Lectures 5/6 - Dune

1 Fantasy and History

1.1 The novel places itself in a fictional future whose history is narrated on an inter-planetary scale, using the apparatus of fictionalized textual sources for a narrative modeled on the pattern of a family saga.

1.2 The text is characterized by its balancing of external narration of events & description of places and persons, with an internalized narration of the though-processes going on in the minds of the principal protagonists.

1.3 The elements of sf in the novel are interwoven with themes and issues that are commonplaces to traditional historical narratives of intrigue, politics, trade and power on the scale of kingdoms, tribes, and dynasties.

1.4 The “scientific” element of speculation is focused on the ecology of deserts, the “fantasy” element is focused on the extrapolation of a drug-consuming culture to an economic and biological principle.

1.5 The chief fantasy component – giant worms that produce spice that facilitates interplanetary navigation – is linked to the theme of genetic engineering: this unites the diverse ecological, biological, religious, economic, and political interests of the novel.

2 Ecology

2.1 The desert is an environment which conditions all aspects of the lives of its inhabitants: this ecological principle is extrapolated to a speculative extreme.

2.2 The scarcity of water is shown to subsidize a utopian principle of environment-management that has a positive ethical denotation and a negative ethical denotation.

2.3 Ordinary deserts have neither worms nor spice. The introduction of these two elements makes the desert precious for those who would exploit its produce for profit, as against those who would respect and husband this produce while transforming the ecology to a more pleasant environment for humans.

2.4 The desert creates a specific community, with a specific social organization, a unique religion, and a code of conduct. The homogeneity and plausibility of this complex interdependency is Herbert’s chief speculative achievement.

2.5 The novel promotes the ecological principle of a symbiotic relation between humans and their environment.

3 Politics, Power and Economics

3.1 The spice (and hence the desert planet) is commodified by being given certain properties that make it unique and valuable to the human species.

3.2 The fictional world of the novel is shown to be divided between four entities, three external to but dependent on the desert-world, and the fourth which is native to and more non-commercially integrated with the spice. The three entities are the warring households (who rule and exercise power in constantly shifting alliances between themselves and the other two entities: the Guild (who enable space travel, thus indirectly controlling trade and commerce), and the Bene Gesserit (women who have psychic powers and practice covert biological engineering).

3.3 The ethics of the fictional world is shown to be corrupt and manipulative.

3.4 Human virtues are displayed primarily at the level of the individual. The Guild, and the Bene Gesserit are shown in a negative light, as is the Imperial dynasty. The narrator’s sympathies are explicitly associated with the House of Atreides, and the fortunes of its male heir, Paul. The only community that is presented sympathetically, apart from the Atreides household, is the Fremen.

3.5 The progress of Paul is fraught with many ethical ambiguities which the novel leaves unresolved.

4 Religion & the Messianic Principle

4.1 The Bene Gesserit are shown as a religious order of women who are intent on creating a special individual. In the event Paul is and is not the fruition of their efforts.

4.2 They, and Paul himself, treat the Kwisatz Haderach, as a Messiah: a leader who will evolve new powers over space-time, and shape human history to a specific goal.

4.3 Paul (and his sister Elia) are shown to be manifestations of this teleological principle taking control of itself.

4.4 Paul as Muad’Dib is shown to be a leader who fits a specific people (the Fremen), while Paul as Atreides (the future Emperor) is the embodiment of the same principle of unification but applied to another scale and other types of humans.

4.5 The Messianic drive of the novel borrows and adapts many elements of te history of Islam.

5 Loyalty and Community

5.1 The ethical focus of the novel is on the virtue of loyalty: to individuals (such as family or leader), to communities, and to ideas (e.g. Liet-Kynes), and to ideals.

5.2 All types of loyalty as presented in the novel demand faith and trust, fear betrayal, and are rewarded or punished in ways whose principles are traditional.

5.3 The loyalties of individuals are often shown to have trusted in the wrong persons, or distrusted the wrong person. But the individuals who are most thoroughly punished by the plot of the novel are those who have no laity outside themselves.

5.4 The desert, paradoxically, is taken to be the standard of the toughest test of loyalty, and also the best proof of how communities can be built strongest where bonds of loyalty are strictly and rigorously principled.

5.5 The novel valorizes community above self, sacrifice over gain. Its fictional and fantasy elements are subservient to the idea of process and metamorphosis (in humans and in eco-systems).