The Paradox Of Love Within Bene Gesserit English Literature Essay

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Even with the menace of possible negative effects, love is, more frequently than non, considered to be a pure and good experience. Love aids people in turning, every bit good as unveils to them new experiences and new ways of sing things. Love has been the inspiration for 1000000s of verse forms, vocals, and sonnets ; it is something to be pursued and cherished, whether it were to convey felicity or the contrary. However, the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood of Frank Herbert 's Dune series do non see it as such.

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The Bene Gesserit are conditioned to see love as a failing which plagues the 'lesser people ' , those that were either unworthy of fall ining their ranks or simply unqualified to make so. Love is discouraged by the Sisterhood, even though prosecuting in patterns such as sex is non.

The Bene Gesserit are a powerful and ancient order of adult females whose actions and ends are critical to the societal, spiritual, and political development of the Dune existence.

To be a Bene Gesserit means both to command and to be controlled. The Bene Gesserit command both people and much of the universe itself, while they themselves are controlled by the punctilious patterns and strenuous regulations of their ain sistership.

The Bene Gesserit are a sistership whose design is slackly based upon Roman Catholic adult females 's religious orders. Other than their complete deficiency of the piety and goodness, the antonym of which is usually expected of nuns, the two can be said to be likewise.

Bene Gesserit sisters undergo strict preparation of both head and organic structure through old ages of mental and physical conditioning in order to heighten and accomplish powers and abilities. Those Bene Gesserit who manage to get the whole span of abilities that a Bene Gesserit can possess are referred to as 'Reverend Mothers ' . The leader of the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood is called the 'Mother Superior ' .

Through a life-time of punctilious preparation and the augmentation of that preparation by the spice ( odds and ends: a fictional drug which provides the user with an drawn-out lifetime, every bit good as heightened senses and consciousness ) , a Bene Gesserit Revered Mother can larn to command every individual organ, musculus, and map in her organic structure. However, even with such huge sums of physical control over themselves, some Bene Gesserit can non assist but be unable to command the caprices of their Black Marias and emotions.

Book after book of the Dune series, the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood is betrayed, transformed, and sometimes even thrown off path by those really whims and emotions that they can non command with any sum of the preparation which they fastidiously undergo. The Bene Gesserit Sisterhood maps like a ageless gesture machine, that is, until person within their ranks falls in love. Such a little defect in the outlook of even one Bene Gesserit sister can function to clash and even endanger to destruct the very foundations of the Sisterhood, taking to countless effects for their programs.

The ultimate end of the Bene Gesserit sistership is the creative activity of the Kwisatz Haderach. Basically, the Kwisatz Haderach is a male Bene Gesserit ; a being which can be in all topographic points of the existence at one time, every bit good as be cognizant of everything. The Benne Gesserit have planned on recognizing their end of conveying the Kwisatz Hederach into being by agencies of the strenuous application of a monolithic human genteelness plan, conducted for infinite coevalss by the sistership. By carefully commanding and pull stringsing people, every bit good as all facets of relationships between twosomes, the Bene Gesserit had been able to carefully command the lineages of the baronial houses throughout legion coevalss.

There is much sarcasm that can be found in the dealingss between adult females and work forces raised by the Bene Gesserit. Womans raised by the Sisterhood were conditioned to see the emotion of love as a failing, as a defect which plagued people of ranks lower than that of their ain. As a consequence, Bene Gesserit sisters grew to be haughty of love and deemed it as pattern which is beneath them. The slogan of the sistership says that they exist merely to function, except that the lone 1s they serve is themselves.

In contrast, work forces raised by the Sisterhood were conditioned to maintain the Sisterhood in their highest respects and to idolize the Bene Gesserit. Work force were given an thought of the Sisterhood 's ultimate intent and each one was taught to love and honour the Bene Gesserit above all else in the existence. The Bene Gesserit employed deformed impressions of love in order to command and maintain loyal the work forces raised by the Sisterhood. Some Bene Gesserit even specialized in this really undertaking. Frank Herbert called them 'imprinters ' ; imprinters were trained in magnifying pleasance in order to make an dependence to said pleasance within work forces, which in bend kept said work forces devoted and easy manageable.

