I Ching
The I Ching, or Book of Changes, is the ancient Chinese divination text that permeates Philip K. Dick's novel as both a narrative device and a philosophical touchstone. It is not merely a prop but a living presence, consulted by characters across the Pacific States of America as they navigate a world where the Axis powers won World War II. The novel's epigraph acknowledges the Richard Wilhelm translation rendered into English by Cary F. Baynes, grounding the text in a specific scholarly tradition. For the characters, the I Ching is a source of guidance, a mirror of the Moment, and a means of interpreting the chaotic interplay of chance and destiny that defines their lives. Its hexagrams, lines, and judgments recur throughout the narrative, shaping decisions, revealing hidden truths, and ultimately offering a glimpse of an alternative reality where the war's outcome was reversed.
The Oracle as a Character's Tool
For Frank Frink, the I Ching is a personal oracle, consulted at moments of crisis. After being fired from W-M Corporation, he uses the yarrow stalks to ask, "How should I approach Wyndam-Matson in order to come to decent terms with him?" The resulting hexagram, Ch'ien (Modesty), advises humility, but Frink is disappointed, finding it "fatuous" and "too goody-goody." Later, when Ed McCarthy proposes they start a jewelry business, Frink consults the oracle again, throwing coins in the W-M Corporation lounge. He obtains Hexagram Eleven, T'ai (Peace), with the judgment "The small departs. The great approaches. Good fortune. Success." However, the moving line at the top, "The wall falls back into the moat. Use no army now. Make your commands known within your own town. Perseverance brings humiliation," fills him with dread, suggesting a future catastrophe. Frink interprets this as a warning of a Third World War, a fate that will "poleax us eventually anyhow," but he resolves to continue working, using his mind and hands until the end. The oracle's dual message of good fortune and doom encapsulates the novel's sense of precariousness.
Nobusuke Tagomi, the ranking Trade Mission official, also relies on the I Ching. He consults it before meeting Mr. Baynes, obtaining Hexagram Sheng (Pushing Upward) with the line "If one is sincere, It furthers one to bring even a small offering. No blame." This reassures him that the meeting will be successful, but it also hints at a deeper, subliminal query about Baynes's true nature. Tagomi's use of the oracle is more formal and ritualistic than Frink's; he even dictates his consultations to Miss Ephreikian's tape recorder, preserving them for posterity. After the traumatic shooting of the SD men in his office, Tagomi turns to the oracle for solace, but finds only the hexagram Inner Truth (Chung Fu), which he interprets as a sign that he will never fully understand the evil he has witnessed. His final consultation, on the morning he learns of Mr. Yatabe's arrival, yields Hexagram Fifty-one, The Arousing (Chen), with its thunderous imagery of "God appears in the sign of the Arousing." This foreshadows the shock of the SD raid and the violence that follows.
The Oracle and the Novel's Structure
The I Ching is not only a tool for characters but also a structural principle for the novel itself. The narrative is divided into fifteen chapters, each corresponding to a hexagram, though this correspondence is implicit rather than explicit. The novel's title, The Man in the High Castle, is itself a reference to the I Ching's hexagram 33, "Retreat," which is often associated with the image of a mountain and a castle. More directly, the oracle is used to generate the plot of the novel-within-a-novel, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy. Hawthorne Abendsen, the author, reveals that he used the I Ching to make "thousands" of choices about the book's historic period, subject, characters, and plot, asking the oracle "what sort of success it would be" and being told it would be "a very great success." This revelation, made to Juliana Frink during her visit, suggests that the alternate history of the Allies winning the war is not a product of human imagination but a divinely inspired truth, revealed through the oracle. Juliana's own consultation of the I Ching, after killing Joe Cinnadella, leads her to Hexagram Forty-two, Increase, with moving lines that instruct her to "report with a seal to the prince," which she interprets as a command to warn Abendsen. The oracle thus becomes a conduit for a higher reality, one that transcends the novel's dystopian present.
The Oracle and the Theme of Historicity
The I Ching also engages with the novel's central theme of historicity—the idea that objects and events derive their value from their connection to the past. Wyndam-Matson, the factory owner who profits from forging historical artifacts, dismisses historicity as a "mass delusion," arguing that "a gun goes through a famous battle... and it's the same as if it hadn't, unless you know. It's in here." He taps his head. The I Ching, by contrast, offers a different kind of authenticity. It is a five-thousand-year-old book, "created by the sages of China over a period of five thousand years," and its wisdom is timeless. When Frink consults it, he feels connected to "all other lives and particles in the universe," including the "billion chemical heaps in Africa" and the "mad creatures in Berlin." The oracle thus provides a sense of meaning that transcends the artificial historicity of the collectors' market. Paul Kasoura, the Japanese businessman who appreciates the Edfrank jewelry, articulates this distinction when he says that the silver pin has "wu," a Chinese concept meaning "wisdom" or "comprehension," which is "authentically a new thing on the face of the world." Unlike the forged Colt .44, which pretends to have history, the pin has no historicity but possesses an ethereal value that comes from the artificer's hands. The I Ching, like the pin, is a living text that connects its users to the Tao, the underlying order of the universe.
The Oracle as a Source of Hope and Despair
The I Ching offers both hope and despair to its users. For Frink, it provides a sense of purpose even in the face of doom. After receiving the ominous line about the wall falling back into the moat, he decides to "go on despite the horrible line," working and creating "right up to the end." For Tagomi, however, the oracle fails to provide comfort. After the shooting, he feels that "there is no answer. No understanding. Even in the oracle." He wanders through San Francisco, experiencing a kind of existential crisis, and eventually buys a silver triangle from Robert Childan, hoping it will "calm" him. He sits in Portsmouth Square, trying to extract meaning from the object, but it remains "empty." Yet, in a moment of insight, he sees the triangle as a symbol of the union of yin and yang, "body of yin, soul of yang," and feels a "renewal of hope." The oracle, like the triangle, is a tool for meditation, but its meaning depends on the user's state of mind. In the end, the I Ching remains an enigma, a "five-thousand-year-old book" that offers guidance but no certainty, reflecting the novel's own ambivalence about the possibility of understanding a world ruled by irrational forces.
