Previous
Setting
Definition of Simile
A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two unlike things. To make the comparison, similes most often use the connecting words "like" or "as," but can also... read full definition
A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two unlike things. To make the comparison, similes most often use the connecting words "like... read full definition
A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two unlike things. To make the comparison, similes most often... read full definition
Chapter 3
Explanation and Analysis—Like a Jewel:
In the following example of simile from Chapter 3, Paul muses over his position as emperor, comparing the current constraints of his reign to what his life might have been. He employs an apt simile:
I never wanted to be a god, he thought. I wanted only to disappear like a jewel of trace dew caught by the morning. I wanted to escape the angels and the damned—alone . . . as though by an oversight.
In this passage, Paul states that he wanted to disappear "like a jewel of trace dew," but has instead been forced to linger. He states that he "wanted to escape the angels and the damned" in order to be "alone," hinting at a kind of spiritual or emotional purgatory. Paul wants to be overlooked, a strange but understandable sentiment from a man burdened with such heavy purpose.
Many people crave what they do not have; and indeed, even before Paul was the Muad'Dib, he did not have complete anonymity. Paul has always been burdened with inheritance. Now that he has found love with Chani, he craves a life of anonymity with her—a life in which they can live out their days together among the Fremen, without worrying about politics or martyrdom or the murky future.
Related Themes:
Chapter 16
Explanation and Analysis—Arrow:
In the following example of simile from Chapter 16, Paul experiences a kind of religious fervor upon seeing Alia speak for the first time:
“Nothing hides in such a night!” Alia said. “What rare light is this darkness? You cannot fix your gaze upon it! Senses cannot record it. No words describe it.” Her voice lowered. “The abyss remains. It is
pregnant with all the things yet to be. Ahhhhh, what gentle violence!”
Paul felt that he waited for some private signal from his sister. It could be any action or word, something of wizardry and mystical processes, an outward streaming that would fit him like an arrow into a cosmic bow. This instant lay like quivering mercury in his awareness.
Paul is compelled by his sister; for the first time, he sees her preach as her acolytes see her. He looks to her for guidance, hoping that she will "fit him like an arrow into a cosmic bow," compelling him toward a direction and action that he has lost in life. Indeed, as strange as it may seem, Paul—the emperor and all-powerful Muad'Did—is a man lost. He lacks a purpose beyond power, and therefore resents the terrible power of foresight he has been given.
Related Themes:
Chapter 24
Explanation and Analysis—Fabric:
In the following example of simile from Chapter 24, Duncan comforts Alia as she mourns the loss of her brother to the desert:
You should hear her grief. Wailing, giving moisture to the dead; she swears she loved him and knew it not. She reviles her Sisterhood, says she’ll spend her life teaching Paul’s children.”
“You trust her?”
“She reeks of trustworthiness!”
“Ahhh,” Idaho murmured. The final pattern unreeled before his awareness like a design on fabric. The defection of the Princess Irulan was the last step. It left the Bene Gesserit with no remaining lever against the Atreides heirs.
Idaho compares the architecture of events in the novel to a pattern, weaving itself into a final "design" before his very eyes. This language recalls the intentional planning of the Bene Gesserit, which ironically, has been for naught. Paul has entirely foiled the Bene Gesserit's plans for him and his lineage. Princess Irulan herself turns on her Bene Gesserit co-conspirators, fully adopting Paul's martyrdom as her form of religion. One pattern is revealed as another pattern unravels, revealing the tenuous nature of the Bene Gesserit's game. The Bene Gesserit wishes to sculpt fate, but fate is not something that can be so neatly ordered and reordered.
Related Themes:
