The Man in the High Castle: Full Book Analysis

Each of the characters in Dick’s novel The Man in the High Castle is trying to realize their own dream and ambition. Childan wants to gain respect from his Japanese occupiers; Tagomi wants to impress his European clients and gain intelligence on the Germans; Frank Frink wants to get out of his factory job and into something better; Juliana Frink wants more excitement in her life; and Baynes wants to save the world from annihilation by the Germans. Their micro-plotlines are cast against the larger, macro-plotline in which Germany and Japan are not friendly co-world powers but vying for each other’s collapse. These plotlines are interwoven in a massive display of cause-and-effect as it flows between the lives of the characters and world events, showing how all lives are truly interconnected.

Dick’s novel is an alternate history that imagines what the world would be like had the Axis powers won World War II. His work, ostensibly, is a work of science fiction, but it does much more—it explores the very nature of cause and effect itself, which is the foundation of science fiction’s explorations into alternative worlds that asks “if-then” questions. Dick makes this especially apparent with his use of the I Ching, which features in many of the characters’ lives. Many of them consult the ancient divination device to learn about future outcomes and hedge their bets against disaster. The use of the device calls into question the idea of fate and free will, asking how much of life is predetermined and how much is in a person’s control?

Frank Frink’s small attempts to start his jewelry company initially fail, likely because it’s his fate to suffer some degree of failure after black-mailing Wyndam-Matson for the start-up money. Juliana learns she has inadvertently walked into a dangerous trap with Joe Cinnadella, who is out to use her to help kill the controversial author Abendsen. Childan, in his attempt to satisfy his sensual desires by seducing Betty and gaining some connection to upper-class Japanese society, is challenged to rise above them. Baynes alerts the Germans of his whereabouts in a moment of weakness because he’s losing faith that General Tedeki will come. They all initially fail in their attempts to fulfill their dreams by enacting some level of free will and trying to move ahead with their personal goals.

Yet their fates lead them to something much higher. Frink is fired and his new business opens up a new form of contemporary American art that is infused with spiritual energy and hope. Childan, who has been looking for respect among his Japanese occupiers, defies them completely and opens up the way towards a new American heritage by preserving Frink’s pieces and saving them from mass-production and diluting their value. Juliana saves the truth by saving Abendsen from being assassinated by Joe Cinnadella, a German assassin. Baynes succeeds in his mission to save the world from annihilation by gaining his meeting with General Tedeki by way of Tagomi. These characters’ small, personal ambitions inadvertently lead them to their larger fates in effecting changes on a large, world scale. Dick shows how even though one’s free will might lead them to a dead-end, it’s setting them up for fate’s larger plan.

Tagomi himself is a key player in that he’s the character who is truly in tune with the forces of the world. He, arguably, effects the most change, which he doesn’t achieve by forcefully exerting his free will, but by knowing when to balance action and stillness. Tagomi is the character who can see the true extent of the Germans’ evil and rise above the lull of the opinion of his times, prompting him to kill Baynes’ assassins when they arrive. When Tagomi is transported to another dimension by way of Frink’s jewelry, which possesses the equilibrium achieved in the balance of yin and yang energies, Tagomi’s able to see that he is only a mask and reality remains protected. He knows he must return to his present reality and continue his work. Tagomi is the one character who serves as a sort of portal through which Japan is saved, a new American art form is brought into the world, and reality remains safely hidden.

The novel’s conclusion answers Juliana’s question about the truth about Abendsen’s novel, and Dick’s novel as well. What is the true history of events in the world and does it matter? Juliana gets her answer about Abendsen’s novel when she learns that it was written by the I Ching to express “Inner Truth.” Like Tagomi, Juliana has learned that the truth of reality remains hidden in an inner place, beyond the shifting images of reality the world presents in books, propaganda, and daily events.

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