Frank Herbert
by Stephen Rud
Picture a world where water is as valuable as gold. Where gigantic sandworms loom the vastness of a desolate desert protecting the very spice that an entire universe is dependent on. Picture great kingdoms battling for the harvesting of this very spice that can extend life and give insight to the future. This is the reality of life in Frank Herbert's Dune, consider by many as the most notable science fiction novel ever written. The writing of Dune by Frank Herbert was immensely influenced by events that occurred throughout his lifetime, his beliefs and his deep conviction of the advocation of ecology as it relates to mankind.
As Herbert was growing up in the small town of Tacoma, Washington, he was exposed to various religions. He did not gain any religious wisdom from his family, due to his father being an agnostic, yet he did learn some from his mother and his ten matriarchal aunts (www.jitterbug.com). They were all Jesuits or members of the Society of Jesus: Roman Catholic Church. They even tried to convert him, however, Herbert rejected their religion. The only thing he admits that he learned from them was their methods of argument. This is what Herbert had to say, "My 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." (www.jitterbug.com/)
Herbert's experiences of witnessing his mother and aunts life gave him the insight to create the characters in the novel Dune. The characters that he would bring into being were the Bene Gesserit, derived from the word Jesuit. (www.jitterbug.com). The Bene Gesserit was an esoteric Sisterhood, that professed special abilities of the mind and could control individuals thorough what they called "The Voice." Herbert also introduced another character, a Mentat who was an individual raised at birth to think or act logically. The author O'Reilly states, "Herbert's unlettered grandmother with a knack for figures became the 'mentat' computer" (pg. 34 )
The most paramount event in Herbert's life that lead to the writing of dune was when he was a journalist. Brian Herbert, Frank Herbert's son tells of this in a resent interview.
There was a study in Florence, Oregon on the dunes along the coast and the USDA was finding that by planting grasses on the dunes they could prevent them from moving across the highways. So dad went there in 1958 to write a magazine article called "They Stopped the Moving Sands."
( Interview by Linda Richards )
However Herbert soon realized he had more then a magazine article. He then began "to think of Messiahs leading desert people and the whole desert culture" (Interview by Linda Richards). Herbert then thought, what would the politics, the religion, the history be like there and what would attract people in going there? (Interview) In thinking about the world of this dessert planet, Herbert began to think relative to what the earth has. He saw drugs, monopolies, corruption and manipulation. Herbert soon began to incorporate these ideas into his future novel.
While planing the book Dune in the mid sixties, Herbert saw the scarcity of oil to be a big issue, as well as the monopoly of the market. Herbert then thought how could he enter these issues into his fictional world? He then thought what would be in limited quantity in the dessert Herbert said "The scarce water of Dune is an exact analog of oil scarcity. CHOAM is OPEC." (Dune Genesis) OPEC being a monopoly on oil export, Herbert created CHOAM, which was an outer space guild that regulated the flow of spice and traffic to different worlds. The Space Guild was extremely emportant in trade.
Frank Herbert also saw manipulation as a big issue in the world as well. Herbert used manipulation in relation to religion in his novel. The characters he used to manipulate religion were the Bene Gesserit. The Bene Gesserit were familiar with numerous religious texts and they had a separate division called the Missionaria Protectiva ( Sparknotes.com). This moiety of the Bene Gesserit was devoted to the spread of contrived legends into developing worlds. They did this in case one of there own members was stranded on a world that believed these legends. All they would have to do is recite the sacred writings and they would earn the loyalty of the natives. This was made evident when Jessica and Paul were stranded in the desert and come across the Freman, who are the native people who live the planet of Dune. Jessica, with her Bene Gesserit training, exploits the natives religion to save themselves, by saying "You ask after the Lisan al-Gaib" ( Dune, 225). She is retelling a legend that the Bene Gesserit told the natives long ago, and the Freman respond by saying "You could be the folk of the legend"(225). This signifies that Herbert used the Bene Gesserit to shed light to the fact that people use religion to control others.
While gathering data for the novel, Dune Herbert used the drug use in his time period, as an idea in Dune. The idea of spice came from Herbert's own use of narcotic drugs.( O'Reilly, 78) It was in 1953 on visit to Mexico were he felt the effects of drugs. Herbert had to get official permission to have a prolonged stay in Mexico. Following the meeting, a general offered him some candies. Not knowing what they were, he took two. Herbert later learned that the tray of candies were panocha, composed of the finest North African marijuana. O'Reilly said " he had no idea what was happening. His only other similar experiences was drunkenness, so he felt and acted drunk.." (pg.75) Herbert's drug experience became the grounds as why the spice has an enlightening effect on the user.
Franks Herbert's belief that heroes are painful, superheroes are catastrophic, is also seen in the novel Dune. Herbert said "Don't give over all of your critical faculties to people in power, no matter how admirable those people may appear to be."(Dune Genesis) Why not give over all power? "Beneath the hero's facade you will find a human being who makes human mistakes. Enormous problems arise when human mistakes are made on the grand scale available to a superhero."(Dune Genesis) This is seen as Herbert builds the main character, Paul as a superhero among the Freman, which in the end turns out to be catastrophic.
Frank Herbert's deep avocation of ecology also transcended into his novel Dune. Being a strong environmentalist, Herbert said "ecology is the understanding of consequences." (Interview with Brian Herbert) In this case, the under standing of consequences is the effect of changing an environment from one ecosystem to another. Herbert explores the effect of the Freman changing their environment to better fit them. By changing the dry desert into a lush fertile one, this could possibly kill the sandworms, which have a dominate role in producing spice. Such a change could also destroy the Muad'dib, the mouse which is the source for Paul's Freman name.
In staying with the idea of changing the environment, the Freman gained their strong unstoppable fighting ability due to the fact that they were raised in a harsh environment. Lacking this, they would not have had the power the fight against the empire's dreaded Sadakar soldiers. Throughout the novel Herbert questions the rectitude of altering the environment. Whether it right to preserve one's own ecology or whether it is moral to change one's own world to benefit a few.
It is clearly seen that the events in Herbert's life, his beliefs, and his conviction to the advocation of ecology, transcended into his work of Dune. Beginning with the creation of characters; to the building of the theme, or in a broad sense, the idea of the novel, Frank Herbert used all what life gave him to create his masterful work. His vivid imagination and his profound creativity propelled Frank Herbert into a stature of writers that has rarely been matched by any writer to date.
Works Consulted
Herbert, Frank. Dune. Philadelphia: Chilton Book Company, 1965.
Hartwell, David. The Science Fiction Century. NYC: Tom Doherty Associates, 1997.
Touponce, William . Frank Herbert. Boston, Massachusetts: Twayne Publishers, 1988.
O'Reilly, Timothy. Frank Herbert. NYC: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co. 1981.
Herbert, Frank. "Dune Genesis." Omni Magazine July.1980.
"Died, Frank Herbert." (Obituary) Time 24 Feb. 1986: v127 p70
Merritt, Byron. "Frank Herbert Lives." http://www.sffworlf.com/authors/m/merritt_byron/articles
Clarke, Jason. SparkNotes on Dune. 18 January 2003. http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/dune
Brennan, Kristen. Dune. 10 January 2003. http://www.jitterbug.com/origins/dune.html
Herbert, Brian. Interview by Linda Richards. Editor of January Magazine.
Herbert, Frank and Beverly Herbert. Interview by Willis Mcnelly. 3 Feb 1969.