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Hi. This is my first post here on this forum (already posted a couple of times on the "food, culture, etc." forum, though. I really don't know if this is the right place to post this, so I will post on both forums. I hope the moderators don't get too mad. Well, as some of you already know, I'm brazilian, and a literature major. One of my professors (also a member of Hatrack. He's called Eduardo) asked us to read "Ender's Game" (translated in Portugese, although I've read it before, in English) among other books. Now, I have a paper due in ten days, and I'm working hard on it. The thing is: we are to relate "Ender's Game" to three other books: Frank Herbert's "Dune", Gore Vidal's "Messiah" and a brazilian one (I guess you don't know this one)Euclides da Cunha's "Os Sertões". We discussed a lot about messianic characters in literature this semester, so I think this is what Eduardo wants us to explore (although he didn't require it). He told us we were free to use the Internet for research, so it would be nice if someone who knows about "Dune" or "Messiah" helped me to find useful links (I know there is Google, but there are so many results...). Well, if someone could give me some advice about the books, it would also be nice.
Thanks in advance (Professor, It's alright I did it, isn't it? You didn't answer my e-mail yet).
Posts: 7 | Registered: Mar 2005
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Funny enough, I did an essay comparing the theme of leadership in Ender's Game and Dune some years ago. Anyway, a good site you could try in order to converse with people who know the Dune novels very well is Dreamers of Dune. Check out the forum. I've never posted there, but I lurk sometimes. You should be able to get further help there.
Posts: 1569 | Registered: Dec 2004
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I'm honored to be included in such a list ...
Wish I could help you! I read Dune before writing any version of Ender's Game, and it's possible there was some influence there (but only unconsciously, I assure you!).
The real question is: What aspect of a "messiah" are you looking at?
The "sacrificial hero" - the one who pays the price himself for the salvation of others?
The "anointed one" (the literal meaning of Messiah) - the hero who was foretold and looked for and chosen to perform a ritual role?
The "founder" - the one whose charisma or exploits led to a transformative change in the world?
The "inciter" - the one whose charisma led to the formation of a cult which would make any sacrifice (or commit any act) in order to glorify or obey the leader?
The "figure of hope" - the one that others seize upon, against his will, as the one they have looked for to deliver them from some great evil?
In Dune, Frank Herbert has Paul Muad-dib/Atreides constantly fretting about (or has others fretting about) his potential as a starter of holy war; but his own desire is to be the deliverer of his people AND the protector of his own birthright, a mix of personal and selfless redemption that ultimtely becomes primarily the latter - but launches the holy war anyway.
Ender, on the other hand, has a lot of people convinced that he is the hoped-for one, but he is NOT anointed ... the question is left open until the last minute. In other words, they wait for the results to judge whether he was the savior. He himself, however, is largely unconscious of his role, regarding Mazer Rackham as the one who HAS fulfilled it in the past, and merely hoping that IF he becomes the one to fulfil the role in the future, he can hold up under the strain. Twice, rather than being driven by ambition, he "despairs" and is only goaded to act by others' belief in him. He falls into the reluctant hero category, and unlike Paul Atreides, he never faces the choice of what HE will be, since his messianic acts are performed under the illusion that he is merely in training or playing.
As for Gore Vidal's Messiah, I was never able to take the book seriously enough to read very far into it. Vidal is a marvelous novelist at times, but his ability to tell a powerful story is in inverse proportion to the degree he is deliberately trying to make a point, and in Messiah I felt as though his attitude toward religion and his attitude toward science fiction led him to make the book more of an essay than a real story.
Oxala que meu portugues fosse suficiente para ler Os Sertoes!
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