“A Great New Pooling of Genes” Gender, Determinism, and Dystopia in DUNE

Details

Supervisors

Dehoux, Amaury ; Maeder, Costantino

Faculty

Faculté de philosophie, arts et lettres

Degree label

Master [120] en langues et lettres modernes, orientation générale, à finalité spécialisée: sciences et métiers du livre

Abstract

This thesis seeks to identify and criticise the ideologies behind Dune’s gender portrayal in both the first book and Villeneuve’s films. It examines how Dune’s worldbuilding shapes its characters with its gender norms, but also with other concepts such as masculinities, eugenics, determinism and patriarchy, as well as how it defines the character’s emotional and physical portrayal, their agency and their wellbeing. This thesis analyses Dune’s gender portrayal through multiple lenses, including emotional, psychoanalytical, physical, educational, historical, political, and sexual scopes. Through a gendered perspective, it investigates the underlying essentialist assumptions made throughout Dune’s narrative, its fundamental conceptions that justify and guide its events and treatment of its characters. By analysing Dune’s political components, for both masculine and feminine demographics, this thesis exposes how Dune’s gender conceptions and political dynamics place its universe and story in a gender dystopia. Through diverse theories and research fields, this analysis reveals how interlinked these seemingly isolated elements are, and how they ultimately build a dystopian, yet nuanced world which is often based on real-life history. This analysis is strengthened with intersectional theories that show Dune’s relevance as a fictional world with unique complexity, which allows for a greater understanding of our own societal structures.