere
them as gods.
Beginning with Dune. Herbert expresses his ambivalence toward religion
which ultimately is a rejection of it. "[H]e assents to the enduring quality of
religion, but his narrative largely omits any evidence of spiritual power derived
from this religion" (Anderson 110). Religion in the Imperium has no mystical
function; it is simply a tool used by an agnostic nobility and the Bene Gesserit
sisterhood to exert control over the population. Herbert has “trivialized [religion]
into what we might term religiosity. . . [which] is not usually religion but its
parody" (Frisch and Martos 12-13).
The Fremen use their religion as a survival tool. It gives them courage in
a harsh environment and a reason to continue their existence. It also connects
them to each other over a wide expanse of desert and to a greater power who,
they attest, both protects and challenges them. They derive a unity of purpose
from their shared philosophy, but it is a philosophy which has degenerated into a
formalism of style and adherence. "[M]orality is reduced to formality, a legalistic
network of obligations and taboos in which the trivial becomes ethical and the
ethical becomes trivial" (Frisch and Martos 12-13). Without objection the rules
must be obeyed, and behavior is modified and glorified according to the wishes
of an unknown, unseen deity whose ambassador is prophesied to appear at an
unknown future date.
Paul uses his religious authority to institute a theocracy over which he is
both political and spiritual leader. His Fremen followers obey him with ferocity
and without question. Herbert expresses through Paul, however, that
unquestioned alliance to any philosophy (and its leader) diminishes a man.
In that instant, Paul saw how Stilgar had been transformed from
the Fremen naib to a creature of the Lisan al-Gaib, a receptacle for
awe and obedience. It was a lessening of the man, and Paul felt
the ghost-wind of the jihad in it.
I have seen a friend become a worshipper, he thought.
In a rush of loneliness, Paul glanced around the room, noting how
proper and on-review his guards had become in his presence. He
sensed the subtle, prideful competition among them-each hoping
for notice from Muad'Dib. (Herbert, Dune 469)
VIII. ECOLOGY
As important as religion is to Dune, ecology shares an equal importance
to the characters and plot of the novel. As the birth place of a new religion,
Arrakis mirrors the Saudi desert of Islam's Mohammed. The name of the planet
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itself resembles the Islamic nation-state of "Iraq from which Herbert obviously
took the imaginative name for Arrakis [and which] is an Arabian country with
extensive desert regions" (Schmitt-v.Muhienfels 30). The nickname for Arrakis-
Dune-reflects its exclusive desert climate. It is the intensity of the environment
which forms the Fremen culture and informs the Fremen spiritual beliefs. "The
bleak dry world of Arrakis is as intensely realized as any in science fiction. The
shortage of water. . . is presented . . . as a living fact which permeates all facets
of existence" (Aldiss 315).
It is in conjunction with Arrakis that the greatest theme of Dune is found.
"The ecology of the desert controls everything; Arrakis is not just a setting; it is . .
. a major character in the novel" (Krishnamoorthy 64). Herbert dedicates the
novel--and, in essence, the Dune series-to the "dry-land ecologists," and "the
ecological motif in Dune is made an integral part of the plot as well as the theme
of the novel" (Elgin 126).
On Arrakis, the planetologist Pardot Kynes had set into motion a scheme
for the greening of the planet. He lectured the Fremen about ecology and
assisted them in planning a major change in the oxygen cycle of the
environment, changing it from a cycle dependent on sandworms to make
breathable air to dependent on chlorophyll-based plant life. He facilitated the
building of water traps and dew collectors. He begins the process of artificially
re-introducing a life cycle which had become extinct on the planet millennia ago.
It is his half-Fremen son, Liet-Kynes, who continues his work with the Fremen,
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inheriting his father's position as imperial Planetologist and assisting in Paul and
Jessica's escape from the Harkonnen ambush. Chani, Paul's Fremen beloved
and the mother of his children, is Pardot Kynes's granddaughter.
Parkinson remarks that the Dune series is "about the temptation of life"
and the greatest temptation man faces is the overpowering need to alter what
already exists into something which is perceived as better (Parkinson 22). The
Bene Gesserits attempt to create the supermale, the Kwisatz Haderach, through
carefully controlled genetic breeding. Paul attempts to change the political
structure of the Empire by toppling the government and creating a better one,
with himself as its head. The Fremen-and the Kynes planetologists-attempt to
alter the basic nature of the planet, hoping to create a new Eden.
Interference with the natural course of events becomes the bewildering
motif of Dune. No one is content with what already is; everyone wants to change
things. The Harkonnens want revenge against the Atreides and will annihilate
them at all costs. The Bene Gesserits seek to create, through special breeding
processes, the "Bene Gesserit Totality" (Herbert, Dune 24). Duke Leto seeks to
solidify his position in the Landsraad and elevate his status in the Imperium.
Kynes and the Fremen seek to reappropriate Arrakis into a green, watery Eden.
Paul seeks revenge for the murder of his father and the theft of his title and
inheritance.
Both Schmitt-v. Muhlenfels and Elgin discuss the disastrous
consequences of interference with the natural order. Elgin sees to the heart of
the matter when he states that Kynes, the Fremen, and Paul all fail to note that
there is a "contradiction between the goals of this transformation [of Arrakis] and
the laws of ecology" (Elgin 128). Schmitt-v. Muhlenfels concurs concerning "the
grave error" of Kynes pere et fils "who had not given enough thought to the
possible harmful consequences of the ecological transformation of Arrakis for the
Fremen people" (Schmitt-v. Muhlenfels 31).
There is a contradiction in the novel which Herbert brings forward to the
reader and which is repeated often throughout the text. He shows, through
several examples (the most obvious of which is the planetary ecology), that the
"most immediately apparent contradiction results from the old tragic mistake, the
idea that humanity itself is outside of and superior to natural laws rather than a
part of them" (Elgin 128). At about the half-way point in the book, at the death of
Liet-Kynes, Herbert's epiphany for the reader emerges. In his pre-death
hallucination, Liet-Kynes hears the voice of his father lecture to him, at one point
saying, "The highest function of ecology is understanding consequences’”
(Herbert, Dune 272). As his life ebbs away, his last thoughts are “that his father
and all the other scientists were wrong, that the most persistent principles of the
universe were accident and error" (Herbert, Dune 277).
Herbert warns his readership against the hindrance of the natural order,
whether it be the order of plant life or human life. Essentially, he writes that
neither is exclusive of the other but is a part of a greater whole. He explores the
"cultural myth at the very heart of America: the belief in . . . the ’Presbyterian
fixation'-predestination, absolute prediction through visionary gift, grace, or
righteous conduct” (Scigaj 341). Ecology becomes the focal point of the novel.
"Herbert has deliberately chosen ecology as the theme of the novel and has
deliberately structured the plot so that humans become a part of that ecology,
perhaps even a mirror image of its laws in both obedience and rebellion" (Elgin
151-152).
Evolution is a natural process within the life cycle; any attempt to speed
up, slow down, or terminate the evolutionary movement can only lead to disaster.
Each element of nature functions within a delicate balance of each other
element; when one item is altered in any way, the others must also change to
bring about the return of balance. What affects one thing will affect all other
things. Man's hubris interferes with the order of nature and the balance of life,
the consequences of which can be fatal to the innocent.
As they wander in the Arrakian desert in search of sanctuary, Jessica
knows that she and Paul can only survive the harsh conditions if they "adapt to
the system rather than expecting it to adapt itself to them" (Elgin 134). The
Fremen wandered for generations throughout the Imperium until they came to
Arrakis and adapted to their new home. Survival demands that they accept their
fate and conform to their new environment or die.
Any abrupt intervention into the status quo will result in violent change.
Baron Harkonnen and the Emperor conspire to purge the Imperium of the
popular and strong Duke Leto Atreides; the Emperor wants the Duke killed, while
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the Baron wants the entire House Atreides destroyed. This abrupt intervention
into the status quo of the Empire results in the violent overthrow of the Emperor
and the annihilation of House Harkonnen by the survivors of House Atreides. It
lets loose within the Empire a Fremen jihad, the magnitude of which terrorizes
both Paul (who had hoped to avoid it) and the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen.
"The old Truthsayer. . . had her own view of the hidden meaning in Paul's words.
. . . 'You cannot loose these people upon the universe!"' (Herbert, Dune 488).
Herbert may have ambivalent feelings toward religion, but he writes a
novel which, at its core, is religious. Although it does not support any organized
belief philosophy, it does esteem with awe and reverence what all religions
consider the exclusive possession of a supreme being; i.e., the miracle of
creation, the beauty of nature. Herbert tells his readers that evolution is a slow
process but the only correct one for the continuation of existence. Manipulation
of or violence against the natural order produces disastrous results. He warns
his readers to be patient with the present, that not all things done in the name of
progress are good. Finally, he asks his readers to accept what fate has wrought;
i.e., to have faith—faith in the universe, faith in the natural order, and, ultimately,
faith in themselves.
LX._ CONCLUSION
Herbert's concerns about the environment and ecological balance, and the
negative impact of a superhero as a leader of men are an integral part of the
structure of the novel. He deliberately focuses his novel around Paul Atreides, a
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teenage leader who must take possession of his ducal inheritance earlier than
planned and then try to have the maturity to make the necessary decisions for
survival while plotting revenge against his blood enemies.
Herbert incorporates severe! issues and themes within Dune. He invests
the novel with his unique opinions about ecology, religion, gender roles, and
psychology. He utilizes the classic epic structure and development of the hero
which is familiar to his audience while infusing the story with a sense of history
which readers recognize. In Chapter Three an investigation is made of Herbert's
life and the influences upon it which help to explain his choices in
characterization and plot. The subsequent evaluation in Chapter Three of the
propaganda issues within Dune exposes new elements about the novel and
introduces propaganda analysis as a fresh and legitimate form of literary
analysis.
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Chapter Three
The Propaganda Issues in Dune
I, INTRODUCTION
It cannot be denied that Frank Herbert's Duns, a science fiction novel
written in the early part of the 1960s, has been highly honored by SF
organizations and widely accepted by SF readers. Although lengthy, it is a
fascinating story to read and has been enjoyed by both a male and female
audience since its first publication. It is Herbert's personal philosophy which
impacts the writing with a tremendous force, because it is the author who makes
up the story with a particular purpose in mind.
From a propaganda standpoint it is essential to understand the person
who is writing the text as well as the text itself. One way to facilitate this unique
understanding of the novel is to investigate the biography and personal
philosophies of the author. Although there are some critics who try to separate
the life of the author from his/her work, in this case as in others (at least in SF)
events of daily living, family, friends, education, the social and political climate
and other factors influence the choices made by the author regarding plot,
characters, setting, point of view, theme, symbol and allegory, style, and tone
when writing fiction. These same influences affect the SF author as new worlds
and new life forms are created.
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II. HERBERTS VIEWS OF SCIENCE FICTION
The act of creation of a fictional story in itself is an arrogant assumption on
the part of any author that the work presented to the reader has merits beyond
simple entertainment. An author such as Jonathan Swift (Gulliver's Travels)
scathingly attacks politicians, the monarchy, academia, religion, and society in
general. Harriet Beecher Stowe (Uncle Tom's Cabin) cries out against the
injustice and brutality of slavery in the antebellum American southern states.
Stephen Crane (The Red Badge of Courage) and Erich Maria Remarque (All
Quiet on the Western Front) both write passionately about the horrors and the
anonymous inhumanity of war. Norman Mailer also writes passionately of war
(The Naked and the Deadt but instead elevates it to a holy crusade to preserve
and extend freedom and democracy. Frank Herbert in Dune writes of
manipulators in a tightly structured exclusionary government, an ambivalent
messiah who leads an oppressed people in armed rebellion against tyranny, a
pseudoreligious order of women who control breeding and bloodlines while
promoting ritual and illusion, and drug use to expand consciousness and extend
sight into the future. The choice of these elements and others within Dune and
its sequels are deliberate by Herbert in order to bring to the reading public his
personal value system and thoughts about the future of mankind.
Frank Herbert posits that the best way to write a SF story or novel is to
go for the guts, but do it in such a way that the reader realizes
that's what you've done after the fact. Make damned sure you
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know your story objective (and it had better be at least nine-tenths
entertainment). (Herbert. Men 127)
There are differences between writing SF and writing other forms of fiction, and
Herbert addresses these differences as he perceives them. He asserts that the
SF authors "have taken the doubt and judgment of nineteenth century
intellectuals and translated them" for the contemporary population (Herbert, You
2). But, in creating futuristic societies on other planets, he also contends that
"No matter how hard we try, we cannot entirely escape our times" (Herbert, Men
122). He maintains that the role of the SF writer is to be like the little boy in the
children's fable who tells the emperor that he is not wearing a new wardrobe but
in reality is naked.
Follow this reasoning with me, though, because it has a great deal
to do with the whole process of putting fictional men on fictional
planets. No human being on our "real" planet is completely free of
his unexamined assumptions. And it is precisely this that science
fiction does better than any other art form with the possible
exception of cartoons. We examine assumptions. (Herbert, Men
128)
Herbert also notes that SF has Jungian tendencies since "it ventures into
no-man's-lands" and meets Jung's requirements regarding "archetypes, myth
structures and self-understanding" (Herbert, Men 126). The SF psychological
investigations are “where you find rampant exploration of the concept that
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humankind is both god and beast, not doubting either one" in the continuing
inquiry about what makes us different from other animals (Herbert, Yfljj 3). "It
may be that the primary attraction of science fiction is that it helps us understand
what it means to be human" (Herbert, Men 126).
With Herbert, human psychology was more than a writer's curiosity, and
his Jungian leanings are not surprising. With the help of psychologist friends
Ralph and Irene Slattery, he became so adept at understanding Jung's theories
that he "briefly set up a private practice as a 'lay analyst"' (O'Reilly 19).
III. IMPORANT BIOGRAPHICAL CIRCUMSTANCES INFLUENCING D U N E
Herbert's previous professions included journalist and speech writer, and
he well understood the power of the written word. Timothy O'Reilly asserts that
Herbert wanted to back up his curiosity about life by taking on a variety of jobs,
not the least of which were television cameraman, photographer, oyster diver,
and, as noted above, lay analyst. In 1954 he applied for the position of governor
of American Samoa, "and came, he believes, very close to getting the post”
(O'Reilly 13). William F. Touponce discloses that Herbert also worked "often
ghostwriting for such people as the linguist S. I. Hayakawa" who later became a
US Senator from California (Touponce 8). As a journalist he worked for the
Tacoma Ledger. Glendale Star. Seattle Post-lntelliaencer. and finally settled in
1959 at the San Francisco Examiner where he stayed until 1969 as the editor
and writer for the paper's "California Living" section. He moved back to
Washington state and became the education writer for the Seattle Post-
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Intelligencer before retiring after approximately two years to devote his time
completely to fiction writing (Touponce 5-6).
Neither Touponce nor O'Reilly, the two biographers of Frank Herbert, list
the dates during which the Dune author worked as a campaign worker for
Washington State politicians nor as a speech writer in Washington, DC
(presumably for the same politicians for whom he had campaigned). In fact, both
biographies are minimal life studies at best. What both books actually present
are the two writers's analyses of Herbert's body of work in SF. Touponce
investigates the works from a "broadly linguistic" view (Touponce ii) while
O'Reilly takes a more reader-response approach, mostly of the Dune trilogy and
those novels and articles written up to 1979. Extracting information from these
two works allows for two different vantage points-one while Herbert was alive by
an author who is a fan and personal friend, and the other (in 1988) shortly after
