Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Dune, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Power and Violence
Free Will and Fate
Environment and Human Culture
Human Cognitive Advances
Summary
Analysis
The epigraph from Princess Irulan’s text “Collected Sayings of Muad’Dib” considers the shocking moment when a child realizes his father is a person “with human flesh.”
Muad’Dib’s allusion to realizing that his father is not an all-powerful being, but rather a fallible human, suggests once more that Muad’Dib is Paul Atreides, as the narrator has just informed readers of Paul’s concern at his father’s increasingly unstable leadership.
Themes
Duke Leto has breakfast with Paul and tells his son about the Harkonnen message that Thufir Hawat intercepted. Leto states that he knows this is a Harkonnen deception aimed at turning the Duke against Lady Jessica, but Leto is going to play along to lure House Harkonnen into a false sense of security and “smoke out” the real traitor. If something happens to the Duke, Paul must tell Jessica that Leto never actually suspected her.
Duke Leto is sacrificing familial honesty for political advantage, another example of character development where he takes unusual risks that do not match up with the loyal and honest values he is known for. The promise that he asks of Paul suggests an outcome that Paul has been told is inevitable by his mother and Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam.
Themes
Duke Leto discusses his plans for securing loyalty from the Fremen. He also hands Paul a report on Fremen religion. If anything happens to the Duke, he advises Paul to manipulate the Fremen’s belief that the boy may be their prophesized messiah—this leverage can help him survive. Paul has a foreboding that the Fremen belief is linked to the possibility he will become the Bene Gesserit’s Kwisatz Haderach.
Once more, the narrator signals Duke Leto’s approaching death due to his succession plans. For the third time in the novel’s events, Paul is struck by the ominous sense that he is trapped in a predetermined chain of events.
Themes
