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Throughout Dune Messiah, eyes symbolize a person’s trustworthiness and humanity. When Hayt comes to Dune, his mechanical eyes trouble Paul. In every other way, Hayt is the reincarnation of Paul’s trusted master, Duncan Idaho, but Hayt’s mechanical eyes—fashioned by the Tleilaxu who revived Duncan Idaho’s flesh—suggest the painful possibility that the ghola is nothing but his enemy’s pawn, conditioned to destroy Paul. In this way, Hayt’s lack of human eyes indicate the threat he poses.
Paul’s own eyes at first seem like an irrelevant vestige of his human nature. While Paul can see the world around him through his human eyes, the “eyes” of his prescience show him everything that will occur before it physically occurs. However, despite the seeming irrelevance of his eyes, Paul often wishes he could turn off his prescience and see the world only through his human eyes. In other words, he wishes he could trade his vision of fate for the comparatively blind vision of human sight. Therefore, while eyes symbolize power when endowed with the ability to see the future, they also—in their normal seeing condition—indicate the limits of human nature.
In this way, then, eyes also represent how human “blindness”—that is, blindness to fate—is preferable to a gift of superhuman sight. When a stone burner later blinds Paul, Paul resorts to seeing only through his prescience—a state which makes him feel like a mere instrument of the future. This state of blindness leads Paul to end his own life in the desert. Therefore eyes as a symbol point to the flawed nature of power: while Paul can live without their eyes in a state of superhuman power, his attachment to his human limits as represented by his eyes prevents him from ever embracing a complete state of power.
Eyes Quotes in Dune Messiah
The Dune Messiah quotes below all refer to the symbol of Eyes. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 1
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This moment of supreme power contained failure. There can be only one answer, that completely accurate and total prediction can be lethal.
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Chapter 5
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“Accepting prescience, you fill your being with concepts repugnant to the intellect. Your intellectual consciousness, therefore, rejects them. In rejecting, intellect becomes a part of the processes and is subjugated.”
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His prescient power had tampered with the image of the universe held by all mankind. He had shaken the safe cosmos and replaced security with his Jihad. He had out-fought and out-thought and out-predicted the universe of men, but a certainty filled him that the universe still eluded him.
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Chapter 6
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Where was Idaho in this shaped-to-measure flesh? It wasn’t flesh…it was a shroud in fleshly shape! [Idaho’s] ghost stared out of metal eyes. Two beings stood side by side in this revenant flesh. One was a threat with its force and nature hidden behind unique veils.
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Chapter 8
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He was near, she knew—that shadow-figure of a man she could sense in her future, but could not see. It angered her that no power of prescience could put flesh on that figure.
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Chapter 9
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“People cling to the Imperial leadership because space is infinite. They feel lonely without a unifying symbol. For a lonely people, the Emperor is a definite place […] Perhaps religion serves the same purpose.”
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“[Genghis Khan] didn’t kill them himself. […] He killed the way I kill, by sending out his legions. There’s another emperor I want you to note in passing—a Hitler. He killed more than six million. Pretty good for those days.”
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Chapter 10
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Alia studied the steel balls which were his eyes: no human expression there. His words had carried a reassuring intensity […] a thing Duncan Idaho might have said. Had the Tleilaxu fashioned their ghola better than they knew—or was this mere sham, part of his conditioning?
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Chapter 16
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He had become a non-being, a stillness which moved itself. At the core of the non-being, there he existed, allowing himself to be led through the streets of his city, following a track so familiar to his visions that it froze his heart with grief.
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Chapter 17
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Otheym’s house, Fate’s house, a place different from the ones around it only it the role Time had chosen for it. It was a strange place to be marked down in history.
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Chapter 24
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The Fremen […] had said Muad’Dib would never die, that he had entered the world where all possible futures existed, […], wandering there endlessly even after his flesh had ceased to be.
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Get the entire Dune Messiah LitChart as a printable PDF.
Eyes Symbol Timeline in Dune Messiah
The timeline below shows where the symbol Eyes appears in Dune Messiah. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 4
...Farok evades his inquiry and explains that he tried to get his son Tleilaxu replacement eyes, but his son didn’t want metal eyes. Scytale subtly steers the conversation back to Muad’Dib’s...
(full context)
Chapter 6
...senses that Paul is agitated. He is looking at an orange-robed Guild member with metal eyes. The Guild member looks familiar to Alia. Paul’s memories, which Alia absorbed while in her...
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Chapter 10
...if he knows anything about the dead woman. Hayt meets Alia’s gaze with his metal eyes, and she trembles.
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Chapter 11
Paul puts his hand over his eyes, and the moon in his mind falls. When he looks back at his city, the...
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Chapter 12
...In this moment, Paul feels that Hayt is Duncan Idaho. He wonders if Hayt’s metallic eyes have another function besides sight. Alia touches Paul’s tears and tells him not to grieve...
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Chapter 18
...stone burner die beneath him and rises to his feet. As he looks around, his eye sight fades to black. He recalls his prescient vision of these moments to see what’s...
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Stilgar runs up to Paul and looks into his ruined eyes with despair. Paul gives orders for the guards to help the people who were closest...
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Chapter 19
...people were muttering about the stone burner, and some of the blinded were refusing Tleilaxu eyes. Everyone wonders how the Muad’Dib can see without his eyes. Some people are planning to...
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Chani wakes to find Paul sitting beside her, his empty eye sockets staring into the distance. Ravenous, Chani starts eating some food left by the bed....
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...melange worm and took it to another planet. Paul looks at Korba with his empty eye sockets. The crowd mutters about the Fremen law that condemns the blind to exile in...
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...stolen would seek their revenge on him. Korba insists that the blinded will receive Tleilaxu eyes. Paul says that Tleilaxu eyes come with bondage and asks how a vicious weapon like...
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Chapter 20
Hayt’s metal eyes burn, and a red haze envelops his awareness. In desperation, he forces his focus back...
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Chapter 23
...cradle inches from Paul’s son’s face. Paul takes out his knife. Looking through his son’s eyes, Paul calculates the angle and jabs his knife into Scytale’s eye. Scytale hits the wall...
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