Juliana Frink

Character Analysis

We like to picture Juliana Frink as Zooey Deschanel, but with a razor blade that she can use to kill. It's not because we think she looks like Zooey (yeah, we're on a first-name basis), but because she gets treated by male characters a little bit like Zooey gets treated in some movies. It's real easy to imagine Juliana like a manic pixie dream girl, that character who comes in and shakes up people's lives with her quirkiness. But we don't think that's all she is.

Manic Pixie Judo Girl

We hear of her first as "Frank Frink"'s ex-wife, and he has a very clear picture of her in his mind: she is very attractive, with her "Mona Lisa smile," and she has a "I'm-on-a-mysterious-errand way of coming and going" (1.76) that Frank ultimately finds annoying. And yet, he's still interested in her, and even plans to send her some of the Edfrank jewelry to get her attention (9.30). When Juliana picks up with "Joe Cinnadella," Joe gives his own interpretation of her, which is that she's "scared of men" (6.131) and has "Worry, fear and suspicion, about me and everything else in the world" (9.67). And yet, even with that, Cinnadella has plans to spend more time with her, even proposing a road trip with a healthy side of clothes shopping.

So we hear a lot about Juliana from men, who seem to find her beautiful but a little crazy-damaged-annoying. If that's all we knew about her, we might roll our eyes—all at the same time—about this trope. But Dick doesn't seem to be aware of Zooey Deschanel (who was two when he died) and he ruins this trope by showing us what Juliana thinks and wants. She's not just here to fix Frank and be used by Joe—she has her own feelings.

Her Own Feelings Are… What?

Well, her feelings are complicated. When Joe proposes a road trip, here's what she feels: "She nodded, cheered a bit. But she still felt cold and sad, and she still did not know quite why" (6.136). She's got a lot of mixed feelings like this. For instance, Joe kind of scares her at times, but she still agrees to go on with him for some reason: "You petrify me, she thought, with your hatred of life. But—you have something" (6.81). Because of the "POV," we get to see Juliana's thoughts and feelings, but those thoughts and feelings aren't always clear.

(Here's a question we wrestle with: Do all these mixed feelings make her feel more real and human? Or does it make her seem like a less developed character?)

All of these mixed feelings come to a climax when she confronts the truth about Joe Cinnadella and his plans to kill Hawthorne Abendsen. Frank Frink might think that Juliana is dumb (1.76), but she puts together all the facts pretty quickly once Joe starts acting extra-special menacing. Like Frank and Tagomi, Juliana realizes that she's caught up in something larger than her: "I'm in something I don't understand" (13.45).

So, she may have a mental breakdown here—getting into the shower with her clothes and getting out a razor to kill herself (13.88-9)—but she still manages to save Abendsen. Even with her conflicting feelings and the men in her life might treating her as just a pretty face, Juliana does her own little bit to fight the Nazis—just like Tagomi saving Baynes.

The Most Enlightened Character?

This brings us to another similarity between Juliana and Tagomi: they're the only two (POV) characters who experience some sort of enlightenment about the fact that there are other timelines out there. Remember, Tagomi falls into our world (or a world like ours, where the Nazis lost) because he meditated on some Edfrank jewelry—and it freaks him out. By contrast, Juliana is cool as a cucumber or possibly even cooler.

We could also compare her reaction to the Abendsens' to show how cool she is. Hawthorne gets angry at first and says he isn't sure about this revelation about his book, while Juliana's response is, "Believe" (15.143). And Caroline wishes that Juliana hadn't come because this revelation is so disruptive, whereas Juliana thinks "I'm lucky" to get the truth (15.158). So, not only does Juliana learn "the truth" about her world, she accepts it.

Here's a paper topic for you (because we can't entirely answer the question): everyone else freaks out about this enlightenment, so why is Juliana so cool with the idea that there's another, truer world out there? It's not because she's white or a woman, since both Hawthorne and Caroline freak out. It's not because she knows the I Ching so well, since Tagomi and Hawthorne freak out. What makes Juliana different?

Like we said, we're not entirely sure, so send us your papers on this topic. But here's one thought: of all those people who get a glimpse of that truth, Juliana is the most used to being powerless. Compare: Tagomi is an important official, Hawthorne is a famous author, Caroline is his wife—all of these people have some power and stability in the world. And Juliana, she's got no firm ties to any person or place or job. At the end, when she's looking through her jewelry, she notes, "So much had gone wrong; so little remained anyhow of the wonderful plans" (15.47). Juliana has so little power or stability in her life, so when she learns that her world is untrue (whatever that means), she hasn't lost much. That's one theory for why she's okay with this enlightenment. What's yours?