his death by a dispassionate academic who has never interviewed the author
("unfortunately Herbert died before I had a chance to interview him" [Touponce
iii]).
Politics plays an important role in Herbert's masterpiece work and in the
Dune series. It, therefore, is important to ascertain the time in American history
within which Herbert lived and wrote. He himself refers to the importance of time
and place influencing a person when he has Princess Irulan write of Paul
Muad'Dib in the opening statement of the first chapter of Dune that the reader
must "take care that you first place him in his time . . . . And take the most
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special care that you locate Maud'Dib in his place" (Herbert, Dune 3).
In 1941 at about 20 years of age Frank Herbert enlisted "in the United
States Navy and joins the Seabees, but is released six months later on a medical
discharge" (Touponce v). He remains in the Navy and is discharged from the
service in 1944 (O'Reilly 16). During the post-War years, Herbert was in
Washington, DC. (It was while he was in Washington in 1954 during the
Eisenhower administration that he applied for the American Samoa
governorship). During his time as a political writer, there were several significant
events in American history to which he was a witness. One of these was Vice
Presidential candidate Richard Nixon's "Checkers" speech in 1952 in which he
addresses the accusations of illegally accepting gifts and money from influential
California businessmen. At the very least, Herbert was involved with the political
process as a campaign worker and speech writer. He certainly was aware of the
House Un-American Activities Committee hearings and "attended the Army-
McCarthy hearings [chaired by Senator Joseph R. McCarthy (R-Wisconsin)] in
1954 . . . [and] chutzpah got him a seat at the press table" (O'Reilly 35).
These emotionally charged hearings affected many Americans and
certainly had an impact on Frank Herbert. O'Reilly considers them one "source
of Herbert's concern with security and control, [and] they provided a powerful
illustration of their potential excesses" (O’Reilly 35). Although Herbert
understands some of the reasons behind human behavior, nonetheless he
cautions against any reliance by humans on perceived saviors or "superheroes".
Attempting to control something "evil," we precipitate a larger crisis.
This may be a general human tendency. We feel helpless and
alone when faced with large problems. Loneliness influences us to
grab for the reassurance of anything offered to us as the solution.
We want someone to assure us he has the answer and if we'll only
follow hi m .. . . It produces very odd behavior. The more complex a
problem appears, the more apathetic we become; the more we turn
away, the more strongly we grasp at a proffered solution which is
presented with the promise of immediate relief. (Herbert, Crisis 91)
Herbert bluntly states that “the demand for more god produces more satan"
(Herbert, Crisis 93).
Dune was begun in 1959; its serialized publication was in 1963, 1964, and
1965; and its publication as a novel was in 1965. During this time, anti
communist feelings were still running high, but the Communist hunts had at least
publicly decreased. The Berlin Wall had been built and JFK had gone to Berlin in
support of democracy. Viet Nam was in its beginning stages of American
involvement during the end of the Eisenhower administration with military
advisors and soldiers being sent by John F. Kennedy and increased numbers of
combat personnel deployed by Lyndon Johnson. Ike retired as US President
and the Kennedy-Nixon presidential race had been run with JFK installed as
Eisenhower's successor. The Camelot and New Frontier frenzy of the space
race and the Peace Corps was in full swing with folk music making a strong
inroad into the popular music scene, followed by the British invasion and, later,
acid rock. The Bay of Pigs anti-Communist/anti-Castro invasion was a
disastrous failure, the Cuban Missile Crisis was a success, and the Civil Rights
and feminist movements were making significant advances. JFK was
assassinated in November, 1963, and LBJ quickly sworn in as the new president.
Major social, cultural, and governmental upheavals were taking place with
various "supermen" in charge of different governments-JFK and later LBJ in the
US, Castro in Cuba, Khrushchev in the USSR, Ho in North Viet Nam, and Mao in
mainland China. It is Herbert's opinion that anyone in authority has no power
unless the majority who follow abdicate their own abilities to care for themselves
and place them into the hands of the designated leader.
Personal observation has convinced me that in the power arena of
politics/economics, and in the logical consequence, war, people
tend to give over every decision-making capacity to any leader who
can wrap himself in the myth fabric of the society.. . . My favorite
examples are John F. Kennedy and George Patton. Both fitted
themselves into the flamboyant Camelot pattern, consciously
assuming a bigger-than-life appearance. But the most casual
observation reveals that neither was bigger than life. Both had our
common human ailment-clay feet. (Herbert, Superhero 98)
Herbert investigates the human need for safety and security in Dune and
that need extending to the creation or the formation of a "superman" or messiah
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to lead the faithful to the Promised Land. He writes about the dichotomy of
needing freedom to develop and evolve, and the stagnation of stability and
security.
Survival pressures demanding that we evolve, grow, and change,
however, continue to proliferate. We don't want to change, but the
floodgates open abruptly and we are overwhelmed. Crisis!
Western tradition faces such demands with the concept of absolute
control. You control the force which seeks to change your world.
. . . Never mind that the control concept is in direct conflict with the
American myth of individuality: the thing you fear must be
controlled. (Herbert, Crisis 89)
Herbert, thus, sees human nature and the natural world sharing a need for
balance and co-existence; i.e., an ecological balance. He has understood the
necessity of ecological awareness since his boyhood during the Depression. His
family lived mostly "on the Olympic and Kitsap peninsulas of northwest
Washington" (O'Reilly 14), and he tells O'Reilly in an interview that they always
lived in areas where there was sufficient space for planting a family garden and
raising chickens and a cow as independent sources of food (O'Reilly 14-15).
"Herbert feels that the country left him with a self-starter mentality, one not
dependent on outside help" (O'Reilly 15). What it also left with Herbert was an
appreciation for the land, water, and wild life which also inhabit the earth. When
he decided to write full-time and leave journalism, he moved
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to a six-acre farm on Washington's Olympic Peninsula, where he
and his wife embarked on a kind of "Five-Year Plan" to turn the
acreage into an ecological demonstration project to show how a
high quality of life could be maintained with a minimum drain on the
total energy system. He built, among other things, the prototype of
an electricity-generating windmill that operated at high wind speeds
and was fairly compact. In 1978 the federal government awarded
Herbert a patent for this improved windmill design. (Touponce 6)
Along with a love of the land which he learned in his childhood, Herbert's
family imparted to him a religious training which, although rejected as an adult,
set in motion his lifelong curiosity about the human need for religion. His father's
family "came from the hill country between Tennessee and Kentucky in pre-Civil
Wartimes" and his mother's were Irish Catholics who "emigrated from Ireland
during the potato famine" and first landed in Nova Scotia, later moving to the
United States (Touponce 4). It was his mother's ten sisters, "who were
extremely close" to each other and to Herbert's mother "and shared in his
upbringing," who insisted that young Frank get a Catholic education (O'Reilly 89).
They "overcame Herbert's agnostic father" and he was given an education that
was "partly public and partly 'classical' at the hands of the Jesuits" (O'Reilly 89;
Touponce 5).
Herbert's Catholicism was tempered by his father's lack of adherence to
any form of religious belief. More to the point, as an agnostic, Herbert's father
believed that there was no proof to the existence of God but could not deny the
possibility that God exists. The Jesuits historically have been the most
aggressive of the priestly orders "whose political power and long-term vision
silently shaped a great sweep of world affairs, and who were once famed for their
training and asceticism" (O'Reilly 89). The mixture of these two opposite belief
systems is probably responsible for Herbert's feelings toward organized religion.
IV. THE NATURE OF PROPAGANDA IN LITERATURE
With his journalistic and speech writing background, Herbert understood
how powerful words could be. Writing fiction, especially SF, is no exception. A.
P. Foulkes in formulating his argument about propaganda and literature borrows
from diverse literary critics to prove his hypothesis. One critic is Mikhail Bakhtin
who writes that "ritualized laughter. . . can sen/e to dissolve authoritarian
commandments and clarify consciousness" by liberating both external and
internal censorship (Foulkes 38). Foulkes contends that language acquisition is
part of the internal censorship mechanism whereby a person learns socialization
which contains the functions of a value system and perception. "Language is
thus the first source of integration propaganda for the individual", and fiction has
proven to be able to formulate new interpretants which are absorbed by the
reading population (Foulkes 38). Foulkes quotes Charles Morris's linguistic
definition of interpretant as "‘the disposition to respond, because of the sign, by
response sequences of some behavior-family'" and later defines interpretant as
"the desired modes of perceiving and responding" (Foulkes 23; 45).
To better explain how an interpretant works and can be altered, consider
that in recent years Native American writers have destroyed the stereotypes of
the dangerous savage so that the Native American population is perceived in a
whole new light. These new interpretants allowed Native American actor
Graham Greene to present a non-aggressive, humorous character in the movie
Maverick with little or no discussion of this character nor of the many scenes in
which he and the lead character discuss misperceptions of Indians by a Russian
nobleman. It was simply accepted by the audience and presented by the film
director as another instance in the foolishness of European aristocrats. If these
scenes and that character had been part of a movie twenty or more years earlier,
they would have stood out and been a focus of the critics's reviews.
The newly altered interpretants in the 1990s have changed perceptions
about many minorities, women, and members of certain professions. Not all of
these altered interpretants have shown change in American perceptions in a
positive way. Police, lawyers, and physicians are no longer deified but rather are
presented now to audiences as vulnerable and fallible-even evil-human beings.
Lindley Fraser defines propaganda as a way to induce others into
behavior which they would not have done in the absence of the propaganda, and
allows that it is not confined to any one specific field of endeavor. He further
states that "propaganda induces the desired behaviour" by means of appealing
"to emotions of those to whom the propaganda is addressed" (Fraser 2; 4). He
denotes the person or persons to whom the propaganda is directed as the target.
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Garth S. Jowett and Victoria O'Donnell differentiate propaganda from
persuasion. They conclude that propaganda "attempts to achieve a response
that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist" (Jowett and O'Donnell 1). In
their opinion “the purpose of propaganda is to send out an ideology to an
audience with a related objective" (Jowett and O'Donnell 2). It is their contention
that propaganda cannot take hold unless the recipient of the propagandistic
message is willing to receive it. Thus, a novel which promotes messages and
images which the recipient (or target) is ready and/or conditioned to receive is
successful and may not even be considered propagandistic by the target. On the
other hand, if the novel promotes messages and images which the
recipient/target rejects or has not been properly conditioned to receive, then the
novel is unsuccessful and is called by the target propagandistic although, in
reality, it is a novel of counter-propaganda. Jowett and O'Donnell suggest that a
possible definition of propaganda is
the deliberate and systematic attempt to shape perceptions,
manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response
that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist. (Jowett and
O'Donnell 4)
Leonard W. Doob makes the clearest statement about propaganda when
he concludes that "No matter how propaganda is defined, it is clear at the outset
that the term refers to an attempt by somebody to influence somebody else"
(Doob 3-4). Fraser, in turn, makes an important observation when he states that
the propagandist
may not be aware of what he is doing It is sometimes said that
the best propaganda is unintentional, because it is less likely to
arouse resistance and suspicion in the target. (Fraser 5, my italics)
By accepting a particular tenet of a philosophy or a mode of behavior, the
propagandist becomes a part of his own presentation. By how he acts, how he
communicates, and-in the case of an author-how he writes, the propagandist
presents what he knows best to the target, supporting what he believes to be
correct and opposing what he feels to be in error. When this is done
unintentionally, the propagandist is sending a subliminal message to the target
about which the author himself may be totally unaware.
Regarding the target, Fraser posits that intellect and reasoning are
essential factors because "by far the largest part of propaganda . . . makes at
least some use of the target's ability to understand" (Fraser 6). Successful
propaganda, however, is not directed solely to the intelligence and cognitive
abilities of the target. Instead, intellect and cognition are "subordinate to the
importance" of emotions. "It follows that propaganda is at least, to a large extent,
emotional in its appeal, whether directly or indirectly" (Fraser 7). The emotions
upon which the propagandist can play include
simple emotions like fear, complex emotions like pride or the sense
of adventure-, unworthy emotions like greed, creditable emotions
like sympathy or self-respect, self-regarding emotions like ambition,
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other-regarding emotions like family love. All human emotions and
instincts have at one time or another provided propagandists with a
means of influencing, or trying to influence, the behaviour of their
targets. (Fraser 10, my italics)
Thus, a novel has two authors-the writer who puts the words to paper and
the reader who takes the words and gives them a personal meaning. Foulkes
agrees with Catherine Belsey's theory of critical meaning when she states that
the writer of the novel is not the determinant of meaning (Foulkes 19). What
propaganda criticism adds is the concept of the writer's personal agenda
invading the story and then being interpreted by the reader according to the
writer's subtle direction. In order for the perception to be close to what the writer
intends, he must be aware of the social, cultural, and societal interpretants of his
target audience. Many times, the propagandist shares these interpretants with
his target. Those interpretants include the target's emotional investment in
himself as well as the characters and plot of the novel.
The "effectiveness of propaganda depends upon the strength of the
emotions already existing in the minds of the targets" (Fraser 11). If the writer is
successful, the novel will be perceived by the target audience according to
mutually accepted interpretants. Fraser notes that "Propaganda will be either
successful or unsuccessful according as the target reacts to it in the way desired
by the propagandist" (Fraser 5). Under the guise of entertainment, elements of
the novel will affirm certain generally held assumptions while other elements will
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challenge or deny other assumptions.
V. THE FQRMUATION OF P R O P A G A N D A iN JM /E
Herbert's social, cultural, and societal influences-from his family, his
education, the time period in which he grew up, his formative years in a country
environment, his various occupations, and his work with politicians both in and
out of Washington, DC-extend themselves into the formulation of Herbert's
novel, Dune. He packs the novel with his own beliefs and personal philosophies
while maintaining a highly entertaining action-adventure SF novel. With an eye
on the target audience's interpretants, he shapes Dune not only to entertain but
also to persuade.
In 1953 Herbert was given a newspaper assignment to write about a
federal project concerning the control of sand dunes on the upper Pacific
coastline. The approach to the project was not an engineering one but
ecological instead; they were planting hardy grasses and not building walls.
"Sand dunes are like waves in a large body of water; they are just slower. And
the people treating them as fluid leam to control them" (Herbert, Sparks 102)
This fascinated Herbert, “the irresistible way they move, swallowing roads,
houses, and on occasion entire towns" (O'Reilly 39). The power of a grain of
sand, multiplied by the millions, can exert a tremendous force while retaining a
quiet almost exotic beauty.
Herbert dedicated Dune "to the dry-land ecologists" and in that dedication
is the strongest evidence of the direction he was taking when writing the novel.
To Herbert ecology was one of the most important elements in his personal value
system. He sought a sense of equilibrium with nature and the natural world in
his life, and he found that balance with ecology. Herbert wrote that "ecology is
the science of understanding consequences" (Herbert, Sparks 104). He infuses
the novel with a covert ecological theme along with the overt theme of Pardot
and Liet Kynes's attempts to bring water and vegetation to the desert planet. Into
this equation of balance versus imbalance Herbert finds evolution to be balance
with revolution as imbalance, a natural course of events as balance with human