The Sisterhood 's relationship with love and sex is merely as flooring in modern times as it was in 1965. Yet, for the Bene Gesserit, holding a sway over people by agencies of sex was regarded as a feminine power and was non in the least spot take downing or frowned upon by them. The Bene Gesserit invoked misconceptions of love within those outside their ranks whom they needed to command. This is yet another dry construct. The fact that Bene Gesserit use the feelings of others in order to pull strings them and flex them to the Sisterhood 's will is rather sardonic, sing at how much they themselves dislike love. This seems improbably hypocritical on the portion of the Bene Gesserit, for if they truly mistrusted love every bit much as they did, would they non forbear from using it for anything? This would be the instance, if it were non for the fact that the Bene Gesserit were improbably cognizant of the powers of love. Therefore, by writhing the construct of love and turning it into a kind of harness by agencies of which they could command others, the Bene Gesserit had been able to turn something they considered unsafe into something utile. Since they are taught from an early age that they do non necessitate neither love nor work forces for anything, a Bene Gesserit feels justified in utilizing love, or the bogus promise of it, to command work forces in order to obtain anything that she may desire or necessitate.

The Bene Gesserit greatly distrusted the construct of love. To them, love was an emotion which brought about nil but confusion and upset. This belief was enforced once more and once more with each Bene Gesserit sister who fell in love and ended up inflicting injury on either herself or the Sisterhood as a whole. The down fallings of other Bene Gesserit sisters who got caught up in love served to do the other sisters wary and leery of the unreliable emotion. They grew prejudiced against love over the old ages of their being, and each coevals of Bene Gesserit passed the bias on to the following. Their beliefs were supported over and over once more by the weaknesss of other sisters who succumbed to love, and therefore their belief in the destructive capablenesss of love merely grew and grew. As a consequence of their misgiving towards love, the Bene Gesserit employed certain preventive steps in order to maintain themselves distanced from the possible harming capablenesss of love. Among those preventive steps was the aforesaid conditioning which new Bene Gesserit underwent, every bit good as encouragement to keep strictly physical relationships with work forces instead than matrimony and familiarity.

Ironically, the Bene Gesserit encouraged sexual familiarity, every bit good as the construct of kids through the sexual intercourse of a adult male and a adult female, instead than by usage of an Axlotl Tank ( a device utilized to make a reproduction of a human being from the cells of a cadaver ) [ Herbert, 1984 ] . They considered the latter manner of engendering as a corrupt method of reproducing. All kids born within Bene Gesserit society were born out of the yoke of persons who may hold shared one dark of lecherousness, but whose relationship were otherwise wholly devoid of love. Similarly, the kids born from the brotherhoods of Bene Gesserit sisters and the work forces they had been coupled with were non raised by either of their parents. To be more precise, the conveying up of kids was a corporate attempt on the portion of the whole Sisterhood. Somehow it does non look excessively surprising that kids, destined to go Bene Gesserit, born from strictly sexual relationships and raised by a corporate disdainful of love instead than by a set of loving parents grew to be disdainful of love themselves.

Bene Gesserit sisters went through a drastically different method of being brought up in comparing to other persons of the Dune saga. Love was weaned out of Bene Gesserit from really early ages, as they had been taken off from their female parents to forestall any kind of adhering happening between female parent and kid. It can be safely assumed that Bene Gesserit condemned love in all signifiers, non merely that between a adult male and a adult female. Familial love was besides out of the inquiry. Such an being is difficult to believe of, as most people have an person in their lives that they love. This is non the instance for the Bene Gesserit, and yet most Bene Gesserit seem all right with the thought. Everything within the Sisterhood works absolutely if there is no love introduced ; when there is, things start to travel incorrect. This is dry, sing that in many other plants of literature, love is considered as a kind of messiah-like emotion through which greater significance in life can be found. The Bene Gesserit do acknowledge love as a kind of ancient power, but instead one which had at one point served its intent within life, but is no longer a necessary constituent to the continuance of life.

The latter point of view is portrayed in an indispensable Bene Gesserit lesson which every sister learns:

`` Love leads to misery. Love is a really ancient force, which served its intent in its twenty-four hours but no thirster is indispensable for the endurance of the species. Remember that adult female 's error, the hurting. `` [ Herbert, 1984 ]

This quotation mark serves good to represent the Bene Gesserit outlook towards relationships, every bit good as the grounds for their conditioning. Love was so greatly distrusted by the Sisterhood due to how much it could act upon a individual. By falling in love, people became unprompted and performed undue things all in the name of love, and Bene Gesserit can non afford to let that kind of thing to go on to her.

The Bene Gesserit are brought up and conditioned to believe in their power. They are taught that subject and control of their power is every bit of import as the powers themselves. Order and subject were two improbably of import constructs to the Bene Gesserit because of the aforesaid demand of commanding their power, and love had received the repute of disrupting said order and subject. Knowing this, it is easy to presume that it would greatly dishonor a Bene Gesserit sister if she were in some mode to lose control.

