47 pages • 1 hour read
The Man In The High Castle
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Themes
Subjective History
The Man in the High Castle portrays a conflict between the objective and the subjective. Characters want to believe that they live in an objective reality, where history is established and unquestionable. They want to believe that the world around them is unchangeable and permanent. However, they gradually begin to discover that objective reality is an illusion. Rather, reality is constructed from an infinite number of competing subjective realities and the characters are forced to assemble some sort of cohesive authenticity from everything they encounter.
Childan's store is an example of the subjective nature of existence. To Childan and his customers, the items he sells are glimpses into an authentic version of the American past. However, this supposedly objective version of history—one assembled through tangible artifacts—is based on a lie. Not only is the version of American history incomplete, having passed through Childan's curation to suit the tastes of his customers, but it is also achieved using fake antiques. The objects that supposedly establish the existence of a single, objective version of American history are made in a factory by men like Frank Frink. Frank is another example of the subjective nature of reality. He is a man who is employed to subvert reality, whose skill lies in tricking people into believing that reality is objective rather than subjective. At the same time, he is forced to hide his Jewish identity from the world. He changes his name and lies about his past to create a false and subjective version of history that most people accept as reality. As Wyndam-Matson argues, authenticity and objectivity only matter in so far as they can be proved, but even the proof can be faked.
The Grasshopper Lies Heavy is central to the theme of subjective history. The novel portrays a world in which Japan and Germany lost World War II. The narrative of the novel, then, is a subjective interpretation of a supposedly objective historical fact. Juliana reads the book and finds more real than anything in her own reality. Like Tagomi briefly glimpsing an alternate reality, Juliana's experience with the novel suggests to her that two versions of history can be true at once. The objective reality is not real. Instead, the characters work on an individual level to assemble a subjective reality from the facts they have available. The Grasshopper Lies Heavy was written by consulting the I Ching, which allowed Abendsen to glimpse another reality through a mystic art. He provides the world with a competing narrative about existence, in the same way that Childan selling fake objects as real allows his Japanese characters to create their own interpretation of the American past. Reality itself is a subjective experience in the novel. This idea terrifies Togami, who suffers from a heart attack after his experiences. At the same time, Juliana takes comfort in the idea that the world could be another way.
Agency and Fate
Characters in The Man in the High Castle try to change the world. Joe wants to murder Abendsen; Baynes wants to stop Operation Dandelion; and Tagomi wants to shorten the technological gap between Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany. They believe they have agency over the world around them because they believe they can change the course of history and alter the fate of mankind. While these characters believe in the power of their own agency, others do not. Juliana consults the I Ching before, during, and after every major event in her life, for example, as does her former husband, Frank. Abendsen confesses that his entire novel was written by consulting the I Ching. Even Tagomi, who sets a meeting with Baynes to change the world, turns to the I Ching for guidance on this matter. These characters feel caught in the unstoppable tide of history and believe that some mystical outside force (such as the I Ching) has more control over their destiny than they do as individuals. Tagomi embodies this conflict in the novel as he believes in both ideas at once.
The ideologies of Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany are both totalitarian, violent, and imperial. Both countries believe that they are fated to control the world due to some inherent strength, and they believe that they are naturally empowered; the idea of fate only makes sense in the fascist or imperialist ideology when it dictates the government's right to rule over others. In this sense, these ideologies blend agency and fate. The countries see themselves as vital agents on the world historical stage but also believe that they are destined—through genetics, culture, or military strength—to be in such a position. Like Tagomi, the ideologies subscribe to the idea that they are active administrators of their own destiny yet passive champions of fate at the same time. These countries believe in fate because it imbues them with a natural mandate for power and violence. Nazi Germany sees itself as the protagonist of history and the most important country to have ever existed. As a result, the country's behavior is excused because it is part of the same essential, inevitable unfolding of history that raises the strongest country (in their worldview) to the pinnacle of power. The ideologies of the ruling countries need to blend the ideas of fate and agency to excuse their terrible actions while justifying their position of dominance in the world and validating their power to alter history.