intervention or tampering as imbalance, and heterosexuality as balance with
homosexuality as imbalance. It goes beyond good versus evil or right versus
wrong to the larger concept of balance versus imbalance. Sometimes something
which humans assume to be bad or evil is the item which is in natural balance.
As Herbert states about SF writers: “We examine assumptions" (Herbert, Men
128).
A, .Setting
The setting of the novel is the largest component making up Herbert's
Dune. He places the action and characters in neo-medieval setting with castles,
landed gentry, a merchant class, an aristocracy, and an emperor. This emphasis
on a severely structured society is intentional on the part of the author.
According to O'Reilly, Herbert needed to place the protagonist, Paul Atreides, in
the "feudal and paramilitary structure of the Empire and House Atreides [which]
reveals an important aspect of what Herbert describes as the superhero
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mystique" (O'Reilly 45). O'Reilly contends that the story of a military messiah
could only work in a strict monarchial setting and not a democracy. The rigors of
nobility, codes of honor, and all that attends a feudal society he states were
necessary in order to write a readable entertaining SF novel.
The medieval society of the Emperor Shaddam IV serves another purpose
for Herbert, a more important one than simply to set the stage for a SF action-
adventure novel. Herbert believed that rigidity in life was counterindicative of the
natural cycle of life, which is evolution. He claimed that mankind sought a
society which was "one of social unity, of togetherness as the ultimate social
achievement. The distinguishing of one individual from another has to be held
within tight limits. To be different is to be dangerous" (Herbert, Crisis 76). He
considered this to be against the natural order of life. Stagnation for Herbert was
equivalent to a mortal sin.
By our acts, we demonstrate that we want mass production of a
standard human who employs standardized consumer goods. We
execute this mass production of sameness in a largely
unexamined, unconscious manner. But nature constantly evolves,
trying out its new arrangements, its new kinds of life, its differences,
its interesting times, its crises.. . . [W]e look for models upon
which to pattern our lives. But [the] universe greets us with
complexities everywhere we turn. (Herbert, Crisis 77)
Touponce agrees that Herbert "had an aversion for any theory that
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committed mankind to a single track of development that then could not be
changed" (Touponce 9). The medieval setting of Dune reflects Herbert's
aversion to a strictly enforced artificial life. Herbert posited that a government
structured like feudalism was recurrent in the history of mankind and a condition
into which humanity fell with a numbing regularity. The medieval governmental
structure is "a situation in which some men lead and others, surrendering the
responsibility to make their own decisions, follow orders" (Touponce 9). The
repetition of this political archetype disturbed Herbert. Touponce states that "the
general aim of the Dune series was to make people aware of these recurring
archetypes in political history so that they might be transcended" (Touponce 9).
The feudal setting of the novel gives Herbert a perfect situation into which
he can place his young hero. The stifling rigidity of this society demands from
the populace a complete abdication of responsibility for themselves and a blind
trust in the hopefully wise leadership of a handful of men and, ultimately, a single
supreme leader.
One of the threads of the story [of Dune] is to trace a possible way
a messiah is created in our society . . . . Here we have the entire
process (or at least the large and some of the subtle elements of
construction of this) both from the individual standpoint, and from
the way society demands this. A man must recognize the myth in
which he is living because he is a creation of his times. Look at
what's happening to John F. Kennedy, who was a very earthy, real,
I
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and not totally holy man. So here we have a likable person, but
real in the flesh and blood sense, who by the process of immolation
becomes something large than life, far larger than life. (Herbert,
Sparks 109)
A setting of castles, emperors, holy combat, and witches also fits into the
mid-1960s near-worship of anything related to Camelot and its Americanized
version in the Kennedy White House. The legend of King Arthur was a major hit
as a Broadway musical, and the Camelot imagery is reinforced by excerpts from
the cast album and popular music. This interpretant is extremely strong for the
target audience of 1965. For nearly three years America was enthralled by a
young, vibrant male leader, his influential and powerful extended family, his
intelligent and beautiful wife, and his very young children-a boy and a girl.
B. Cultural Analogies
On the surface certain elements of the story could be considered a
parallel for members of the Kennedy White House. Herbert has written how John
F. Kennedy has become the American superhero and, taking that cue from the
author, others of his family and contemporaries can be construed as having been
borrowed and placed in the novel. These borrowings are subtle and even
subliminal, but they attract the attention of the reader in a such a way that the
reader accepts the roles given to the characters. This unquestioning acceptance
of the characters by the target audience makes it easier for the author to
concentrate on the more important issues and themes. It also facilitates the
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target audience's involvement with the story and an emotional attachment to the
protagonist and his inner circle.
Jessica as a politically astute and ambitious woman always looking to
advocate and campaign for her son's advancement has qualities attributable to
Rose Kennedy. Chani as the devoted partner and mother who knows and keeps
her place while ferociously protecting her lover is borrowed from Jackie Kennedy.
Duke Leto, about whom the old Reverend Mother prophesies, "But for your
father, nothing" (Herbert, Dune 27), easily fits into the shadow of Joseph
Kennedy, Sr., who never held political office but only an appointed position as
ambassador to the Court of St. James in the 1930s.
Other characters are more representative than exact in their correlation to
contemporaneous times. Herbert “had a standard axiom to the effect that all
governments--and corporations--lie.. . . He thought that an adjustable capitalist
system was the best, but only because it eventually broke down due to its own
excesses and could then be adjusted" (Touponce 8-9). The Emperor and the
noble houses in the Landsraad represent the Eisenhower administration with its
seemingly complacent elderly President who delegates authority and the
Congress who are a mix of a few good, a majority of mediocre, and a few
(sometimes very) bad members. Baron Vladimir Harkonnen represents two
enemies of freedom--the legislator, the internal enemy, who misuses his political
office for self-aggrandizement, and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, the
external enemy, who was short and fat, and who placed missiles in Cuba aimed
at the United States. "The Russian sound was clearly meant to engage our
prejudices-which, it must be remembered, were much stronger when Dune was
written in the early sixties than they are now" (O'Reilly 55).
C. Ecological Constraints
Water on Arrakis and melange within the Empire are the true coins of the
realm. They imitate the very real and significant role oil plays in twentieth
century economy and politics. Although an important commodity in the early
1960s when the novel was written, the control of oil created a new economic
battlefield with the oil shortages artificially instigated by OPEC in the 1970s and
the military crisis in the Persian Gulf in 1991.
Yes, there are analogs in Dune of today's events-corruption and
bribery in the highest places, whole police forces lost to organized
crime, regulatory agencies taken over by the people they are
supposed to regulate. The scarce water of Dune is an exact analog
of oil scarcity. CHOAM is OPEC. (Herbert, Superhero 98)
Familiarity within a SF novel for the reader is essential if the author is to
proceed to the theme and make his argument to the target audience. Once the
reader is hooked into the story through the entertainment factor of the action-
adventure and the interpretant factor of contemporaneous subliminal recognition
of characters and political or social situation, the author is then free to insert his
argument into the novel. With Dune, the argument revolves around ecology and
how factions of the human race do or do not fit in to the ecological balance.
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D, .Evolution of the .Hero
One of the ecological concepts which Herbert embraces is the freedom of
chance encounter and random selection, what Herbert calls "the random chaos
of the unknown universe," and he demonstrates the results of hyperplanning with
the superhero of the novel, Paul Atreides (Herbert, Crisis 80). He uses the
analogy of a single organism in order to attempt a clarification of his theory that
all mankind works interrelatedly; thus, one man's tampering has the potential to
affect all humans.
Think of our human world as a single organism. This organism has
characteristics of a person: internal reaction systems, personality
(admittedly fragmented), fixed conceptualizations, regular
communications lines (analogue nerves), guidance systems, and
other apparatus unique to an individual. You and I are no more
than cells of that organism, solitary cells that often act in disturbing
concert for reasons not readily apparent. (Herbert, Hand 95)
Herbert argues against the rigidity of conservatism and isolationism and
for the understanding that humans are part of a larger community over which
they have no control. "It is a question of the relationship between human
consciousness and the rest of the universe.. . . It is also a characteristic of the
West that we must believe in absolutes" (Herbert, Crisis 84-85). He presents this
argument in Dune in several ways.
The Bene Gesserit sisterhood manipulates bloodlines and genetics to
strengthen certain traits and to remove others. They try to focus the normal
evolution of man into a scientific rigidity of matching mates and controlling
childbearing. In doing so they force an escalation of the normally slow
evolutionary pace so that they may produce their ultimate male, the one who, by
his gender, will be in a position of power but who, by his acceptance of his
feminine side, will be under the control of the Bene Gesserits. They do not see
in any of their future visions the possibility of failure or greater harm in their
machinations. Theirs is a political thirst which only will be quenched by the
product of their long-range experimentations. They do not understand the need
for the natural evolution of mankind. In the process of their experiment they have
produced a possible candidate, but his deformity precludes him from partaking of
the Water of Life.
Paul, aware of some of this from the way the time nexus boiled,
understood at last why he had never seen [Count] Fenring along
the webs of prescience. Fenring was one of the might-have-beens,
an almost-Kwisatz Haderach, crippled by a flaw in the genetic
pattem -a eunuch, his talent concentrated into furtiveness and inner
seclusion. A deep compassion for the Count flowed through Paul,
the first sense of brotherhood he’d ever experienced. (Herbert,
Dune 487^
What the Bene Gesserits also have created by Paul's unexpected birth is
the superman they had intended with one exception--he is a renegade who
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cannot be ailed by the sisterhood. The randomness and chaos of the universe
have invaded the careful planning of the Bene Gesserits, and this has corrupted
their painstaking manipulations. By Paul's very existence he demonstrates that
nature will invade any unnatural intervention and attempt to realign the tampering
back into the natural system of events. The product of their manipulations has
become their Frankenstein's monster; i.e., uncontrollable and destructive to the
creator. Paul disdains the Bene Gesserits and directs his disgust at the
Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam as he enters the Arrakeen palace after
his victory over the combined forces of the Emperor and the Baron.
"Observe her comrades! This is a Bene Gesserit Reverend
Mother, patient in a patient cause. She could wait with her sisters*-
ninety generations for the proper combination of genes and
environment to produce the one person their schemes required.
Observe her! She knows now that the ninety generations have
produced that person. Here I stand . . . but. . . I . . . will. . . never
. . . do . . . he r. . . bidding!" (Herbert, Dune 477)
Even as the Empire is crumbling around her feet, Gaius Helen Mohiam
continues her machinations with the Emperor, whispering in his ear, reminding
him of his pledge to put a Bene Gesserit on the Imperial throne. The Emperor,
after all, has produced only daughters, and the eldest is the heir. “Paul spoke to
his mother: 'She reminds him that it's part of their agreement to place a Bene
Gesserit on the throne, and Irulan is the one they've groomed for it'" (Herbert,
109
Dune 479). In Helen's own limited prescience, she is naively confident that
Irulan will rule with Paul at her side as a Prince Consort, unaware or more likely
unwilling to believe that Paul intends to seize the throne and rule as an
unencumbered Emperor.
Herbert does not, however, allow the reader to bask in the reflected glory
of the victory. All through the novel, he hints that Paul knows of a great disaster
which will befall the empire if he continues in his quest for revenge in his father's
murder. He allows himself to be caught up in the violent emotional pull to
destroy the Harkonnens as they have attempted to destroy the Atreides, and, if
that means that the Empire is destroyed as well, so be it. Herbert presents to the
target audience what he calls "the messianic convulsions that periodically
overtake" humanity and sends a message about the dangers of seeking,
following, or even wanting a messiah figure.
This grows from my theory that superheroes are disastrous for
humankind, that even if we find a real hero (whatever that may be),
eventually fallible mortals take over the power structure that always
comes into being around such a leader. What better way to destroy
a civilization, a society, or a race than to set people into the wild
oscillations which follow their turning over their judgment and
decision-making faculties to a superhero? (Herbert, Superhero 97)
Herbert continually shows Paul’s feet of clay. We are able to hear in
Paul’s mind how he uses and manipulates the Fremen prophesy of the Lisan al-
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Gaib (the off-world prophet of the messiah legend) to his own advantage. We
see that his youth is a double-edged sword which gives him virility, energy, and
quickness but also betrays his lack of time-hewn wisdom. His youth also gives
him a false sense of ability and an arrogance in that he thinks he can control the
uncontrollable (the jihad and the Fremen themselves). He merges his blood
desire for revenge against the Harkonnens with the Fremen desire to destroy a
callous, dangerous dictatorship. In essence, he allows his emotions to rule over
his insight. He knows the strong possibility that his actions will ignite a holy war
which will cause mass destruction and death throughout the empire, but he bums
with the desire to right the wrongs perpetrated against his father and the name of
Atreides. The natural occurrence of the spice melange in his Fremen diet
elevates his prescient abilities. He is able to see the many possible futures
which await him and also to see the terrible outcome which will befall the empire
if he continues in his quest for vengeance.
The other path held long patches of grey obscurity except for peaks
of violence. He had seen a warrior religion there, a fire spreading
across the universe with the Atreides green and black banner
waving at the head of fanatic legions drunk on spice liquor "I
can't go that way," he muttered. "That's what the old witches of
your schools really want." (Herbert, Dune 199)
Paul, hearing these words, realized that he had plunged once more
into the abyss . . . blind time. There was no past occupying the
future in his mind . . . except. . . except. . . he could still sense the
green and black Atreides banner waving . . . somewhere ahead
. . . still see the jihad's bloody swords and fanatic legions. It will not
be, he told himself. I cannot let it be. (Herbert, Dune 309)
Paul sat silently in the darkness, a single stark thought dominating
his awareness. My mother is my enemy. She does not know it, but
she is. She is bringing the jihad. She bore me; she trained me.
She is my enemy. (Herbert, Dune 321)
But he knew he could not let any consideration deflect him. He had
to remain on the central line of the time storm he could see in the
future. There would come an instant when it could be unraveled,
but only if he were where he could cut the central knot of it. I will
not call him [Stilgar] out if it can be helped, he thought. If there's
another way to prevent the jih ad. . . . (Herbert, Dune 405)
The old Truthsayer, the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam,
had her own view of the hidden meaning in Paul's words now. She
glimpsed the jihad and said: "You cannot loose these people upon
the universe!" (Herbert, Dune 488)
At the end of the novel, Herbert does not give the target audience a hero
or a great man. He does, however, give a real man, a person who has faults and
makes mistakes, who is vengeful and seeks justice, who is loving and kind, who
is knowledgeable beyond his years, who conscripts a cause which is not his own
in order to acquire soldiers and fight a personal battle he desperately needs to
win, and who has been given a weapon-his awesome powers-well beyond his
true abilities to manage them. By accelerating the natural course of evolution of
the species, an altered human is bom with an ability to tap into and harness the
extraordinary powers of the mind. As David M. Miller points out, Paul has
become a God in the eyes of those whose evolution is still on its slow, natural
path. He is in a very real sense a freak of nature since his emergence into the
human pattern is premature. Although he rejects himself as any form of religious
leader, the Fremen “take the Alpha in their instance of the pattern as a Supreme,
rather than as a Complex Superior” (Miller 147).
