The Man in the High Castle Chapter 15 Summary & Analysis

Chapter 15 Summary: Chapter 15

Baynes returns to Germany by way of a high-speed rocket ship. As he touches down on the runway, he considers his fate, concluding that he did the right thing by informing the Japanese about Project Dandelion. Baynes assumes he will now be killed. He is instead approached by a group of men who say they are with Heydrich, a Nazi who supports Baynes. They bring Baynes to a car, telling him they are taking him to a safe place. Baynes wonders whether this is true, or if they are double agents. Whatever the outcome, Baynes is satisfied he did his duty to help protect the planet from being destroyed by the Germans.

Back in Cheyenne, Juliana sees a news report about Joe’s death. The report names Mrs. Cinnadella as the suspect, making Juliana realize she’ll never be connected to the murder and caught. She drives to the Abendsens’ home, where she is surprised to find not a fortified castle, as she was told, but rather a modest home where the Abendsens are hosting guests. Juliana forcefully interrupts the party pressing Abendsen to tell her why he wrote the book. She says he owes her an answer since she just saved him from a German assassin. Abendsen replies there hasn’t been a Gestapo since 1947. Juliana continues until Mrs. Abendsen intervenes, answering that her husband wrote the book by consulting the I Ching—it determined the plot, the characters, and other features of the book. Juliana then consults Abendsen’s I Ching on the spot, asking it why it wrote the book. The answer comes up, “Inner Truth,” which pleases her. Juliana excuses herself from the party, leaving the Abendsens in confusion.

Analysis: Chapter 15

Chapter 15 deals with one final matter of the book: Just who wrote The Grasshopper Lies Heavy and how and why did they write it? This is mainly Juliana’s question, but it is also the reader’s. After all, the title of Dick’s novel refers to Abendsen, indicating that he’s a character of great significance. Readers may wonder who the “man in the castle” is and what might he know from living in his fortified structure? Might he know something about the themes woven throughout Dick’s novel, themes touching upon truth, authenticity, history, and reality?

When Juliana arrives at the Abendsens, she discovers that even Abendsen is not what he seems. He lives in a regular home and is far from being alone locked away in a castle. In fact, he’s hosting a dinner party. When Juliana asks him why he wrote the book, he’s evasive. It’s his wife who has to answer that he wrote the book through the I Ching. The I Ching, then, is the real author.

The title of Abendsen’s book is a biblical allusion to Ecclesiastes 12:5: “Be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about in the streets.” The passage warns of making use of one’s youth, when one is full of desires, energy, and ability, for when age comes, one is like a grasshopper dragging itself along the streets, hopeless and without desire. The passage suggests that man cannot bear the burdens of life for long, and this is certainly the case in many of the characters’ lives in the novel. Juliana checks out of her marriage and heads for the Rocky Mountain States looking for a better life. Her ex-husband Frank Frink checks out of his job and tries to start a business on his own. Childan can barely stand the burdens of being pushed into the lower classes after Japan took over the Pacific States. Tagomi collapses under the pressure of seeing evil for what it is.

Even though Abendsen’s book is not straight fact, it does tell of a form of truth that might not be revealed to the characters any other way, whether they realize it or not. Reiss himself wonders how Abendsen made the events in The Grasshopper Lies Heavy seem so real. Even though Reiss isn’t sure, the book has incensed him, even to the point of considering murder, proving that there’s something about the truth in the book that provokes him. Juliana is driven so mad by the novel that she seeks out the author in his home to find out why he wrote it, showing her intense desire to know the truth. Childan, true to form, counts himself lucky that the book is not true, and that he lives in a Reich-dominated world of order. Order and structure are what Childan wants most, and what he feels he’s most missing is a firm place at the top of that structure. In this way, Abendsen’s novel does reveal some form of truth in that it shows the truth of all who read or hear about it. The book reveals their inner desires, blind spots, and needs.