Baynes knows that he might not stop Operation Dandelion (and the resulting deaths of billions of people), but he decides that he has no other choice. Operation Dandelion, he concludes, might be fated to happen. As an individual with agency, he has the power to make a choice. He chose to betray his country and to pass along top-secret information to the Japanese. To surrender to fate, Baynes believes, would be a cowardly and immoral action. Baynes decides that history is not authored by fate or the agency of individuals. Instead, history and reality are shaped by thousands, millions, and billions of choices and decisions made by subjective individuals. These individuals' choices mold the course of history and dictate the shape of the world as it is experienced by others. Baynes had no choice other than to act, he decides, as this is the small part he can play in reshaping the world and asserting his agency over fate and destiny. Rather than single individuals bending fate to their will through a powerful demonstration of agency, Baynes decides that reality is the result of an untold number of individual choices colliding together at once to produce an infinite number of realities. Neither fate nor agency triumph.
Morality and Forgiveness
Complex moral decisions are a key theme in The Man in the High Castle. Both Tagomi and Juliana are forced to kill people to save themselves and others, while characters like Baynes must decide whether he can betray his country (and potentially sacrifice his life) to possibly save millions of others. The context of these moral decisions is important, as they are made in societies in which morality is perpetually undermined by the actions of the state. The Nazi regime has murdered billions while Imperial Japan has committed its own genocides and governs over a highly racially-segregated state. Baynes is not betraying an immoral state to save a moral state. Instead, he is weighing up the potential immoralities of each and selecting the least offensive. The difficulty of making moral choices in this context depends on forgiveness. The characters must forgive themselves or the state in which they live, otherwise their decisions are undermined or doomed to fail. Their different reactions to their moral choices illustrate the complexity of the issue of forgiveness.
Tagomi and Juliana are the most comparable as their actions are similar. Both kill other people in the name of the greater good. Tagomi kills two Nazi police officers to save Baynes and Tedeki, thereby potentially stopping Operation Dandelion. Juliana kills Joe when she discovers that he is an undercover Nazi assassin sent to kill Abendsen. Both characters kill to save themselves and others. Tagomi cannot forgive himself, however, while Juliana immediately does so. Juliana leaves Joe in the hotel room to die and, once she realizes that she will not be caught, does not reflect on her behavior. She quickly forgives herself because she is working toward a more important goal by visiting Abendsen and asking about the book. She justifies her behavior not just because she saved one author but because doing so allowed her to learn about the nature of reality. For Tagomi, not even the prospect of saving billions of people is enough. He knows that he cannot forgive himself and acknowledges to Reiss that forgiveness cannot be sought from anyone but the dead men. Tagomi's morality is based on Buddhism, Baynes learns, in which every life is sacred. Tagomi and Juliana’s contrasting reactions to murder illustrate the complex interplay between morality and forgiveness. To Juliana, the issue is practical. To Tagomi, the issue is existential.
To Baynes, forgiveness and morality are ultimately irrelevant. He might forgive himself, but he knows that his state will not forgive him. When he returns to Germany, he makes his peace with the prospect of being executed as a traitor. However, he is met at the airport by men who claim to represent Heydrich. If so, Heydrich might forgive Baynes and his mission will be deemed both moral and successful. To Baynes, the morality of his actions is not judged by him. He is at the whim of the changing fortunes of the state and whoever happens to be in power at the moment of his capture. Baynes learns that morality and forgiveness are fluid at an institutional level. According to the German state, he can be both immoral and moral; he can be forgiven and not forgiven. Baynes's fate suggests that the pursuit of morality and the necessity of forgiveness cannot be dependent on the state or other institutions, as these are as temporary and as unpredictable as anything else. There is no objective morality, he learns, only the subjective experience of it.
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