Herbert's warning against following a superhero or messiah begins in
Dune, and the consequences which follow allegiance to a messiah are brought to
their inevitable conclusions in the second and third books of the Dune series.
Using the conventions which allow the reader to know the character's innermost
(and, thus, uncensored) thoughts, the author demonstrates the fallibility behind
the messiah and the weakness in the superhero. The reader is intimately aware
of the trepidations, the half-truths, the sins of omission, and the manipulations of
the protagonist. Paul and Jessica Atreides are saved from death in the desert by
the Fremen because of Jessica's ability to defend her life. She begins the
manipulations by allowing the tribe to think that she and Paul may be the ones
who fulfill an ancient legend which was planted by the propaganda arm of the
Bene Gesserits, the Missionaria Protectiva. At no point do they envision or even
1 13
try to envision a way which will allow them to be considered as normal members
of the tribe. Instead, Jessica allows herself to become the tribe's Reverend
Mother while in the beginning stages of pregnancy with Alia. Paul puts on the
mantle of the Lisan al-Gaib and blatantly uses the legend to unite the diverse
tribes of the Fremen and to elevate himself-an outsider-to become their highest
leader in a battle against the Harkonnen oppressors (much like T. E. Lawrence
had done in the deserts of Northern Africa during World War I).
Herbert's deliberate warning against superheroes and messiahs rings loud
and clear, giving the ending of the novel an unsettling sense of ambiguity. Even
as he discusses the writing of Dune. Herbert refuses to let the reader in on his
personal interpretation of the novel and its ending. He relates reading and
interpreting the Dune series to a fugue as he discusses what he feels is
dangerous about a superhero.
Of course, there are other themes and fugal interplays in Dune and
throughout the trilogy. Dune Messiah performs a classic inversion
of theme. Children of Dune expands the number of themes
interplaying. I refuse, however, to provide further answers to this
complex mixture. That, after all, fits the pattern of the fugue: you
find your own solutions; don't look to me as your leader. (Herbert,
Superhero 101)
E.R eligion as_Social. Political, and Cultural Force
One of the implications of Herbert's treatment of the superhero is to
suggest the place of human beings within a spiritual context. Religion is taken
hard to task in the Dune series and in other SF novels written by Herbert. In
Dune there are many different references to religion with the Bene Gesserits, the
Fremen, the O.C. Bible, and excited exclamations of "Great Mother!" which
equate to "Dear God!". How these situations are played out-how the characters
use the religion, react to each other regarding religion, and use the artifacts of
religion-the target audience is shown the personal prejudices regarding religion
which Herbert held. He borrows from the Catholics, the Moslems, and the Jews
for references and gives enough information to the reader that there is a sense of
recognition between the religions of the future and the religions of the present.
With these interpretants in place, the author then focuses the target on the
elements which Herbert finds dangerous, appalling, and manipulative.
O'Reilly contends that the Bene Gesserit sisterhood is an almost
autobiographical element which Herbert inserts into the Dune series. He states
that the name Bene Gesserit "is actually Latin. It means 'it will have been well
borne,' an apt motto for the scheming Sisterhood" (O'Reilly 54). The
organization of the sisterhood is based on his own upbringing.
Herbert has described the Bene Gesserit as "female Jesuits.". . .
[The] Society of Jesus bears no small resemblance to the witches
of the Imperium. The association in Herbert's mind between [his
ten] aunts and the Jesuits seems to have stuck, and may have
provided the link between the matriarchy and future management in
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the Bene Gesserit. In the long run, Herbert recalls: "My [agnostic]
father really won. I was a rebel against Jesuit positivism. I can win
an argument in the Jesuit fashion, but I think it's flying under false
colors. If you control the givens, you can win any argument."
(O'Reilly 89)
In Dune the Bene Gesserits are drawn with a wide brush and in bold
colors. There is not a momentary hesitation in the interpretation of Herbert's
intent. He leads the target audience with deliberation, calling them witches,
placing them among the powerful to cajole and manipulate, giving them the
Voice, and allowing them the ultimate power over reproduction. Theirs is a
secret society where the women are never told who their birth parents are. They
are trained to appear subservient, but they are subservient only to the authority
figures within the sisterhood. All others are grist for the mill in the long-range
plans and schemes of the order. "'I am Bene Gesserit: I exist only to serve,'
Jessica quoted" (Herbert, Dune 23). Brian Aldiss sums up the reaction of the
reader when he states that
we [have] a very strong sense of the Bene Gesserit sisterhood as a
potentially evil force. Were their actions for the good of Man, or
were they selfish and misguided? There was a tantalizing
ambiguity about it .. . . [It is] morally questionable. (Aldiss 399)
The Bene Gesserit lay groundwork among diverse peoples to insure their
own protection should any of these specially trained women need assistance
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from the uninitiated and politically unsophisticated. This is the work of the
Missionaria Protectiva, and by this phrase alone the reader is given an insight
into the working of the order. Their mission is not to serve mankind altruistically
but rather to protect itself from outside interference.
Except for the Fremen, none of the characters outwardly ascribe to any
formal religious philosophy. Gurney Halleck exclaims his surprise by saying
either “Great Mother!" or “Gods!" and quotes from great writers, many of those
from the O.C. Bible. The revised ecumenical Orange Catholic Bible is defined by
Herbert as
the "Accumulated Book," the religious text produced by the
Commission of Ecumenical Translators. It contains elements of
most ancient religions, including the Maometh Saari, Mahayana
Christianity, Zensunni Catholicism, and Buddislamic traditions. Its
supreme commandment is considered to be: "Thou shalt not
disfigure the soul." (Herbert, Dune 525)
One subtle message Herbert submits to the target audience is two-fold.
First, an intelligent, educated, sophisticated, upper class society does not need
religion for itself. Rather, religion is just another tool to serve them in their control
of the larger population. Thus, secondly, religion is a dynamic among an
unschooled, unsophisticated, lower to low-middle class society which needs it in
order to have hope for a better life in a more spiritual plane and/or to make sense
of a life of hardship on the temporal plane. Herbert very much follows the
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Marxist tenet that religion is the opiate of the masses.
Another subtle message presented to the target audience is that religion is
a political force with which to be reckoned. This is historically accurate in
Western society especially with regard to the Roman Catholic church in Europe
and Latin America, and the Protestant church in England and North America.
The Bene Gesserits have established a covert theocracy and their Ultimate Male,
who was predetermined to sit on the Imperial throne, would have made their
theocracy a public reality. Much as Spain after the Reconquista allowed the
Inquisition to purge its country of possible subversive elements among the
Moslems and Jews who thrived under the protection of the Arab conquerors, so
too the Empire allows the Bene Gesserits to thrive and expand their influence
among all the known worlds of the Imperium in order to retain order among the
populations and shift the focus from political difficulties to the care of the
immortal soul.
F. The Place of Women in the Culture of Dune
Herbert gives the power of access to the collective unconscious only to
the women of the Bene Gesserit sisterhood, and the combined knowledge and
accumulated wisdom of hundreds of past female lives secures for them a
definitive advantage over any perceived or real enemies. Males may be the
power figures, but the females are the ones who are the power brokers. They
are used, like Gaius Helen Mohiam, as Truthsayers who can confirm or deny the
spoken message of any courier or diplomat. They are also used, like Jessica
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and Margot Lady Fenring, as strategically placed concubines or wives to
powerful men whose genes are necessary to continue the blood lines and
strengthen the genetic pool.
Herbert is not subtle in his depiction of women in Dune. The Bene
Gesserit women, whether pseudoreligious leaders or highly sophisticated
incubators, owe their allegiance to the sisterhood first and foremost; the empire,
their lovers, and even their children take second place. If it is for the betterment
of the order, a mother will give up her daughter in infancy so that she is raised as
an orphan of unknown parentage (to all except the sisterhood). Margot Lady
Fenring, married to the eunuch Count Fenring, allows herself to be used as a
broodmare in a seduction of Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen so that the Bene Gesserit
can try to recover from Jessica's erroneous production of a male child.
"The things we do in the name of humanity," he said.. . .
"My poor dear," she said, and patted his cheek. "You know this is
the only way to be sure of saving that bloodline.. . . There'll be no
guilt," she said. "Hypno-ligation of that Feyd-Rautha's psyche and
his child in my womb-then we go." (Herbert, Dune 339)
Jessica allows Gaius Helen to give her son the test for humanity involving pain
by nerve induction and the threat of death by the gom jabbar. The penalty for
losing the test is death.
Fremen women are different from women of the Imperium, but they do not
acquire any form of leadership status. With Harah and Chani as models of
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Fremen womanhood, the target audience is reinforced with a presentation of the
good mother as property of the male. After Jamis is killed in ritual battle with
Paul, Jamis's property is divided among the tribe. As spoils of war, Paul is given
Jamis's water which is recovered from his dead body, his coffee service, and his
wife and children. Stilgar gives him the choice of accepting Harah as sen/ant or
mate. Harah campaigns to be made a wife, and this only hours after the brutal
death of her husband at the hands of the very young man who is to receive her.
Paul takes her only as a servant, and her disappointment is obvious. Her worth
is diminishing within the tribe, because she is getting older and may no longer be
considered a desirable commodity.
Harah lifted her arms, turning slowly on one heel. "I am still young,
Usui. It's said I still look as young as when I was with Geoff. . .
before Jamis bested him.". . .
"I accept her as sen/ant," Paul said.. . . Harah stamped a foot,
shook her shoulders with anger. "But I'm young!". . .
"I'll not harm you, Harah," he said. "Show me our quarters." And
he smoothed his voice with relaxants. "You'll not cast me out when
the year's gone?" she said. "I know for true I’m not as young as
once I was." (Herbert, Dune 343-344)
Chani, the daughter of a Fremen woman and the Imperial Planetologist
Liet Kynes, is a trained fighter and kills to protect Paul from his enemies within
the tribe early in his life at the sietch. Once she is picked by Paul to be his mate,
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she transforms into the perfect wom an-a patient and protective lover, a fertile
mother, and a trusted companion. She is now dedicated to Paul and lives only to
serve him and protect him if necessary. She is the ultimate male fantasy.
The women are pre-feminist figures. They are the Triple Goddess of
virgin (Chani)/matron (Jessica, Harah)/hag (Gaius Helen Mohiam), the goddess
who is "mistress of birth, sexuality and death" (Wood 12). Wood identifies SF as
"a popular literature which has always been male-oriented and male-dominated"
(Wood 9). Herbert does not rise above the stereotypes. His women reflect what
his readership wants. A female leader would have been a jarring element
introduced into this audience.
Herbert responds to the interpretants available at the time when Dune was
being outlined and initially written. The feminist movement of the 1960s was in
its infancy and had not begun to make the inroads into the power structure which
is much more apparent in the 1990s. In order to direct his novel to his target
audience, Herbert cannot afford to break the spell which he is conjuring. His
mission is not to raise the consciousness of men about the oppression of
women. Rather, he strives to warn those who will inherit the mantle of power
about following as sheep behind any messiah or superhero. He intends to
promote to those who will assume leadership the necessity of ecology both in
nature and in man's dealings within his own kind.
In 1963-1964, when the novel was serialized, and 1965, when it was
published as a hardcover novel, those who would assume power and leadership
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were men. Women had assumed submissive roles for centuries with their
economies, their earning power, and their security all given over to the male
figure in their lives. Few jobs allowed women any sense of career. To promote
women to global leadership positions within a novel dealing with uses and
abuses of power would be inappropriate at best.
The women in Dune exercise hidden power, using manipulation, cajoling,
seduction, and other such weapons in their arsenal. They are "practitioners of a
psychology so advanced that it appears magical to the uninitiated" and they use
it to guide their mates, exerting "an indirect but powerful role in shaping galactic
events" (McNelly and O'Reilly 652). Written in the early to mid-1960s, Dune
cannot embark on a new, radical mission to elevate the role of women without
changing the author's specific intent. Herbert needs to keep the cultural
interpretant of woman as servant, whore, mother, and scheming bitch as it
stands without alteration. The novel is not about women as revolutionaries; it is
a warning against hero worship, and a warning to regain and maintain the natural
order of the universe. Women's place in that order would have to wait for
another novel and another author. Herbert's message is intended for the
youthful male potential leader who is young enough to be open to new ideas and
to consider necessary changes in the old status quo.
G, The.Place of Drugs in the Culture of Dune
An important theme within the novel is legalized drug use which abounds
in the year 10,200. Critics as a whole have paid little to no attention to the
I
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recurrence of drugs within the novel. The major themes and the action-
adventure style of the storytelling are so powerful that this relatively minor
element is overlooked.
Again, it is important to note that the novel was written in the early part of
the 1960s. Marijuana and alcohol were common drugs which were available;
marijuana possession was a felony, but alcohol could be bought at local stores.
In 1963 Timothy Leary was fired from Harvard University for, among other things,
his unprofessional uses of an experimental psychotropic drug, lysergic acid
diethylamide, better known as LSD. The youth/drug counterculture ("hippies")
was beginning to take hold as the logical extension of the beatnik counterculture
of the 1950s. Heroin and cocaine as more powerful and more addictive illegal
drugs were also supplied on the black market.
In Dune the drugs available are all legal. It is interesting that there is
practically no wine, beer, or distilled liquor mentioned in the text with the single
exception of spice liquor, a derivative of melange. Water is substituted by
Herbert as the liquid status symbol at the banquet table. He presents it to the
target audience in such a way as to elevate it from the interpretant mode of a
common, easily obtained element to that of a rare and expensive ingestible much
like champagne produced by Rothschild or, with reference to illegal substances,
marijuana left on a coffee table with wrapper papers next to it. Herbert also
infuses water with an awesome power much like meat is among the starving
poor who subsist on rotting fruits and vegetables.
Flanking the doorway in which [Duke Leto] stood were broad
laving basins of ornate yellow and green tile. Each basin had its
rack of towels. It was the custom, the housekeeper had explained,
for guests as they entered to dip their hands ceremoniously into a
basic, slop several cups of water onto the floor, dry their hands on
a towel and fling the towel into the growing puddle at the door.
After the dinner, beggars gathered outside to get the water
squeezings from the towels___
"I know the custom!" he barked [to the serving woman]. "Take
these basins to the front door. While we're eating and until we've
finished, each beggar who calls may have a full cup of water."
(Herbert, Dune 127)
Later, at the dinner, the Duke's guests are horrified as he completes a series of
toasts and then proceeds to empty his flagon of water on the floor. By custom,
all the guests must follow the host's lead, and they do so with great trepidation.
Forcing them to follow him in a potentially hazardous wasteful act, Leto focuses
his guests on the fact that he is now the authority figure on Arrakis and that they
will follow him or become as the water from the flagon; i.e., they may be
important, even necessary, to life on Arrakis, but he will waste them as he does
the precious water if they give him just cause. As precious as the drug melange
is to the universe, water is to Arrakis. Herbert gives Leto the opportunity to use
this metaphor in order to clarify his position of power on the desert planet.
One of the legal drugs Herbert places in Dune is semuta, a "highly
addictive narcotic derived, by crystal extraction, from elacca" (McNelly,
Encyclopedia 451). Accompanying the ingestion of the drug is a rhythmic
vibration series of atonal sounds known as semuta music. The drug, especially
enhanced by the music, gives the user "a feeling of timeless ecstasy,' of
separation from all pain and trouble" (McNelly, Encyclopedia 451). This
description similarly fits the effects of marijuana, and its use in the 1950s and
1960s was many times associated with music, either cool jazz or acid rock.
