Dune Analysis

Most of Dune takes place on the planet Arrakis. It's a barren wasteland of a planet covered almost entirely in desert, with just a smidgen of polar ice caps on its poles. Only dune buggy enthusiast...

Third-person omniscient? Sounds fancy, but English teachers often use fancy words to make simple things look all sparkly and expensive. The idea of third-person omniscient is pretty commonplace. In...

Bildungsroman If you ever wanted a long, Germanic word for a coming-of-age novel, then you need look no further than this one: Bildungsroman. Got that? Good. Dune is one big novel, a perfect fit fo...

Herbert wrote Dune with one word in mind: epic. Then he said to himself, "Why stop there? Why not make this beast of a book epically epic?" And so he did.Everything in Dune happens on a grand scale...

Herbert's writing style is pretty straightforward, with one huge not-so-straight-forward exception. Let's get the basics out of the way first.Madame Plain JaneHerbert's scenes generally follow a ba...

At first glance, it's a pretty boring title. The novel's story takes place on a planet called Dune; the book is called Dune. It's so simple, so meh. But if you'll learn anything here at Shmoop, it'...

So, if you're like us, you probably read the ending of Dune, turned to a blank page, and thought, "Wait! That's it?" Yep. The novel certainly ends at an abrupt point, but there are reasons why it s...

Here at Shmoop, we like to think of novels as mountains to explore. If that is true for Dune, then this mountain has multiple trails running through it, and it's up to you to decide the one to hike...