To lose control is unsafe, and therefore the Sisterhood had to be cut off from love to forestall danger. Their antipathy of the emotion was so strong that hatred was one time compared to love in footings of its danger in Heretics of Dune:

`` Hatred is every bit unsafe an emotion as love. The capacity for either one is the capacity for its antonym. `` [ Herbert and Anderson, 1999 ]

To observe, the comparing is non made the other manner around, with love being said to be every bit unsafe as hatred. This signifies that to the Bene Gesserit, it is much worse to fall in love so it is to detest something or person. It is unusual to believe of such a disapprobation being made non merely by one, but by a whole group, of adult females. This raises the inquiry: Is it love itself which has corrupted the Bene Gesserit or their denouncement of it? And yet, they have every justification to be wary of love, as based on the things that they had came across and seen and passed on through the coevalss of their members. Bene Gesserit as a whole focal point greatly on the hereafter, and from what they had seen and encountered, love had shown itself as capable of taking people astray from the greater end. Merely as it is indecent to lose control, it is merely every bit indecent to lose sight of the greater end, in Bene Gesserit positions. For a Bene Gesserit, the larger image of things ever has to come foremost and first.

Yet, non all Bene Gesserit follow this manner of thought. Very few Bene Gesserit who become consorts or are involved in sexual relationships with work forces grow to develop feelings of love. To the Bene Gesserit, such a divergency from their instructions is frowned upon and considered an anomalousness. Consequently, such an anomalousness is Lady Jessica Atreides, consort to Leto Atreides, every bit good as female parent to Paul Atreides, the chief character of the get downing novel of the Dune saga.

The classical illustration of the aforesaid which comes to mind about instantly is, without a uncertainty, Lady Jessica Atreides. The Bene Gesserit had given to her the direction to gestate a girl [ ] to Duke Leto Atreides. The ground behind that direction is that it must be done in order to fulfill the demands of the multi-generational genteelness plan created by the Bene Gesserit.

However, due to her love for Leto, alternatively of gestating a girl, Jessica gave birth to the boy that Leto had wanted for a really long clip. As a consequence of that one little alteration of the carefully constructed Bene Gesserit programs by Jessica, the whole universe terminal up being altered. Furthermore, non merely are personal businesss within the Dune existence changed one time, but twice. The initial alteration which came from Jessica 's determination to gestate a boy alternatively of a girl was the rise of Emperor Paul Muad'dib, Jessica 's ain boy. The 2nd alteration which the Bene Gesserit had non predicted was that Paul 's boy, Leto II, would go known as 'the God Emperor ' and reign for a thousand old ages as a oppressive swayer. It is in this mode that one adult female 's falling in love and ensuing insubordination to the Bene Gesserit sistership ended up altering the path of Dune 's existence.

Lady Jessica 's neglect for the orders of the Bene Gesserit brought about a series of possible effects, which ended up altering programs which the Bene Gesserit have been doing for 1000s of coevalss. And non merely that, Jessica 's disobeying of orders had besides managed to alter the hereafter of the Dune existence drastically.

The ground why the Bene Gesserit wanted her to gestate a miss was in order to marry the kid to the inheritor of the Harkonnen household. This would hold served to seal up the bing breach between House Harkonnen and House Atreides. However, with Jessica 's giving birth to a boy, both Atreides and Harkonnen lineages were threatened to be lost to the Bene Gesserit.

The programs of the Bene Gesserit were working absolutely up until that point. Lady Jessica was to be coupled with Duke Leto Atreides in order to bring forth a girl who would so be wed and bred with Feyd Rautha Harkonnen, so as to make the Kwisatz Hederach. The Kwisatz Hederach was non meant to be born until another coevals, but Jessica managed to alter this. The relationship between Lady Jessica and Leto Atreides, which started out as simply a wooing arranged by the Bene Gesserit, had grown into one of love. Jessica and Leto found joy in one another and their common fondnesss blossomed and evolved. With this development of fondnesss, every bit good as with Jessica 's commiseration towards Leto after recognizing how much the decease of his first boy, Victor Atreides, grieved him, the Bene Gesserit 's programs were doomed to destroy. Sing how much her hubby wanted another boy, in order to hold an inheritor to House Atreides, Jessica obliged Leto and went against the orders given to her by the Sisterhood. Alternatively of the girl she had been told to deliver, Jessica brought a boy Paul, into the universe. Driven by her love for Leto, and possibly by the thought that she herself may be able to give birth to the Kwisatz Haderach, Jessica single-handedly disrupted the intricate programs of the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood.