Semuta is used by the captain of the Baron Harkonnen's guards and its effect is
briefly described at the beginning of Book Three of the novel.
The guard captain, lakin Nefud, squatted on a divan across the
chamber, the stupor of semuta dullness in his flat face, the eerie
wailing of semuta music around him. (Herbert, Dune 365)
Another drug is melange and the spice liquor which is a byproduct of "the
melange awareness-spectrum narcotic" (Herbert. Dune 472). They, too, are
addictive, but only mildly in small quantities. Melange allows the mind to open
and allow for sight to be extended in space and time so that Guild navigators can
choose the best possible routes for their ships and that Reverend Mothers can
see into a limited future time.
The many faces of melange reflect Herbert's own first experience
with hallucinogenic drugs. On his first trip to Mexico in 1953, he
was required to get official permission for he extended stay he
desired. After the interview, the general with whom he had met
called in a servant, who brought a tray of panocha, a brown-sugar
candy. Innocently, Herbert took two. Only later did he learn that
the candies were compounded with the finest North African
hashish. He had no idea what was happening. His only similar
experience was drunkenness, so he felt and acted drunk. This
occurrence convinced Herbert of the enormous power of
expectation in shaping drug experience. And so, to the Fremen
melange is one thing; to the Bene Gesserit and the Spacing Guild it
is another; and to Paul, yet another. (O'Reilly 78)
In the amounts used by the Guild navigators and the Reverend Mothers, it
is "severely addictive" with serious complications if stopped (Herbert, Dune 523).
Withdrawal from the drug is so frightening, a Guild navigator cries out to Paul
when he threatens to destroy spice production on Arrakis, "'You would blind
yourself, too, and condemn us all to slow death. Have you any idea what it
means to be deprived of the spice liquor once you're addicted?"' (Herbert, Dune
476). This drug as a liquor is used by the Bene Gesserits and Spacing Guild
navigators, and in an solid form by Piter de Vries, the Harkonnen Mentat. '"But
he consumes too much spice, eats it like candy. Look at his ey es!. . (Herbert,
Dune 17). Melange also is found in the diet of the Fremen and everyone else on
Arrakis since it is inseparable from the native food sources.
The other major drug of the novel, besides melange, is the Water of Life,
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the poisonous byproduct of a dying sandworm which the Bene Gesserits ingest
to become Reverend Mothers. Their training includes the ability to alter cellular
structure within their bodies (which is how they control the gender of their
embryos) and then change the poison into a non-toxic substance. The Water of
Life is a form of hallucinogen which opens up the abilities of the recipient to
receive the collective memories of the Reverend Mother whom she is replacing
as well as the memories of all previous Reverend Mothers. In a long passage,
Herbert describes this process of awareness, change, and collective memory
reception.
Whirling silence settled around Jessica. Every fiber of her body
accepted the fact that something profound had happened to it. She
felt that she was a conscious mote, smaller than an subatomic
particle, yet capable of motion and of sensing her surroundings.. . .
Why is time suspended? she asked herself.. . .
The answer to this instant came like an explosion in her own
consciousness: her personal time was suspended to save her life.
. . . [S]he ventured to focus on the psychokinesthetic extension,
becoming a mote-self that searched within her for danger.
She found it within the drug she had swallowed.
The stuff was dancing particles within her, its motions so rapid
that even frozen time could not stop them. Dancing particles. She
began recognizing familiar structures, atomic linkages: a carbon
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atom here, helical wavering . . . a glucose molecule. An entire
chain of molecules confronted her, and she recognized a protein
. . . a methyl-protein configuration.. . .
With her psychokinesthetic probing, she moved into it, shifted an
oxygen mote, allowed another carbon mote to link, reattached a
linkage of oxygen . . . hydrogen.
The change spread . . . faster and faster as the catalyzed reaction
opened its surface of contact.. . .
[The Reverend Mother Ranallo and Jessica] touched!. . .
Too late, Jessica saw what was happening: the old woman was
dying and, in dying, pouring her experiences into Jessica's
awareness as water is poured into a cup.. . .
Let the catalyst do its work, she thought. Let the people drink of it
and have their a wareness of each other heightened for awhile. The
drug is safe n o w. . . now that a Reverend Mother has changed it.
Still, the demanding memory worked on her, thrusting. There was
another thing she had to do, she realized, but the drug made it
difficult to focus.. . .
And the memory-mind encapsulated within her opened itself to
Jessica, permitting a view down a wide corridor to other Reverend
Mothers until there seemed no end to them. (Herbert, Dune 354-
128
358 )
This drug has several properties similar to those attributed to LSD.
Originally a drug developed by two Swiss chemists in 1938 to ease headache
pain, LSD was tested in the 1950s to determine if it was useful in the treatment of
psychiatric disorders. It is manufactured from ergot, a fungus which grows on
rye and wheat.
Herbert borrows from the known facts about LSD (i.e., the hallucinatory
episodes, its extraction from a natural source, and the involvement of the drug
with the psyche), and he mixes with that his own "experience with hallucinogenic
drugs" and his knowledge of Native American rituals (O'Reilly 78).
The experiences the Water of Life provokes among the Fremen
were probably suggested to Herbert by peyote or other naturally
occurring hallucinogens used by American Indians in their religious
rites. . . . [T]he Fremen were modelled in part on the Navajo and
other Indians of the Southwest In this case he uses his
selections to make an important point about drug use. (O'Reilly 78)
Herbert believes in legalized drug use as the inevitable necessary step
toward reducing the criminal element within the drug subculture, and he makes a
very clear and forceful statement about it in the chapter he wrote for Reginald
Bretnor's collection of essays, The Craft of Science Fiction. He attacks the
problem of drug use in America by examining it through the microscope of his
theory of ecological balance. "[Ejcology is the science of understanding
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consequences" (Herbert, Sparks 104). As such, you cannot change what will not
be changed.
What happens if you lower the barriers and offer a fix at the comer
pharmacy to any registered addict for fifty cents? Have you solved
the drug problem? No. But you've cut organized crime out of the
market. And you've removed the major source of new addictions.
More than three-fourths of the present addicts were maneuvered
into addiction by other addicts who became pushers to support
their own expensive habits. (Herbert, Men 130)
Two years earlier Herbert had submitted the same theory in an essay for
Bretnor in Science Fiction. Today and Tomorrow. His argument is that humans
seek to control what they perceive as dangerous or inappropriate without
understanding the significant elements of that which they are trying to control.
How the control concept works with the heroin traffic exemplifies
what happens when we apply such pressures to a system without
sufficient understanding of the system's internal behavior.
Understand first that we have never discovered an upper limit to
what the heroin addict will pay for his fix. The demand impulse of
the system has a wide open upper limit, assumed as infinite.
Result: New Yorkers no longer live in Fun City.. . . New Yorkers
know their addicts will pay any price asked of them -your life, your
household goods, anything.
130
But our dominant approach continues to operate out of that
judgmental edict: Heroin is nasty! Suppress it! Control it!
Even with our wildest control binge, however, the heroin traffic
cannot be completely shut off. Some of it will get through.
(Herbert, Crisis 89)
Herbert infuses his theory of ecology regarding the control of drug use into
Dune by very specifically writing no drug use legalities at all. Semuta is easily
obtainable as is melange. Semuta is utilized by the general population probably
because the price is not out of reach. Melange and spice liquor are expensive
and only for those who can afford them. Piter de Vries's misuse of melange is
easily equitable to Baron Harkonnen's misuse of food. The description of the
Baron's morbid obesity and Piter's uncontrollable drug use are both in the second
(expository) chapter which is far from accidental on the author's part. The Water
of Life is for religious ceremonies only, and its restriction is socially and
(eco)logically acceptable. That it causes death to those other than the Bene
Gesserits who ingest it allows for scant argument for its general accessibility.
h The_EcfllQgy_QfI t o ; Deviants
A subtle propaganda element-both as interpretant and as issue-is the
representation of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen as a homosexual. In the society of
the late 1950s and early 1960s, homosexuals were severely oppressed. Gay
men and women did not acknowledge their sexual preference for fear of losing
their jobs, the respect of their community, and their reputations as good men and
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women. Homosexuals were given dishonorable discharges from military service.
In Herbert's ecological system, homosexuals are imbalance and~
according to the theories of that time-they chose their unnatural existences or
they were forced into it through an unbalanced and/or abusive childhood. An
intensive examination of the psyche and proper intervention would bring
homosexuals back into their natural heterosexual society. In addition, Herbert
was a product of his upbringing, and homosexuality is a serious sin in the Roman
Catholic church.
Similarly, Herbert does not describe any of the characters in Dune as
having African, Asian, or other non-caucasian features. In fact, there are no
obvious descriptions which indicate color at all, only that the Fremen are stringy
and thin from water conservation and those of the Imperium are water-fat. In the
first chapter, Herbert describes Jessica as tall with "hair like shaded bronze held
with a black ribbon at the crown, her oval face emotionless and green eyes
staring solemnly" (Herbert, Dune 5). Paul is compared to his mother and his
paternal ancestors by Gaius Helen as she describes his oval face
like Jessica's, but strong bones . . . hair: the Duke's black-black but
with the browline of the maternal grandfather who cannot be
named, and that thin, disdainful nose; shape of directly staring
green eyes: like the old Duke, the paternal grandfather who is
dead. (Herbert, Dune 6)
Skin color is assumed and, given the time in which the novel was written,
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the background of the author, and the prejudices of SF editors and publishers of
the time, the characters are assimilated by the target audience as Caucasian.
Even the villains, the Harkonnens, are assumed to be Caucasian. The Sardaukar
are especially described as fair, similar to that of the stereotyped Nazi storm
trooper.
"He was of the blond, chisel-featured caste, the look that seemed synonymous
with rank among the Sardaukar. . . " (Herbert, Dune 468).
Both sexual preference and skin color were not matters for discussion in
SF literature at the time of Dune's writing. As interpretants they reinforce the
widely held opinions that the dominant race is Caucasian and that homosexuals
are evil. In these two arenas, Herbert demonstrates Lindley Fraser's position
that a propagandist
may not be aware of what he is doing. He may be the unconscious
vehicle of propaganda rather than its deliberate originator.. . . It is
sometimes said that the best propaganda is unintentional, because
it is less likely to arouse resistance and suspicion in the target.
(Fraser 5)
Herbert, by reinforcing the prejudices of white supremacy and the moral
degeneracy of homosexuality in humankind, works unwittingly as a propagandist
in support of social mores which, in the 1990s, have been changed or at least
are in a significant state of flux so that Herbert's depiction of horrific homosexuals
and white dominance is, at the very least, politically incorrect.
As with the pre-feminist women in his novel, Herbert is not attempting to
raise the consciousness of the target audience. More accurately, he is utilizing—
albeit somewhat unconsciously-the social determinates of the time to reinforce
the negative, cold, and fiercely inhuman aggression of the Imperial Sardaukar
troops and the narcissistic, nihilistic, and corrupt appetites of the Baron
Harkonnen. How he might deal with these two elements in his later writing is not
appropriate for a discussion of Dune. The novel is a product of its historical time
and of its author's beliefs and background. The predominance of Caucasians
and the evil stereotype of homosexuality allow the story to progress and the
target audience to be mollified into a comfortable reception of the action-
adventure story while also being lulled into accepting the concepts and theories
which Herbert presents throughout the novel.
I. The Ecology of Dune: The Natural Order of,Things
The ecology of the planet Arrakis, in and of itself, is the most important
theme of the novel, sharing its level of importance only with Herbert's concerns
about messiah- superhero figures. Both Pardot Kynes and his half-Fremen son,
Liet, are Imperial Planetologists assigned to Arrakis, with Liet taking his father's
place. Whatever their original mission may have been, beginning with Pardot
and continuing with Liet, these two ecological scientists conclude that Arrakis
can be manipulated to return to its former water-based life through a series of
water-catches, underground reservoirs, and strategically cultivated plant forms
scattered throughout the desert. Their goal, which they have propagandized
among the Fremen, is to beautify and restructure the very existence of life on the
planet. The process will take multiple generations.
The Fremen are chosen to carry out this grand project because
only they have the patience and hardiness to bear the hardships of
the desert even while they are transforming it. The fact that the
project will take from three to five hundred years requires discipline
for even the Fremen to accept, but they can accept it precisely
because they are sure that a better life will result. (Elgin 128)
Although on the surface Herbert would seem to be supporting this
intrusion into the natural design, he actually is not. He writes twice-once within
the novel and once in an appendix--that the interference into the natural order on
Arrakis is wrong. It is in the sequel novels that Paul teams the error of
interference, but Herbert already knows and tells the target audience as much.
In "Appendix I: The Ecology of Dune," Herbert submits a report on what
Arrakis is like and how Pardot Kynes has developed a system to reshape it "to fit
it to man's needs" (Herbert, Dune 493). He recounts a statement made by
Pardot Kynes which Elgin calls a "contradiction between the goals of this
transformation and the laws of ecology" (Elgin 128).
"The thing the ecologically illiterate don't realize about an
ecosystem," Kynes said, "is that it's a system. A system! A system
maintains a certain fluid stability that can be destroyed by a misstep
in just one niche. A system has order, a flowing from point to point.
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If something dams that flow, order collapses. The untrained might
miss that collapse until it was too late. That's why the highest
function of ecology is the understanding of consequences."
(Herbert, Dune 498, my italics)
If the target audience did not bother to read "Appendix I," Herbert presents
his argument by devoting an entire chapter to the death of Liet Kynes. In his
death throes, Liet hallucinates and sees the ghost of his father. The ghost
lectures his son on the transformation of Arrakis and on the impending doom
awaiting Liet. With a destroyed stiilsuit and no way of surviving the harsh
realities of the deep desert, Liet "talks" with his father. “'No more terrible disaster
could befall your people than for them to fall into the hands of a Hero,' his father
said. Reading my mind! Kynes thought. Wel l . . . let him" (Herbert, Dune 276).
It is at the end of the chapter that Herbert's philosophy about the error of
Pardot Kynes and the need for noninterference with the existing ecology is
clearly stated. Liet lies on top of a pre-spice mass which is developing a
significant carbon dioxide gas bubble. As it bursts out the top of the mass and
collapses the sand, sucking in the near-lifeless body of Liet, Herbert gives the
target audience a glimpse into the ecologist's mind. 'Then, as his planet killed
him, it occurred to Kynes that his father and all the other scientists were wrong,
that the most persistent principles of the universe were accident and error"
(Herbert, Dune 277).
Elgin points out that there were all kinds of plans in place for the
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reshaping and transformation of the planet's plant life, water, and soil for the
"good" of mankind. There are, however, no plans for the people. "The
immediate apparent contradiction results from the old tragic mistake, the idea
that humanity itself is outside of and superior to natural laws rather than a part of
them" (Elgin 128)
The transformation of the planet and its effect on Paul, his family, and the
Fremen is explored in the sequel novels of the trilogy. Dune establishes the
chain of events both of the manipulation of the planet itself and of the people who
exist on it by introducing the catalysts; i.e., Pardot and Liet Kynes, and Paul
Atreides. The Fremen are used by the planetologists and the messiah alike as
pawns to promote their own private agenda. Pardot and Liet see a scientific
challenge; the Fremen see a possibility for Eden. Paul sees the real possibility of
revenge and the eradication of the Harkonnen enemy; the Fremen see a
messiah who will lead them out of their slavery to the Empire and into Eden.
Herbert writes a novel in which he promotes his belief that an ecological
system should be allowed to continue in its own natural way. Humankind needs
to understand that they coexist with nature and whatever humanity does, it
should consider all the ramifications of its actions including involving nature.
