Character Analysis
The Abendsens get the award for most mismatched names in terms of awesomeness-normalness. (From now on, all of our pets will be named Hawthorne, because why not?) Hawthorne Abendsen is the author of the alternate history, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy (see "Symbols" for more on that). So he's spent a lot of time trying to imagine a world where the Nazis lost.
Only, as we learn at the end, he only co-wrote the book. As his wife Caroline says to Juliana, Hawthorne used the I Ching to write Grasshopper, asking the oracle what he should do at every stage: "One by one Hawth made the choices. Thousands of them. By means of the lines. Historic period. Subject. Characters. Plot. It took years" (15.116). ("By means of the lines" refers to how the I Ching comes up with answers—see "Symbols" for info on that.) Did we say he "co-wrote" it? It seems more like he merely wrote down what was dictated to him by the I Ching—he's the secretary for the book's dictation. Or let's put it this way: he's the means for a certain message to get across. (So in that way, Hawthorne is sort of like Baynes. Hawthorne writes down a message that's not his, and Baynes carries a message that isn't his.)
What really makes Hawthorne and Caroline Abendsen stand out is their various and changing responses to Juliana. Hawthorne's first reaction might be bom-chikka-wah-wah, since Juliana is attractive. But as soon as she starts asking questions about the I Ching, Hawthorne tries to shut her down, saying that he doesn't know or use the I Ching. At his most weaseley, he responds to a yes-no question with, "That's—a hard question to answer" (15.85). It's Caroline Abendsen who finally tells Juliana the truth about how Hawthorne used the I Ching to write his book. In some ways, it seems like Caroline is on Juliana's side at the beginning. In fact, it is Caroline who tells Juliana to come to their house and invites her in (13.168, 15.63). Spot the difference: when they first meet, Caroline is all smiles, while Hawthorne is all weasel answers.
But that all changes once Juliana asks the I Ching why it wrote (or helped to write) the Grasshopper book, where the Allies won WWII. Hawthorne doesn't seem to believe the answer it gives at first, but he says that he's glad she came—and, oh yeah, he thanks her for killing that Nazi assassin that was coming for him (15.148, 150). When he says, "I'm not sorry to find this out" (15.148), it sounds like he's accepting the truth that Juliana has discovered. By contrast, Caroline is muy unhappy about this, calling Juliana "terribly, terribly disruptive" (15.149) and saying "I can't take it all in" (15.157). So they seem to have switched positions: Caroline used to be on Juliana's side, but now she's unhappy with her, whereas Hawthorne has worked through his disappointment (or confusion or hunger—whatever he's feeling) to reach some sort of acceptance of this.
Now, we don't get POV sections from either Hawthorne or Caroline, so we don't really know what they're thinking. But from his short section with them, one thing becomes very clear: neither of them is really like Juliana. Neither of them thinks to ask the question that Juliana asks, and neither of them seems as instantly at ease with that revelation. (Check our Juliana in our "Characters" section for one theory about why Juliana accepts this enlightenment so easily. For now, here's a short version: Caroline dislikes "disruptive" people because she's got a nice, stable life; Juliana is okay with disruption because her life is so unstable already.)
Like Ed and Frank, the Abendsens show us that someone can be a fabulous creator and still not quite understand the importance of one's creation. Writing a book is a special skill—but getting enlightenment from that book is a separate skill. Have you noticed this trend in this book that sometimes the creators and sellers aren't the best judges of their work? Hawthorne writes a book—but he doesn't really understand its meaning. Childan tries to gives away jewelry—but he doesn't really understand its meaning. Frank and Ed make jewelry—but, well, you get the point. It's almost as if Dick is saying, "I wrote this book, but maybe you'll get more out of it than I did…"
Is Hawthorne Abendsen standing in for Philip K. Dick?
This all brings us to a question: anytime a book has an author in it, someone will say "this character is a stand in for the author." Well, that seems somewhat right with PKD and Hawthorne Abendsen. Philip K. Dick did say that he used the I Ching to help plot Man in the High Castle, similar to how Hawthorne Abendsen uses it in writing Grasshopper Lies Heavy. And, we'll be honest, the episode that Hawthorne Abendsen has where he freaks out in an elevator (15.69)—that sounds like something that could've happened to Dick. So they certainly sound similar and many critics want to say there's some connection. But here's our question: how does it change your reading experience if we see Hawthorne Abendsen as a stand-in for Philip K. Dick? It's an open question, but here's some ideas:
Perhaps that connection emphasizes the idea we said above, that you—yes, you—have the ability to see the truth in The Man in the High Castle, even truth that PKD didn't put in there. (It's kind of like Dick is giving us license to find our own truth in this book… kind of.) Like the history that Abendsen writes isn't our history—it's "wrong" in that way—Dick's alternate history is "wrong." But maybe we readers can find the truth even in this wrongness.
For another possibility, perhaps the connection between Dick (a real person) and Abendsen (a fake person) makes it easier for the real readers to connect to the fake character in this book. Once we see that Dick has a version of himself in the book, we might look harder for versions of ourselves in this book. So we might identify more and put ourselves in their place. (It's almost like PKD could see into the future and knew we would write "Why Should I Care?" sections.)