World War II

World War II, referred to simply as "the war" by the characters, is the cataclysmic event that created the alternate world of the novel. In this timeline, the Axis powers—Germany, Japan, and Italy—emerged victorious, leading to the partition of the United States into the Pacific States of America (PSA), controlled by Japan, and the Rocky Mountain States, a buffer zone, with the East Coast under German influence. The war's outcome is not merely a backdrop but the driving force behind the political, social, and personal dynamics that define the narrative.

The War's Outcome and Global Order

The war ended with the defeat of the Allies, a fact that is repeatedly referenced and shapes the characters' understanding of their world. The victory of the Axis is so complete that the United States is divided, with the PSA under Japanese occupation and the eastern states under German control. The war's end is marked by Capitulation Day in 1947, a date that Frank Frink remembers with bitterness, as it solidified the new world order. The war also led to the rise of the German Reich as a dominant global power, with its technological superiority in rocketry and plastics, and the establishment of the Co-Prosperity Pacific Alliance under Japanese leadership. The war's outcome is so ingrained that characters like Robert Childan reflect on how "we have had to suffer, to pay the cost" for the war, acknowledging the Axis victory as a necessary evil to stop "Slavic world inundation."

The War's Impact on Characters

The war's legacy is deeply personal for many characters. Frank Frink, a Jew, was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1941 after the collapse of Russia, and after the war ended, he found himself on the Japanese side of the settlement line. His wartime experiences and the subsequent occupation have left him with a sense of displacement and a fear of being sent back to Germany, where he would face extermination. Juliana Frink, his ex-wife, also bears the scars of the war, having lived on the West Coast under Japanese occupation, where she experienced "everything" at the hands of the Japanese, as she tells Miss Davis. The war also created a generation of Japanese who, like the young couple the Kasouras, do not remember the prewar world and represent a hope for a future where "place" differences might fade.

The War in Alternate Histories

The novel explores the war's potential outcomes through the fictional book The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, which presents an alternate history where the Allies won. This book, banned in German-controlled territories, imagines a world where Roosevelt was not assassinated, the U.S. fleet was not destroyed at Pearl Harbor, and the Allies eventually triumphed. The characters' reactions to this book reveal their own beliefs about the war. Wyndam-Matson dismisses it, arguing that Japan would have won anyway, while Rita, his companion, is captivated by the idea that the U.S. could have won. The book's existence within the novel serves as a counterfactual commentary on the war, suggesting that the Axis victory was not inevitable and that the world could have been vastly different.

The War's Enduring Consequences

The war's consequences extend beyond politics into the daily lives of the characters. The social hierarchy in the PSA is defined by the war's outcome, with Japanese as the ruling class and white Americans like Childan and Frink relegated to subordinate positions. The war also led to the implementation of the Nuremberg Law in the U.S., which stripped Jews of their rights and led to their persecution, as seen in the fry cook's angry outburst about Jewish refugees fleeing to the U.S. in 1949. The war's legacy is also evident in the technological and economic disparities between the German Reich and Japan, with Germany's advanced rocketry and plastics industry contrasting with Japan's slower development. The war's end did not bring peace but rather a tense Cold War-like standoff between the two Axis powers, with the threat of future conflict, such as Operation Dandelion, looming over the world.