Despite its obvious theme of ecology, which has generated much of the book’s popularity and the ornate gothic surface that attracts so many of its readers, the main theme of Dune is religion, and especially the interaction of religion with human culture as a whole. The presentation of religion in the book is quite remarkable….
Tag: Dune
Dune by Frank Herbert: Setting
General Semantics In the 1930s, the Polish American engineer Alfred Korzybski developed the discipline of general semantics (not to be confused with ordinary semantics, the study of the meaning of words) and founded a school for instruction in his system. General semantics holds that language is a metaphorical abstraction that actually separates the human mind…
Dune by Frank Herbert: Literary Devices
Science Fiction Science fiction and the closely allied genre of fantasy (Dune is often said to have elements of both) is difficult to define. A simple definition based on elements common in the genre, such as space travel, stories set in the future, and so on, or even a more sophisticated attempt at definition such…
Dune by Frank Herbert: Themes
Religion The main theme of Dune is the disastrous effect that messianic religious belief can have on human society. Herbert’s original inspiration was the messianic cult of personality that was attached to Adolf Hitler, who exploited the power it gave him to start World War II and the Holocaust. Herbert treats this through fiction in…
Dune by Frank Herbert: Characters
Alia Atreides Alia is the daughter of Leto and Jessica. She was conceived only a few days before her father’s death. As a result of Jessica drinking the water of life, the sacramental poison of the Fremen, while pregnant with her, Alia becomes fully self-aware while still in the womb and has an adult consciousness….
Dune by Frank Herbert: Summary
The text of Dune is divided into three books of unnumbered chapters. Each chapter is headed by an epigraph that is a quotation, not from an existing literary work but from a pseudo-scholarly work attributed to Princess Irulan, whom the reader learns only at the very end of the novel becomes Paul’s wife. The various…