Dune Messiah

by

Frank Herbert

Dune Messiah: Chapter 22 Summary & Analysis

Summary
Analysis
Chani stares out at the sietch desert, having recently returned to her old home. She is not wearing a stillsuit, and this makes her feel unprotected in the strong wind. Her stomach constricts painfully, and she knows the birth will be soon. The morning sunlight somehow enhances the feeling of cynicism she has had ever since Paul became blind. Chani wonders why she and Paul came here and why Paul brought so many people with them. When she asked Paul the value of so many companions, he said they had become “money-rich” and “life-poor.” He touched her stomach and lamented that he tried to invent life when it had already been invented.
In bringing along so many companions to sietch, Paul seems to be trying to undo the consequences of being a powerful ruler. Being a powerful ruler isolated Paul; it provided him with material wealth rather than friendship and family. When Paul says that life has already been invented, it seems that he means that companionship and happiness are already a part of the human experience. By contrast, the wealth and status that power brings are not life.
Themes
Power  Theme Icon
Guilt and Longing Theme Icon
Remembering this exchange, Chani touches her stomach. The desert wind stirs up “evil odors,” and she regrets asking Paul to bring her here. She wonders what storms Paul sees with his vision; he’s become a madman since going blind. Chani observes the hawks flying overhead and knows that a storm is coming. Hayt calls, warning her of the storm. Chani turns into the sharp wind and feels paralyzed by the desert’s transience. She pictures the desert with its private sounds, and a melange worm slithering into dry depths. Although it was only one moment, she feels that the whole planet is being swept away.
The storm on sietch represents the chaos and impermanence of nature. The desert storm brews no matter how many advancements civilization makes, and it threatens to sweep civilization away in an instant. The oncoming storm suggests that Paul’s seemingly permanent rule will soon come to an end; it is only a human-made semblance of stability in the midst of a universe that is governed instead by nature and chaos.
Themes
Power  Theme Icon
Hayt approaches Chani and tells her to hurry or else the wind will tear the flesh from her bones. Trusting him, Chani allows Hayt to escort her into the moisture-sealed building. Inside is a thick smell of melange. Chani looks around, trying to believe this place is still her home. A birth pang ripples through her stomach. Chani asks Hayt why Paul is afraid of her giving birth. Hayt says that it is natural for Paul to worry, and that Paul still remembers when Sardaukar killed Chani’s first baby. Chani looks at Hayt, wondering if he is really Duncan Idaho.
Chani doesn’t recognize her old home because melange has transformed it. The thick smell of melange reveals that the sietch citizens are heavily addicted to the drug—and therefore not living in a natural state. Being dependent on melange holds the citizens back; they become so used to a false existence that the possibility that they could lose it is a threat to their lives.
Themes
Power  Theme Icon
Chani realizes that what troubles her about sietch is the odors of the foreign substances the Fremen bring in. Chani says she is scared and asks Hayt where Paul is. Hayt says that Paul is busy with political affairs. Chani thinks about how Paul had steered the ‘thopter with his sightless eyes when they flew to sietch. Another birth pang spasms through Chani. Realizing that she is going into labor, Hayt grasps her and leads her to her room. He lays her down and calls for Harah. Soon, people bustle around Chani.
Paul’s absence from this scene is striking. Surely, Paul’s prescience has shown him that  Chani is about to go into labor. Therefore, it seems that his absence is intentional; he knows that there is nothing he can do to alter the outcome of Chani’s labor, and so keeps himself away so as not to have to stand by helplessly. Far from preparing him for his fate, Paul’s prescience instead made him dread it more.
Themes
Fate and Choice  Theme Icon
Get the entire Dune Messiah LitChart as a printable PDF.
Dune Messiah PDF
Hayt goes into the hall and ponders over his own actions. He realizes that his panic is centered on the future moment when Paul will come to him to grieve Chani’s death. Hayt shudders and tells himself that panic cannot come from nothing. He searches his mind; people have been replaced by shadows, “creatures of possibility.” Starting to sweat, Hayt tries to grasp the infinity that courses through his mind.  Suddenly, Hayt sees Bijaz in his mind, and realizes that the dwarf rigged him with a “compulsion.” A passing guard asks Hayt if he said something, and Hayt says that he has said “everything.”
At this point, Hayt is barely acting of his own free will. He knows that he has been rigged with a “compulsion”—an action that he cannot help but perform. In other words, Hayt has essentially been programmed to act in a certain way to fulfill a certain outcome. When Hayt says that he has said “everything,” this suggests that Hayt, in this moment right before his defining action, contains all of the future.
Themes
Fate and Choice  Theme Icon