The story of Dune, as adapted for the screen by Villeneuve (2021, Dune: Part One [Film]), takes place in the year 10,191 (After Guild) of the Universal Standard Calendar to dramatise the imperial clash between the House of Atreides and the House of Harkonnen over the desert colony Arrakis and the control over the spice trade. Though Dune is an allegory that makes ecology and imperialism its chief rallying points, the thrust of this article is the central protagonist, Paul Atreides and the riddling relation he shares with his mother (his father’s concubine) Lady Jessica. It attempts to portray Paul as not a Messiah or the chosen one but as a wronged, circumstantial hero who is tormented by his neurosis, daydreams and diabolical visions triggered by his repressed emotions clouding his unconscious. The article argues that Villeneuve’s (2021, Dune: Part One [Film]) cinematic adaptation of Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel Dune highlights the vulnerability of the Hamletian hero, who is grappling with pre-destined choices and a lack of free will, and appears frail and unheroic. Paul’s actions in the drama alongside Lady Jessica and the Bene Gesserit sisterhood are an offshoot of the repressed emotions that play in his unconscious (often appearing as dream imagery). Paul’s entry into the symbolic order is through his servility to his mother, who holds the power to language acquisition, through her use of the ‘Voice’. The primary thrust of this work is to put forth a psychoanalytic reading of the character of Paul Atreides and his role as the chosen one (Lisan-Al-Gaib) in the Dune universe. Drawing on psychoanalytic theories of Freudian repression, Lacanian-postmodern theories of fragmented identity, and the ideologies behind messianism, along with the politics of language control as demonstrated in the adaptation, this work provides an in-depth analysis of the psyche of Paul Atreides through evaluation of key scenes and character moments like the Gom Jabbar test and the Voice training sequence.

Repression, Hamletian, Voice, messianism, unconscious, free will

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