Influences of Dune

[Colonel_Worf]

I would like a list of websites detailing what real life events influenced Dune, if possible. I'm doing a report about it. I've found a couple of sites, but I need a lot more. Thanks!

[Face-Dancer]

The influence were Greek , you know the house Atreides who's in direct relation with the atreide and Aghamemnon (ouuuuch sorry for the spelling)

So you will find a lot of things about it if you seek in greek mythology.

I never saw anything on the sandworm but I think Franck Herbert simply took a book about the desert and it's population (since I'm a fan of desert) and there's a snake who act exactly like the sandworm in Dune , the snakes can feel the vibrations of the ground since they have a really bad view, and when they found where their prey are they attack, and they can stay hidden in the sand like this for hours.

Well, maybe I'm wrong about it but for me it seems a quite plausible answer to the origin of the sandworm.

I hope I helped you a bit

[Korba]

infact i read Atredies translated in greak ment exactly "son of Atrus" and

[Face-Dancer]

Yes the World War II must have been of a big influence for Franck Herbert, while reading the books I couldn't stop thinking about the World War II and all it's similitud.

For me Dune is the WW II but with an epic dimension of dream (the spice,the technology, the sandworms,...),it's a WW II but that happened in a better way than the original 60 years ago.

The Harkonnen are like the Germans in WW II and the jewish are the fremens for me.

(the Harkonnen wants the total destruction of fremen right after they won on Atreides)

The house Atreides is like the Americans in many points.

The bible must have been really an inspiration as well for they talk a lot about God (who's very present) and Paul has many things in common with Jesus, at a moment he says that he's the right arm of God,isn't it ?

For the novel of Isaak Assimov it must have been a kind of inspiration, for in the novel of Assimov they've created thinking machines who must respect laws to avoid hurting an Human, but Franck Herbert took the contrary of it and created a world without any thinking machines (they were destroyed in the buttlerian Jihad), So the world of Dune is kind of less evoluted as ours,computers are forbidden and that's why the Mentats were created only men in the Mentats (an error we can discuss in Emperor Battle for Dune, the Ordos Mentat Roma Atani is a woman)

And the opposite of the Mentats, the Bene-Gesserit, women religious Order. (Mentats and Sisters of the Bene-Gesserit dislike each other, Bene-Gesserit want to secretly access to the political power giving advise (they are very close of the emperor,seeking to control him) and the Mentats were created to give advise as well, that's why they could never live with each other)

We could talk about it for hours as well as the SUK and the BENE-TLEILAX, BENE-TLEILAX and Mentats, BENE-TLEILAX and the Ixians (Do they come all from an inspiration of an other novel or just the imagination of Franck Herbert ???)

Well, the world of Dune is really great and enourmous and also very complicated (not as simple as all the science fictions novel such as star wars(who's great though) or whatever)

For all this I can be wrong but that's what I think, hey it's a forum after all  ;D 8) :D

[Andrew]

http://www.dune2k.com/?page=community-articles&show=dunepoliticsreligion

More specifically:

McLean, Susan. "A Question of Balance: Death and Immortality in Frank Herbert's Dune Series". Death and the Serpent: Immortality in Science Fiction and Fantasy. (1985): 145-152.

O'Reilly, Timothy. Frank Herbert. Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., Inc. 1981.

Palumbo, Donald. "The monomyth as fractal pattern in Frank Herbert's Dune novels". Science Fiction Studies 25.3 (Nov. 1998): 433-58.

Touponce, William F. Frank Herbert. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1988.

Also http://www.dunenovels.com/news/genesis.html may help.

Those articles/books listed may not have info about the origins of dune (in the Dune timeline) or how Frank Herbert came up with it. But they are a good read nonetheless.

The monomyth as fractal pattern in Frank Herbert's Dune novels is a pretty confusing title. (Just the title, not the read.) :P

[Imperial Sardaukar]

Wait, Face-Dancer, did you just say the Atreides remind you of the Americans of WWII? They remind me more of the British and the Russian in WWII, the British and Russians fought bravely and curagously and almost all throughout the war and suffered many casualties. Same can't be said for America though. Which is why the Atreides remind me more of the Russians and British of WWII