Previous
Appendix II
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Dune, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Power and Violence
Free Will and Fate
Environment and Human Culture
Human Cognitive Advances
Summary
Analysis
This appendix details a “report on Bene Gesserit motives and purpose.” The narrator introduces it by noting that Lady Jessica commissioned the report directly after the “Arrakis Affair.” The document is noted as being extremely honest in tone.
Lady Jessica’s purpose in commissioning the report is to likely learn more about her son’s new identity as the Bene Gesserit Kwisatz Haderach.
Themes
Despite the Bene Gesserit order’s significant influence over the Imperium, the matriarchal program was guilty of error on the subject of Paul Atreides. They wrongly dismiss him as the wrong identity for their prophesized messianic figure, the Kwisatz Haderach. Their error fell particularly on assuming that one of their members, Lady Jessica, would abide by the Bene Gesserit’s wish that she bears Duke Leto Atreides a daughter. Instead, without truly knowing why, she chose to birth a son.
Bene Gesserit sisters are trained on the core value of giving total service and acquiescence to their order’s mission. Lady Jessica’s stand of defiance in birthing a boy is notable because no other Bene Gesserit member has rejected a superior order so explicitly. Jessica’s actions are also striking because they facilitate the birth of the Kwisatz Haderach, whom the Bene Gesserit have been trying to engineer for 40 generations.
Themes
The Bene Gesserit ignored further warnings that Paul Atreides would become the Kwisatz Haderach: that he demonstrated the gift of foresight from a young age; that he withstood the gom jabbar test to a greater degree than any other; that the Fremen hailed him as their own prophesized messiah; and that the Guild had visions of issues pertaining to Paul and his Fremen. The report concludes that the sum of these elements suggests that there is a higher power than the Bene Gesserit in the Imperium, which they are completely unaware of.
The report writer’s conclusion that there is an unknown higher power in Dune’s universe is never picked up in the novel. Indeed, the narrator outlines Paul Atreides as the Bene Gesserit Kwisatz Haderach as being the highest power in the narrative.
Themes