Lady Jessica 's dealingss with the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam are strained as a consequence of what had occurred in the yesteryear. When the Reverend Mother comes to see the Atrreides family in order to analyze Paul 's capablenesss, there is a batch of tenseness between the two Bene Gesserit. Both adult females know of what Jessica has done, and neither of them wants to come to any kind of understanding about it, and neither will they of all time. However, they both know that they have to do make with what had happened and work around it in order to seek and salve what they can of the state of affairs. The Reverend Mother still feels understanding for Jessica, but the implicit in thought of what had occurred prevails in her head.

The Reverend Mother 's feelings towards what Lady Jessica had done are represented in her ideas:

'Damn that Jessica! the Reverend female parent idea.

If merely she 'd borne us a miss as she was ordered to make! ' [ Herbert, 1965 ]

In any instance, Jessica did stop up giving birth to the male child who would subsequently go the Kwisatz Hederach. This may sound as a benefit to the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood because their labours to bring forth the Kwisatz Hederach had been fulfilled due to Jessica 's betraying of orders. However, that is far from being the instance. Paul Atreides was non supposed to be conceived in the first topographic point, and neither was he supposed to be the Kwisatz Hederach. His being threw the carefully woven programs of the Bene Gesserit off-kilter.

The Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam does good to note on this, stating:

' '' You thought of merely your Duke 's desire for a boy, '' the old adult female snapped. `` And his desires do n't calculate in this. An Atreides girl could 've been wed to a Harkonnen inheritor and sealed the breach. You 've hopelessly complicated affairs. We may lose both lineages now. `` ' [ Herbert, 1965 ]

Jessica and Leto raised their boy without the aid and without much intervention from the Bene Gesserit. This served to develop that familial bond between Paul and his parents, doing their bonds rather near, particularly that bond which exists between Paul and his female parent. As a consequence, Paul had non been conditioned to look down upon love, which, had the Bene Gesserit known that he were the Kwisatz Haderach Oklahoman, he may hold undergone. Rather, he grew up cognizing the emotion based on what he saw from his parents and his ain acquisition. In add-on, Paul was besides non conditioned to love and adore the Bene Gesserit as most of the work forces they raised had been.

Not merely did Lady Jessica catalyze the premature creative activity of the Kwisatz Hederach by giving birth to Paul, but besides by the construct and birth of her boy, she gave manner for Paul 's ain boy to come into the universe in ulterior novels. Paul 's boy, Leto Atreides II, turned out to be a autocrat. Not merely had Leto II managed to wholly get away Bene Gesserit control, merely as Paul had, he had besides managed to take over the Bene Gessert engendering plan and delegate them a instead useless function in the existence for the full three 1000 and five hundred old ages of his reign.

Since the Kwisatz Hederach was born one coevals excessively early, the Bene Gesserit had non been anticipating it to happen, and therefore had small control over Paul in the same manner they had control over the work forces they raised themselves. The Bene Gesserit were denied power over the one thing which they had been tuging towards. To them, this was both a great defeat and a great incorrect which had been committed against the Sisterhood by Jessica, one of their ain. They had besides been denied power over Paul 's boy, Leto II. Alternatively of giving into Bene Gesserit control, Leto II had been able to set the Bene Gesserit under his ain control, which did non portend good with the Sisterhood. Their misgiving of love grew, every bit good as their disdain and choler at Jessica. The aforesaid became yet another illustration which the Bene Gesserit utilized to reprobate love within their ranks.

Jessica 's actions were non forgotten by the Bene Gesserit. Alternatively, they served as a reminder to other Bene Gesserit of what can happen if a Bene Gesserit were to fall in love. Even 1000s of old ages after her decease, the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood passed down their cognition of Lady Jessica 's behaviors to the new coevalss of Bene Gesserit sisters. The determination Jessica made had been one which altered the full existence, and the Bene Gesserit were speedy to trap the mistake of it, above all else, on Jessica 's falling in love with Leto Atreides. In the old ages that followed her decease, Jessica 's actions became known by all Bene Gesserit as `` the Jessica Crime '' [ Herbert, 1985 ] ; any Bene Gesserit who would take her love over the instructions of the Sisterhood would basically be perpetrating the same offense, one punishable by expatriate. Jessica 's actions served as a lesson to other sisters, learning them that a Bene Gesserit must keep control over her emotions lest she follow in Jessica 's illustration and jeopardize both the Sisterhood and humanity in general.

Frank Herbert puts a really interesting spin on love within the Dune saga, demoing it both from the points of position of Bene Gesserit and of non-Bene Gesserit. The consequence is wondrous dry apposition which extends throughout the whole series. The relationship between adult females and love in a changeless subject throughout Dune, much more so than the relationship between work forces and love. More frequently than non, the pick that a Bene Gesserit has to do is one between deriving power and deriving love. Together, the two seem unachievable because powerful adult females who are able to happen love are nil but failed Bene Gesserit.