Herbert. . . speaks in favor of the role of accident and against
rigorous planning, and this means in the ecological sense that he
favors evolution but considers forceful interference with ecological
systems quite harmful. An ecosystem must have an evolutionary
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development out of its own self. (Schmitt-v. Muhlenfels 32)
Herbert admits that he titled his novel Dune "with the deliberate intent that it echo
the sound of ‘doom"' (Herbert, World 5).
VI. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
The propaganda issues Herbert raises in his novel are important to him.
Ecology and a warning against following superheroes are the major issues he
proselytizes but he also brings into play his personal prejudices against
homosexuality and for legalized drug use. His depiction of women as either
devoted servants or manipulative hags and his neglect of any characters outside
of the Caucasian race are reflections of his time and the social mores of his day.
His contention that homosexuality is against nature is reflected in his evil and
corrupt characterization of the Baron Harkonnen.
Herbert utilizes the setting of neo-medievalism to support his action-
adventure SF story while incorporating the social and cultural interpretants of the
early 1960s into the story to seduce his target audience into reading the novel
and, thus, be susceptible to his messages buried within the story. The significant
theme of the novel is ecology, not so much of the projected transformation of the
desert planet but of the people and their society as well. In her ceremony to
become the Fremen Reverend Mother, Jessica experiences all of the stored
memories of past Reverend Mothers which includes the knowledge that the
Fremen are not native to Arrakis. They are an outside addition to the planet and
have had to leam to adjust to its harsh conditions in order to survive. Even as
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they coexist with the natural elements, they are seduced by Kynes pere et fils
who attempt to transform the planet into a water rich Paradise and who "had not
given enough thought to the possible harmful consequences of the ecological
transformation of Arrakis for the Fremen people" (Schmitt-v. Muhlenfels 31).
Paul is a human bom before his evolutionary time and is out of place
within his society. He has access to mental powers and abilities which are
perceived by the more primitive Fremen nomads as god-like. He is able to bend
these fierce warriors to his own purpose and adopts their quest for establishing a
new Paradise on Arrakis.
Herbert writes strongly about the human failings within the superhero both
in his essays and in Dune and its sequel novels. He stresses the importance to
look beyond the surface and ascertain the real person behind the leadership
mask. He examines the stagnation of the Empire and its political structure and
sees the revolution led by Paul as the beginning of a necessary kick start back
into evolution.
The jihad which Paul hoped to avoid is the natural reaction to the “rot in
the Empire" (O'Reilly 68). Herbert calls war "a collective orgasm," and this
sexual analogy is carried over into Dune's jihad.
Paul's Bene Gesserit legacy as well as his spice vision enabled him
to see the jihad as a species-demand for genetic redistribution after
the forced stultification of the Empire's caste system. (O'Reilly 71)
A natural evolution is the only change which Herbert will accept. The
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Chapter Four
Assessment of Herbert's Achievement in Dune
I. INTRODUCTION
Frank Herbert wrote Dune and the two sequels books of the trilogy with a
well-defined purpose in mind. He wanted to warn readers about the down-side of
a superhero and the dysfunctional nature of governments. He presents this in
Dune as a manifestation of the balance and imbalance within the ecological
systems of life. He uses the analogy of a single person as a part of an organism,
as one of its cells. Cancer begins with a single mutated cell and can damage,
and even destroy, the organism. So, too, a man can institute a change which will
affect not only himself or those close to him, but also the great majority of
mankind. Imagine how different American attitudes, literature, and culture would
be if Lee Harvey Oswald had missed and killed no one at all.
Herbert as an author was also an entertainer. His writings are meant not
only to inform-and to propagandize his own agenda of ideas-but also to delight
the reader. In this area of entertainment, there is no question that Herbert has
succeeded. His sales success with the entire Dune series has been
phenomenal. He is one of the major trailblazers for modem SF writers.
Dune and the Dune series have had an extraordinary print history,
especially for SF novels. Brian Aldiss notes in his 1986 edition of Trillion Year
Spree that Dune and its sequels have never been out of print. Furthermore, in its
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first 20 years of publication in the United States, Dune was "in its 33rd printing
with its second publisher" for a total of 2,420,892 copies (Aldiss 384). Aldiss
does not give figures for the 1984 publication of Heretics of Dune nor the 1985
publication of Chapterhouse: Dune, but he does give figures (United States only)
for the first three sequels as follows:
Dune Messiah (1969) in its 47th printing with 2,655,110 copies;
Children of Dune (1976) in its 23rd printing with 2,445,164 copies;
[and] God Emperor of Dune (1981) in a 5th printing with 926,000.
(Aldiss 384)
According to Aldiss, only Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke, and Herbert could
boast these enormous book sales. "The figures mentioned . . . represent sales
ten to twenty times higher than most 'popular* SF writers achieve" (Aldiss 384).
McNelly makes the point that these enormous book sales were important not
only to Herbert but also to other writers of SF. He contends that Dune's
commercial success "paved the way for large advances, bigger printings, best
seller status, and heavy subsidiary sales" for SF writers who followed, and that
all members of SFWA (the Science Fiction Writers of America) owe "Frank
Herbert and Dune considerable gratitude" (McNelly, Memoriam 353).
Dune celebrates its 31st anniversary of publication as a novel in 1996. Its
sales are in the millions. The novel has been part of literature courses in
colleges and universities, and the ultimate evidence of its academic status is the
appearance in 1973 of "a long chapter" on Dune which was included in a Cliff's
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Notes study aid titled Science Fiction: An Introduction, which was “retired in
1989" (Carey 1996).
In 1975 Dune received its own Cliff's Notes edition, entitled Herbert's
Dune and Other Works. These notes were written by L. David Allen, M.A., of the
English Department of the University of Nebraska. (At that time, SF was a major
part of the curricula in colleges and universities. At the University of Nebraska
“twelve separate SF courses [were being taught] at one time in the 1980s"
[Carey 1996].) The only Dune novels available in 1975 for analysis were Dune
itself and the first sequel, Dune Messiah. Professor Allen writes about the "Life
of Herbert" and "Categories of Science Fiction." He reviews the two anthologies
of Herbert's earlier short stories, gives a synopsis and analysis of Dune and
Dune Messiah separately, and then discusses the "Unity and Continuity of Dune
and Dune Messiah." He completes the study guide by summarizing and
analyzing the eight SF novels published after Dune. This Herbert study aid was
retired in June, 1991. With the change of curricula on college campuses, SF is
"not being taught" as much, if at all. As sales went down, "it was not
economically feasible to continue publication" (Carey 1996).
Allen states about Frank Herbert that the "work which he has already
completed is enough to earn Herbert a permanent place in the upper echelon of
science-fiction writers" (Allen 7). The previously quoted sales figures seem to
substantiate Allen's prophetic statement. Among SF writers and critics, the
beginning of the New Wave or Modem Period of SF "may be dated roughly from
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the first (Analog serialization] publication of Dune in 1963-4" (Aldiss 20).
Herbert's reputation among the SF readership has never been in question;
however, his popularity among the general reading public is somewhat unique for
a writer of SF.
It was something of the measure of his success as a writer that
virtually every major paper in the country printed an extensive
obituary. Some dutifully repeated the AP dispatch sent over the
wires from the Madison, Wisconsin hospital where he died, but
others carried a more detailed story. Even the papers of the
Eastern Establishment-the Baltimore Sun, the New York Times,
and the Washington Post-carried no mere canned wire sen/ice
obits but lengthy memoirs written by journalists who knew his work
well. Those writers neither condescended to him or science fiction
nor praised him beyond his merits or achievements. (McNelly,
MemsEiam 352)
As well-received as Herbert's novels and especially the Dune series have
been and still are, the question remains as to whether the readership as a whole
have understood the propaganda messages which Herbert wished them to
receive. The gamble which every author takes is that the readers may not get
the message, but perceive some other value out of the novel. Todorov states
that differing accounts of the same novel will be identified by different readers;
the number of accounts is equal to the number of readers. He explains this
143
diversity of interpretation by positing that “these accounts describe, not the
universe of the book itself, but this universe as it is transformed by the psyche of
each individual reader" (Todorov 409).
With Herbert's Dune propaganda messages married to Todorov's theory
of reader interpretation, a more complicated interpretive process is asked of the
reader. Not only are readers asked to decipher a story set in the extreme future
on an unknown planet to the author's satisfaction, they also are required to
absorb the propaganda issues promoted by the author. The litmus test of
propaganda is simple: to be successful, the message must be recognized; to be
ultimately successful, the message also must be accepted. A review of various
synopses and critical essays are a good indication whether Herbert is successful
or not. "When the propagandist fails to have anyone grasp his stimulus-situation,
he is no propagandist, rather he just has aspirations in that direction" (Doob 95).
With Dune, it will become apparent whether Herbert was indeed a propagandist
or merely aspired to be.
ILBEADER RECEPTION
A sample of encyclopedia-style notations gives the first indication whether
the messages to beware the superhero, to live in harmony with nature, and to
avoid any belief in corporations and government have been recognized by the
target reader. In her entry on Frank Herbert in Twentieth-Centurv Science-
Fiction Writers. Gina Macdonald writes in general terms that Herbert's themes
include "man's nature, limits, and potentialities, his relationship to his
144
environment and his fellow creatures, his ancestral heritage . . his mystical and
psychic possibilities" (Macdonald 257). It is clear from her short discussion of
Herbert's works that Macdonald is not aware of the messages which Herbert
presents.
A better presentation of Herbert's novel is written by Willis E. McNelly and
Timothy O'Reilly. They collaborated on the critical review of Dune in Survey of
Science Fiction Literature. They list many themes within the novel which they
state
tells of the ecological restoration of a desert planet and its people
by an avatar who must choose as his methods of redemption . . .
violence, and whose authentic religious insights conflict with the
expediency demanded of him as the figurehead of his people's
needs. (McNelly and O'Reilly 647)
Among the themes, they list power and how it corrpts; the difficulty humans have
with expressing, as well as the corruption of, dreams and ideas; "the relationship
between insight and environment in the birth of a religion,1' and the impact of a
messiah onto that religion; and "the virtual universality of Jungian archetypal
patterns" in humans (McNelly and O'Reilly 648, 652). They posit that the SF
novel is based firmly in ecology, "not only the consequences of changing the
face of Arrakis . . . , but also the consequences of the corruption of ideals"
(McNelly and O'Reilly 649).
McNelly and O'Reilly understand several of the concepts which Herbert
145
attempts to propagandize, such as ecological responsibility and the dangers of
messianic leaders. They do not seem to present a clearcut acceptance of
Herbert's messages, perhaps because they do not allow a privileged reading of
the sequels to color their assessment of this first novel of the series. They are
correct, however, when they determine that the jihad is "a racial demand for an
end to the rigidity of the Empire in a profound remixing of the gene pool"
(McNelly and O'Reilly 656).
Walter E. Meyers is one reader who did not understand at all what Herbert
was trying to say. In his review of O'Reilly's book, Frank Herbert, and David M.
Miller's monograph, Frank Herbert, he states that critics should "be wary of
Herbert's practice of turning the table on his readers from book to book" and he
finds it "very hard
. . . to decide exactly what Herbert's statement is, especially in the Dune books"
(Meyers 106). It seems clear that Meyers did not understand much of what
Herbert was doing either within Dune or with the Dune series as a whole.
Don D. Elgin seems the most aware of the nature of the ecological theme
in Dune and the need to present Paul as unsure and incomplete. He notes that
"Dune's subject matter, theme, and style are all consistent with the romantic
novel" and that "a discussion of ecological principles [are] part of the text itself"
(Elgin 125). He understands that this first novel of the series is arranged to have
a sequel, that it is incomplete without the follow-up novels.
There is a pattern in these responses. The two examples of a lack of in
146
depth understanding-Macdonald and Meyers-react to the novel as surface
readers of entertainment only, unable or unwilling to search for a greater
meaning within the book. The other two responses which demonstrate an
awareness of Herbert's intent-McNelly and O'Reilly, and Elgin-are academic-
style essays by writers who have all made serious analyses of Herbert's works.
An early conclusion is that a surface reading is not enough with a book of such
strength and density as Dune. Similar to three-dimensional puzzles, Dune
demands from the reader a deeper focus on the content of the novel.
Critical biographer Timothy O'Reilly, in his book on Herbert, poses
questions which betray the fact that many of the general readership have not
grasped Herbert's attempts to propagandize his greater ideas. O'Reilly remarks
that frequently a
response to Children of Dune is a kind of puzzled anger What
is it about Dune, and about ourselves as readers, that makes it so
hard to see the unified purpose of the trilogy, so apparent once it
has been pointed ouf> (O'Reilly 187, my italics)
His answer to the question is a simple one: Herbert fell victim to his own
warnings and wrote such a grand and glorious messiah that the reader is blinded
to anything else which may occur within the novel. The sequels are difficult to
accept, because they successfully diminish the hero. O'Reilly concurrently posits
that
Herbert deliberately looked for this reaction from his readers. To
147
Herbert, the hero mystique is symptomatic of a deadly pathology in
contemporary society, a compulsive yearning for easy answers. As
long as men are looking for simple solutions to their problems, they
will give over their ability to think for themselves to the first person
who comes along and promises a solution. The Dune trilogy is an
attempt to unveil that pattern and, in some small part, to change it.
(O’Reilly 188)
O'Reilly continues his analysis of the readers's involvement in the novel by
suggesting that they get so committed to the hero's quest and victory that they
cannot see beyond that piece of the storytelling. He refers to this as a
“submission to the hero mystique" (O'Reilly 189).
Touponce remarks on O'Reilly's thesis "that the Dune trilogy was
designed to make the reader aware of his own participation in the heroic ideal"
by scoffing at what he considers “escapist identification" as an excuse for the
readers's inability to successfully understand the entire concept of Dune and the
Dune trilogy (Touponce 121). What Touponce considers more correct is that
the kind of escapist identification O'Reilly assumes can and does
certainly occur, but only among those who are reading Dune for its
entertainment value alone. Actually,. . . I think complete
identification with Paul is difficult due to the underlying system of
indeterminacies in the text, which introduce negations into our
image of Paul at crucial points. (Touponce 121-122)
148
What Touponce alludes to is the need to read the novel beyond the deceptive
ease of simple entertainment. The book contains deeper messages which
should and must be appreciated by the reading public. Some readers receive
the messages, while others do not, but the kinds of people who are aware of the
messages are those who are looking for them.
The reviewers of Dune mostly refer to the novel as Herbert, according to
O'Reilly, initially meant it to be received. The succinct review in Booklist calls the
novel "an extremely detailed, esoteric space fantasy for readers of sociological
science fiction" (Booklist 519). Kirkus Reviews leads its review by stating that
the novel is a "future space fantasy [which] might start an underground craze"
(Kirkus 847). Kirkus seems to agree that the novel is more than "escapist"
entertainment and is filled with an intricate subtext.
In Punch, a very short piece about the book written by A. A. Young
describes the story as "an old-fashioned adventure story full of sword-fights (very
sophisticated swords, of course) and revolving around a kind of Wars of the
Roses between two noble houses" (Young 339). The most interesting review,
especially in restrospect, belongs to the SF magazine Analog Science
Fiction/Science Fact. P. Schuyler Miller announces that “'Dune' isn't as good a
story as the author's 'Dragon in the Sea' [published in 1956]“ and that "it may
move too slowly and require too much thought to earn it a 'Hugo' in September"
which, in fact, the novel did win (Miller 141). Miller does, however, point out that
ecology is a major focus of the book.
I
149
in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. John Clute and Peter Nicholls
