Would You Survive The Gom Jabbar?
Sci-fi’s most beloved novel, Dune, presents a test for determining if you’re a human or merely an animal
“The natural human is an animal without logic.”
-Lady Jessica, Dune.
Dune, the wildly popular science-fiction classic written by Frank Herbert and published in 1965, tells the intriguing story of a vastly complex universe ruled by various noble houses, all vying for money and power around the most precious of all commodities: the spice Melange.
Readers are quickly introduced to House Atreides of planet Caladan and the novel’s teenage protagonist Paul, son of the honorable Duke Atreides. As the story begins, Paul must face a test known as the “gom jabbar”, administered by his mother’s former teacher and mentor, Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohia of the secretive and powerful Bene Gesserit Sisterhood.
Specifically, the gom jabbar is a cyanide-injecting needle that brings immediate death to anyone who finds themselves victim to the needle’s poison. A thimble-like apparatus housing the needle attaches subtlely to a person’s finger and is pressed against the participant’s neck during the test. As the story unfolds, a small box with one open side is laid before Paul, with an order from Reverend Mother Gaius to place his…
