To understand the myth of the hero, we must first assume that the hero is real. Then continue along that trajectory to assume that the humanity that presupposes the role of a hero is also real. The truth, from that point on, is governed by a set of rules, tests that dictate the social and political bind that ties the hands of those it governs.
The idea of the “greater good” is then used as a weapon to foreshadow the truth. Until that vicious cycle of heroic ideals is stripped bare and those governed play the part of heroes themselves.
Dune is a science-fiction and universally-timeless novel about political philosophy, history, human rights, and prophecy. The story is a fertile soil possessing many roots. Perceptive realism, cosmic consciousness, the exploration of an individual’s instinctive, inherited state of mind, and of course, the deep connection of the mind with the body.
The writing and characterization of Dune can easily be translated into a vast cosmos of ancient, archetypical, and modern structures. You can extend your hands and grip in each character the mythical and psychological traits that makes humans seem immortal.
These foundations are familiar, debatable, and undeniably felt in both fact and fiction even today.
Whether you digest this story as art or literature is beside the point. Because when looking for proof that rebellion, in any kind of social construct, is inevitable and hope is merely an illusion, this book contemplates what’s beyond.
“Mankind has only one science… it’s the science of discontent.”
Dune is the first in a resounding series of sci-fi novels written by Frank Herbert. I am convinced that Dune can seductively wipe out the illusion of the hero.
In an interview, Herbert said that he wrote Dune “for readers who do not read science fiction.” He coalesces shades of religion, environmentalism, mythology, politics in an imaginative plot. The writing makes his characters futuristic as well as historical. A book that forces you to rely on your senses in order to be wholly read.