write a long passage on Frank Herbert within which they devote significant space
to Dune and the Dune series. They discuss that the novel's "primary impact. . .
lay in its treatment of ecology, a theme which it brought into the forefront of
modem sf readers' and writers' awareness" and that Dune blended "complex
intellectual discourse and Byzantine intrigue" within its story (Clute and Nicholls
559). They do not, however, discuss Herbert's thesis about the dangers of a
messianic leader and only discuss ecology as it affects the planet, not the
ecological balancing act of the human race.
III. DUNE AS FILM
The translation of the novel into a film text is the best proof that Dune has
been misread. Not only is the novel extraordinarily difficult to reduce to a 120
minute or less format, it is also a novel which reveals its information to the reader
through several non-visual devices, with thoughts and interior monologues being
the most difficult to reproduce on the screen. To reduce as complex a text as
Dune into the more simplified structure of film while preserving the integrity and
spirit of the novel proved a formidable task.
[I]n 1975 Alejandro Jodorowsky produced one [script] that would
have filmed in some eleven or twelve hours; in 1981 Ridley Scott
(who directed Alien) attempted a script with Rudy Wurlitzer, but it
was decided that the book's plot-line was too unwieldy for a
conventional script. (Liddell and Liddell 133)
150
Dino De Laurentis, whose production company produced the film,
searched for someone who could translate Dune into a workable film text and
decided upon writer/director David Lynch who, in 1980, was nominated for the
Academy Award for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay for The
Elephant Man. Perhaps more than any other choices made, this choice of
adapter/director was the most significant to the misinterpretation of the Dune
story. Lynch had done only two feature-length films previous to attempting this
SF movie, and both of these dealt with dark, aberrant, tortured characters in
storylines which focus on the horrible and perverse in the human condition.
Lynch's first film was Eraserhead which he filmed and edited over a period
of five years (from 1971-76). In this independent project, he relates “two sources
of horror in the film [which] are the diseased organic world of the body itself and
the cruel machines (and indeed the ruined industrial setting) that surround it"
(French 102). His second film was The Elephant Man. based on the true story
of the 19th century Englishman John Merrick who was grossly deformed by a
rare bone disease. Lynch brought out the dual exploitation of the man-first by
the carnival barker, Bytes, and second by the physician, Treves. Both display
him to a paid audience which, in turn, are horrified and thrilled at the wonder
before them. Lynch (and actor John Hurt) present the visually repulsive figure of
Merrick in such a way that, by the end of the film, the audience has grown to love
and respect him as a kind and caring person who no longer terrifies them by his
very presence. In Eraserhead the normal is found to be abnormal, and in The
151
ugly and frightening is found to be beautiful and inspiring.
Lynch has been called "America's preeminent purveyor of postmodernist
bad dreams" whose films are "suffused with a weirdly celebratory sense of the
biological peril of the human condition--a fascination with disease. . . [and] by
the whole notion of dark secrets" (Szykowny 33). Szykowny suggests that
ultimately "Lynch has a profound distrust of the brain, which finds its undiluted
expression in his burgeoning fascination with mentally ill characters" (Szykowny
34). Since the brain is where reason is produced for humankind, it is thus "the
origin of evil" (Szykowny 34). Greg Olson agrees, stating that, in his career both
pre- and post-Pune's filming, "Lynch as been fascinated by primal human fears .
.. and twisted minds obsessed with every deadly sin" (Olson 44).
Lynch became fascinated with House Harkonnen and its major players,
the Baron, his nephew and heir Feyd-Rautha, and his other nephew Rabban. He
dwells on its depravities and makes it "the personification of perverse evil"
(Liddell and Liddell 137). If there is any success with the film adaptation, it might
be seen in the representation of the Harkonnens. However, Lynch goes to
exaggerated lengths to make Baron Harkonnen and his nephews appear as
anthropomorphic devils. He invents scenes which do not appear in the book
(Rabban's ripping out and eating a raw cow's tongue, Thufir Hawat's heart plug
punishment in addition to his poisoning) and reinvents the description of the
Baron by giving him huge, weeping pustules which are tended by a sycophantic
physician. Feyd becomes the young male body the Baron wishes to possess,
but he loses, in the process, his lustful ambition to take the baronial title and
lands for himself. Paul's growth, his need for revenge, his manipulation of the
Fremen become secondary to the debauchery which defines House Harkonnen.
What Lynch fails to provide is a righteous good which balances and thus
gives meaning to his depraved evil. The Fremen are reduced to stick figures
whose ferocity is only spoken of but never truly demonstrated. The messianic
quest is used only as a film making device to move the story forward. The
message of ecology is all but lost in the race to end the story. The revenge
motive is reduced to an adolescent temper tantrum, and the prescient visions are
used as tricks to move the story along. The extreme loyalty of Gurney Hallek is
unexplored, and his place as the troubadour/warrior derided as buffoonery.
Unfortunately, Lynch regards a script as merely a starting point, as
not complete. This complicates matters dreadfully on such a
complex production, however much it freed up his other films.. . .
[The] eclectic eccentric nature of his output, and his success in
creating freewheeling imaginative effects . . . is very much at odds
with the discipline required to adapt Herbert's text. (Liddell and
Liddell 134)
This undisciplined approach to the project extends to his evil characters as well.
The grotesque visual images and personal habits of the House Harkonnen "in
typical Lynch fashion teeters daringly on the edge of caricature" (Liddell and
Liddell 137). What is missing most is the love which Jessica and Leto feel for
153
each other. This unselfish love is the genesis for the entire series of events
since Jessica gives her Ouke the son he desires against the direct orders of her
sisterhood.
A more detailed analysis of the choices made for costuming (voluminous
and dark), make-up (in the film the Reverend Mothers are all bald and the Guild
Navigators grotesquely physically deformed), setting (dark caves, dark stillsuits,
dark palaces on Caladan and Arrakis, dim lighting everywhere except in the
actual desert), special effects (the sandworms were directly copied from the
Analog covers but convey a surprising benignity and passivity), and music
(pseudo-symphonic pseudo-inspirational) demand a separate dissertation-length
study of their own. For the purposes of this study, it simply can be stated that it
was a budget unwisely misspent.
Sadly, the film finally becomes little more than a puerile revenge
melodrama sentimentalised by the worst type of "happy" Hollywood
ending, where Paul is said to bring peace and then, to show the
wonder of his new powers, causes rain to fall as garish green
searchlights light up the skies above the planet. (Liddell and Liddell
138)
Brian Aldiss notes that the anticipation of the film sparked a boom in the
sales of the Dune series as well as "guides, film books and an Encyclopedia" and
concludes that "Whatever might be thought of the movie, it did have the effect of
sending a lot of readers back to the original" (Aldiss 400). Within footnote
154
number 20 of Chapter XV, he noted that Herbert was "silent on the necessary
ambiguity surrounding Paul Atreides's motives and morality disappearing from
the film" which reduces the film
to a power fantasy of goodies and baddies. The film is best viewed
(with the sound off) as a succession of animated Astounding covers
from way-back-when. This aspect of the film--its glorious pictorial
quality--is to be applauded despite all else. (Aldiss 485)
Critics tended to agree with Aldiss's evaluation. The Liddells call the film
"one of the major failures in the history of the film industry. . . [which] failed to
recoup its massive costs (estimated variously at between $40-$50 million dollars)
at the box office . . (Liddell and Liddell 122,123). Ernest Callenbach calls the
film version "a thundering bore" where only "the villains are the central interest,"
the dialogue is reminiscent of "a medieval morality play," and the special effects
create "a sandworm--a creature so hokey that you long for an honest-to-God fire-
breathing dragon" (Callenbach 53). Michael Blowen informs his readers in the
first sentence of his review: "Like Howard Hughes' famous Spruce Goose, David
Lynch's 'Dune' flops." He continues to express his disapproval of the film calling
it "confusing," "practically impossible to follow," and "a collection of news briefs
where characters appear like big headlines but there's no story underneath,"
with the special effects "phony . . . [and] obvious" (Blowen 55-56).
Both the Washington Post and the New York Times published reviews on
the film. Rita Kempley states that "Dune the book is to 'Dune' the movie what the
Sahara is to the sandbox. David Lynch's disastrous film adaptation of Frank
Herbert's science-fiction classic turns epic to myopic" (Kempley 31). In the same
newspaper Paul Attanasio calls the movie "stupefyingly dull and disorderly" and
accuses Lynch of cluttering "his [adaptation of the] story with taxonomic
gibberish and a benchful of unnecessary characters Instead of using the
book, Lynch is smothered by it" (Attanasio C1). Janet Maslin of the New York
Times concurs with every other critic when she reports: "Several of the
characters in 'Dune' are psychic, which puts them in the unique position of being
able to understand what goes on in the movie" (Maslin C18). Vincent Canby of
the same newspaper is equally unimpressed, calling the film “misshapen" and
stating that complications of the plot are so intricate that "the ruling houses['s]. . .
tangled alliances make an indepth account of the War of the Roses seem as
simple to follow as the directions on a box of Jell-O" (Canby H19).
Lynch did not understand what Herbert was trying to say to the target
reader. Instead of working toward a coherent abbreviated adaptation of Dune,
he infused his own image onto the story of House Atreides and the subsequent
outcome was dismal at best. "Seldom has a big-budget genre film been so
execrated by fans and film critics alike" (Clute and Nicholls 357). Herbert's
messages of caution regarding ecology and messianic leadership have ominous
overtones and dark edges. However, Lynch chose to attach himself to the
villainy in the members of the House Harkonnen over the heroic posturings of the
House Atreides, and, in utilizing a loosely structured script, he lost control of the
156
massive weight of the story.
IV. FINAL ASSESSMENT: HERBERTS UNEVEN SUCCESS
Ultimately, a return must be made to O'Reilly's evaluation of the public
perception of Dune and the Dune series. The saga of the Fremen messiah and
the overthrow of the Empire in such a complex novel is an awesome task to
undertake for a reader. With Dune, "readers must remain so long within the
novel's fictive universe that the time expended becomes an emotional
investment; only conviction (or at least openness) to the author's ideas can justify
the effort" (Hunt 85). With the first novel especially (but also with the subsequent
sequel novels), the warnings of the dangers of the superhero and the guarding
against stagnation and manipulation of the ecological balance are so subtle or so
didactic that the messages are lost in the structure.
The fault, though, ultimately lies in Dune, the first novel. Herbert has
written an excellent action-adventure tale set in the very distant future with a
reworked culture. This culture maintains elements of a neo-medieval society
while having access to such futuristic elements as space travel, energy shields,
and microchip-style record keeping and library accessing. The hints at Paul's
duplicity are in the novel, but they are just hints-suggestions whispered in the
ears of the target reader. The action-adventure segments, however, shout so
loudly in their storytelling that they drown out any whispers which may be made.
The excitement of the novel overtakes the target reader.
O'Reilly's comment about the novel sums up the problems of reception for
157
the propaganda messages. "What is it about Dune . . . that makes it so hard to
see the unified purpose of the trilogy, so apparent once it has been pointed out?"
(O'Reilly 187). O'Reilly's solution is in the last clause; it is only apparent once
the elements of the propaganda messages have been pointed out. Herbert did
too good a job creating a messiah under whose inspired direction a splintered
ferocious people unite in a common cause. Written at a time when the nation
had been put under the spell of the Camelot White House and the inspired
oratorical leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, it was natural to
follow one more superhero. In the decades following the 1960s, target readers
alternately identified with Paul Atreides or wished someone of his kind would
emerge to lead the nation once again.
It is this strong embracing of the hero with a blind eye to any of his faults
which informs the reading of Dune. O'Reilly called this a "submission to the hero
mystique" and as such he is correct (O'Reilly 189). To successfully send a
propaganda message, the target reader must be able to find it among the rubble
of the enveloping story. If the target reader must work too hard to find the
message, then the message is being sent in a secret code known only to an elite
specialized audience-the academic or the literary analyst. This elite audience
does not need to be seduced by the propaganda message; if they perceive it,
then they are already willing participants in the message. General readers,
however, are not privileged with the secret code to decipher the messages.
They must work independently in their reading to ascertain what the author is
158
attempting to relate to them. Their seduction must be less subtle, with the author
giving more and better clues.
Herbert does not give the more and better clues to the target reader and
subsequently Dune is praised for its modem hero/messiah. Paul's doubts and
insecurities are severely outweighed by the fearless, courageous, and natural
leadership he exhibits to the Fremen and to the target reader. Paul as Muad'Dib
represents wish-fulfillment for those target readers who desire stability and
security.
The ecological message which Herbert wants to project also is
misperceived. With only two instances where the reclamation project of the
planetologists Pardot and Liet Kynes is reflected to the target reader as an
erroneous idea, it is highly improbable that the first-time or casual reader would
understand that Herbert himself is against the project. Even the analytical reader
must re-read the novel and examine subsequent essays by the author and
academic critics in order to completely understand the dangerous potential of
returning Arrakis to a water-based environment.
Herbert apparently fails as a propagandist regarding this first novel of the
Dune series. He has written such a wondrous new world peopled with such
fascinating new characters in such an intriguing new culture that the target
reader cannot help but be seduced by the story and let the propaganda
messages slip to the wayside. In a sense, Herbert the propagandist is a victim of
Herbert the storyteller.
Herbert has not given his target readers enough of Paul's faults and
fallibilities to justify a suspicion on their part. O'Reilly states that this heightened
build-up of Paul as superhero was intentional by Herbert so that his fall in the
second and third books would be devastating. Instead, Herbert's
characterization of Paul in the first novel does not give the target reader enough
of an insinuation of his insecurities and fears to warrant an acceptance of his
demise in the second and third books. Herbert's intent is undermined by his own
genius in craftsmanship.
Herbert also has not given the target reader enough of the potential
disaster which awaits in the subsequent novels due to the return to Arrakis to a
water-based environment. What the target reader perceives instead is the
miraculous nature of ecological science with its ability to seemingly control the
previously uncontrollable. Coming on the heels of the Hard SF novels, a
marvelous awareness of the awesome power of science is a part of the target
reader's interpretants. At the time of Dune's publication, most if not all scientific
projects were embraced with awe and wonder by the general population. Within
four years after the novel's publication, Americans first landed safely and
returned from the moon. Before that, Shepard, Gargarin, and Glenn had gone
into space above the Earth and returned safely. The 1950s were boon years for
innovations in automobiles, home care products, and food preparation.
Controlling the weather and environmental conditions was just another
miraculous achievement performed by scientists. That it might be harmful in the
160
future is not a consideration to target readers. Instead, they-like the Frem en-
are overwhelmed by the prospect of turning Hell into Paradise.
Herbert's alleged failure as a propagandist in this first novel of the trilogy is
secondary to his triumph as an SF novelist. He has painstakingly created a
world with all its people and creatures, hardware and technology, which
fascinates and enthralls. It is a complex society with intrigues and subterfuge as
well as power plays and power brokers. Religion is treated as a manipulating
tool of the power establishment. Dune has a complete society which is
understandable and amazing. That Herbert does not successfully send his
messages across in this novel is not a loss to the reader. The complexity of the
novel and the density of the writing invite target readers to return time and time
again to visit Caladan, Arrakis, Paul, and Jessica. If on the first or second or
even third reading Herbert's propaganda messages do not break through, there
is always the possibility that the fourth reading will be the one which will excite
the target reader enough to begin questioning Paul's motives and the
rationalization of changing Arrakis into a water-based planet. Perhaps this is
Herbert's intention all along.
161
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INFORMATION TO USERS

