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Irony
Definition of Metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor can be stated explicitly, as... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other... read full definition
Chapter 3
Explanation and Analysis—Spider-Future:
In the following example of metaphor from Chapter 3, Paul contemplates the manner in which his own life has unfolded, in the context of his predictive powers.
I succumbed to the lure of the oracle, he thought. And he sensed that succumbing to this lure might be to fix himself upon a single-track life. Could it be, he wondered, that the oracle didn’t tell the future? Could it be that the oracle made the future? Had he exposed his life to some web of underlying threads, trapped himself there in that long-ago awakening, victim of a spider-future which even now advanced upon him with terrifying jaws.
In the above passage, Paul uses metaphor to compare his predetermined future to that of a "spider." He has been forced into the role of an oracle, weaving the web of his own destruction. He has trapped himself.
There exists an interesting contradiction in the above metaphor: by all intents and purposes, Paul should be the one pulling the threads of the spider web of fate. He is the oracle, yet simultaneously he finds himself entangled in the very threads he has woven. Perhaps Paul once believed that by seeing the future, he held some immeasurable power, some immunity—but even he cannot escape time, or fate, despite all of his insights.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Shaken Limb:
In the following example of metaphor from Chapter 3, Paul finds himself drawn back to the terrified visions of his childhood during a discussion with Chani:
Paul was unable to speak. He felt himself consumed by the raw power of that early vision. Terrible purpose! In that moment, his whole life was a limb shaken by the departure of a bird . . . and the bird was chance. Free will.
Paul compares his entire life to a "limb shaken by the departure of a bird," with that bird being free will. In Paul's mind, he has always been beholden to fate, with very little agency over the circumstances of his own rise to power. Like a limb shaken by a bird taking flight, Paul's life is defined by the absence of free will, an absence that creates tremors and disturbances throughout the entire plane of his existence. Arguably, in the minds of the Bene Gesserit, Paul was bred for a singular purpose. This manner of thinking is narrow: there has clearly been a wide range of human agency involved in Paul's fate, beginning even with his birth. Lady Jessica was commanded by the Bene Gesserit to refrain from giving birth to a son. She refused; Paul was the result.
Related Themes:
Chapter 9
Explanation and Analysis—Gene Pools:
The following excerpt is from "The Orgy as a Tool of Statescraft"—Chapter Three of the Steersman's Guild, the epigraph to Chapter 9 of Dune Messiah. This epigraph contains an important example of metaphor:
For our purposes, we borrow a definition from the Bene Gesserit and we consider the various
worlds as gene pools, sources of teachings and teachers, sources of the possible. Our goal is not to rule, but to tap these gene pools, to learn, and to free ourselves from all restraints imposed by dependency and government.
In this passage, the historian/speaker compares worlds to "gene pools," and their knowledge and culture to genetic information. This betrays a view of people and culture as objects to manipulate, as the Bene Gesserit see such things. Such a point of view is quite obviously exploitative: if one views people only as a "gene pool," one views them only as pawns to maneuver towards a desired outcome—a pool of resources to tap into, rather than individual beings with personal identities. The impulse of the Bene Gesserit is to generalize, whether in attempting to broadly influence entire populations of people through eugenic breeding programs, or whether through attempting to exert political and religious power over large groups of people through the Muad'Dib.
Related Themes:
Chapter 16
Explanation and Analysis—One Man:
In the following example of metaphor from Chapter 16, Paul expresses feelings of inadequacy in his current position as emperor:
The collective mental atmosphere of the temple ate at his psyche. He could sense that element of himself which was one with those all around him, but the differences formed a deadly contradiction. He stood immersed, isolated in a personal sin which he could never expiate. The immensity of the universe outside the temple flooded his awareness. How could one man, one ritual, hope to knit such immensity into a garment fitted to all men?
Paul compares social unity to a garment, which he sees himself tasked with knitting together. He feels the pressure of this expectation, doubting the ability of one man to knit together a society that fits all people.
In a manner of speaking, Paul's life has been neatly knit together for him: though his path to the throne was not easy, many people laid the road before him, showing him the proper path to tread. The Bene Gesserit, and his mother, Lady Jessica, played a role in Paul's birth and birthright. In a way, he feels incapable of governing because he, too, is part of the fabric of expectation—a pawn in the hands of those who seek to define the contours of history.
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