Pearl Harbor

Pearl Harbor stands as the foundational catastrophe of the alternate history depicted in The Man in the High Castle. It is the single decisive event that, in this world, allowed the Axis powers to win World War II, leading to the Japanese occupation of the Pacific States of America and the Nazi domination of Europe and Africa. The attack is not merely a past occurrence but a living reference point that shapes the political reality, cultural anxieties, and personal identities of the characters living under Axis rule fifteen years later.

The Attack as Historical Turning Point

In the world of the novel, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor succeeded in destroying the U.S. Pacific Fleet. This is established through the counterfactual discussions of the book-within-the-book, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, where the fictional President Rexford Tugwell, in a world where Franklin D. Roosevelt survived the assassination attempt in Miami, is so prescient that he has all the ships out to sea. Consequently, the U.S. fleet is not destroyed, and the attack yields only "some little boats." This contrast makes clear that in the novel's actual history, the fleet was caught in harbor and annihilated, a blow from which the United States never recovered. The destruction of the fleet is the hinge on which the entire Axis victory turns, as it allowed Japan to take the Philippines and Australia and to assume dominance in the Pacific.

The attack's success is also implicitly contrasted with the German war effort. While the Japanese achieved their decisive blow at Pearl Harbor, the Germans, despite their later technological triumphs, are depicted as having "missed out" in the colonial race during the quaint old history-book days. The Japanese victory at Pearl Harbor, therefore, is what elevated them to the status of a co-equal Axis power, a fact that still resonates in the novel's present, where Japan and Germany are locked in a tense, competitive alliance.

The Counterfactual: Pearl Harbor's Absence

The most significant treatment of Pearl Harbor in the novel is its absence in The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, the banned novel by Hawthorne Abendsen. In this alternate history within the alternate history, President Tugwell's foresight prevents the destruction of the fleet. This single change cascades through the entire war: the U.S. fleet keeps Japan from taking the Philippines and Australia, and the war's outcome is reversed. The novel's characters debate this counterfactual with intense emotion. Rita, a young woman, explains to Wyndam-Matson that in Abendsen's book, "there really isn't any Pearl Harbor. They attack, but all they get is some little boats." This detail is the crux of the entire counterfactual premise, illustrating how a single historical event, or its prevention, can alter the fate of the world.

The debate over this counterfactual reveals the deep-seated anxieties and beliefs of the characters. Wyndam-Matson dismisses the idea, insisting that "Japan would have won anyhow. Even if there had been no Pearl Harbor," because their fleet was superior and it was their destiny to dominate the Pacific. His view reflects the propaganda of the victorious Axis, which frames the war's outcome as inevitable. In contrast, Rita's passionate retelling of Abendsen's book suggests a lingering hope that the world could have been different, a hope that is dangerous and forbidden in the Axis-dominated present.

Pearl Harbor as a Symbol of Lost American Glory

For Robert Childan, a white American living under Japanese occupation, Pearl Harbor is a painful symbol of his nation's defeat and his own diminished status. His memories of the prewar days, of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the World's Fair, represent a "former better world" that was shattered by the attack. The success of Pearl Harbor is the reason he must bow to Japanese customers, endure the deliberate mispronunciation of his name by Mr. Tagomi, and feel the "dreadful mortification of their situation." The attack is the root cause of the "place" hierarchy that demeans him, a constant reminder that his country lost the war and he has lost his standing.

This sense of loss is compounded by the cultural appropriation he witnesses. At the Kasouras' dinner party, he observes the Japanese couple using American silver, English bone china, and listening to Negro jazz, and he thinks bitterly of the "loot piled up by the conquerors. Pillage from my people." Pearl Harbor is the moment that made this pillage possible, and it fuels his resentment and his desperate, ultimately failed, attempt to assert his own cultural superiority. His internal monologue, in which he imagines how "it would have been had we won! Would have crushed them out of existence," is a direct fantasy of reversing the outcome of Pearl Harbor.

The Enduring Shadow of the Attack

The memory of Pearl Harbor also shapes the geopolitical landscape of the novel's present. The attack is the reason the Pacific States of America exist as a Japanese puppet state, and why the United States, reduced to the Rocky Mountain States, is a weak and marginalized nation. The success of the attack is also implicitly linked to the German Reich's later atrocities, as the Axis victory it enabled allowed the Nazis to pursue their genocidal policies in Africa and their plans for space colonization. The novel's characters live in the long shadow of this single event, their lives constrained by a history that could have been otherwise. The attack on Pearl Harbor, in its success, is the original sin of this alternate world, the moment that set the stage for the tyranny, oppression, and moral decay that permeate the novel.