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A Beil & Howell information Company

FRANK HERBERT'S DUNE

BARBARA ANN SILLIMAN

A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE

REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND

UMI Microform 9702075

This microform edition is protected against unauthorized

BARBARA ANN SILLIMAN

DEAN O F THE GRADUATE SCHOOL

UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND

Conserving the Balance: Frank Herbert's DUNE as Propaganda examines

Herbert's masterpiece work of science fiction literature as a form of propaganda.

It evaluates the source of the propaganda, the avenues of dissemination of the

propagandists elements, and the successes and failures of the attempts at

The first chapter is devoted to a short history of American twentieth

literature to specific criticisms, such as American heroic, mythic, and feminist. A

beginning review of propaganda criticism is made as well.

several accepted critical analyses. These include historical, heroic, epic,

psychological, gender (masculist and feminist), religious, and ecological critical

important biographical circumstances which influenced the writing of the novel.

A more complete review of the nature of propaganda in literature and the

formulation of propaganda in Dune is made evaluating the setting, cultural

analogies, ecological constraints, evolution of the hero, religion as a sociopolitical

deviants and the natural order of things in the ecology of Dune.

The fourth chapter assesses Herbert's achievement in Dune, evaluating

finally measure the success and failure of Herbert's propagandist efforts.

Acknowledgements can become like Academy Award acceptance

should my brevity be interpreted as a lack of gratitude, respect, or caring for

of the written product whether they are professors, family, or friends.

Dr. Wilfred Dvorak was invaluable to me as my advisor. My choices of

enthusiasm. He never told me that I could not do this. He had confidence in my

finer points of dissertation writing. Dr. R. B. Reaves and Dr. Paschal C.

Viglionese very generously gave their time as members of my examining

committee, sharing with me their wit and reassurance.

There are several members of the faculty of the English Department

I give a special thanks to Lucinda Ugorji, the interiibrary loan librarian at

the Providence campus of the College of Continuing Education. She worked

dissertation. She relentlessly pursued obscure journals and books. Much of

what is included in this dissertation is a direct result of her velvet tenacity.

Cornell University's humanities library and tolerated my computer printouts, index

through my master's thesis as well as my dissertation with their friendship and

Arvidson who sustained me with movie breaks, Chinese food, chocolate

anything, and the ultimate wisdom: "It ain't brain surgery."

Most importantly, I thank my parents who put up with a lot of

inconvenience, frustrated tears, and exuberant cheers. They endured a lot of

stupid human tricks. They supported me emotionally, psychologically, and

financially, letting me live with them as I worked toward my graduate degrees.

Without them I could not have done any of this.

I dedicate this dissertation to my parents, Riverda O. Silliman , Jr., and

CHAPTER ONE Science Fiction: A Twentieth Century Phenomenon

A. Eclectic Approaches to Science Fiction 9

IV. The Place of Dune in Twentieth Century

CHAPTER TWO Issues and Themes in Dune

CHAPTER THREE Propaganda Issues in Dune

VI. Summary and Conclusion 137

CHAPTER FOUR Assessment of Herbert's Achievement in Dune

Science Fiction: A Twentieth Century Phenomenon

Science fiction as literature is a twentieth century phenomenon. Many

Christian scholars, and essays by ancient Greek philosophers as part of the