Dune: Book 2, Part 1 Summary & Analysis

The epigraph from Princess Irulan’s text “In My Father’s House” recounts Emperor Shaddam IV’s rage when he learns that Duke Leto Atreides has died an unfair and ignoble death at the hands of House Harkonnen. The Emperor blames many parties for the Duke’s death—Baron Harkonnen, the Guild, the Bene Gesserit order, even the Emperor’s own wife and daughter. Irulan attributes her father’s extreme and unreasonable reaction to Leto’s death not to care for the dead Duke, but to the Emperor’s fear for his own continued existence of privileged elitism.

Paul and Jessica are in the stilltent, hidden in the desert by Duncan Idaho. Paul is still furious at the circumstances that have led to his father Duke Leto’s death; he also continues to reveal his newfound cognitive and prophetic powers to his mother. His mind is working leaps and bounds ahead of Jessica as he tells her that the Fremen and their “desert power” are the key to defeating the Harkonnens. He also states that they must attack House Harkonnen by taking control of the spice. Jessica struggles to follow his lines of thought. She believes that her son must be the Kwisatz Haderach, but he dismisses this idea, stating that he is “something unexpected.”

Using his heightened mental awareness, Paul comes to terms with the fact that he is a result of the Bene Gesserit efforts to refresh the human gene pool. However, Paul sees that this will take the form of a religious war, with surviving Atreides soldiers and Fremen sweeping violently across the universe. Paul desires to prevent this crusade from happening.

Duncan Idaho does not return to the stilltent. A storm comes up and covers the stilltent in sand; later, when Paul has determined that if Idaho has been captured he will have by now given in to torture, Paul decides he and Jessica must leave their hiding spot. It is night outside when they dig themselves out of their sand cover. Jessica follows Paul “automatically” as he decides where to travel; she notes that “she now lived in her son’s orbit.” As they depart their camp, they can see Harkonnen ornithopters hunting for them with jetflares and lasguns lighting up the distant desert. As Paul steps away from their hidden site, the ominous shapes of ornithopters rise above directly above them in the night sky.