The Man in the High Castle

by

Philip K. Dick

Mr. Baynes/Rudolf Wegener Character Analysis

Rudolf Wegener is a member of the German dissident Abwehr faction, which hopes to slow Nazi world takeover by preventing Operation Dandelion from occurring. Wegener is secretly Jewish, and this informs some of his anti-Nazi sentiment. At the same time, he resents that the Nazis want to be “the agents, not the victims, of history.” By contrast, Wegener is conscious of his own smallness in the grand scheme of the world, and he even takes comfort in this fact. For much of the novel, while he waits to meet with Tagomi and General Tedeki, Wegener travels under the assumed identity of Mr. Baynes, a Swiss plastics salesman. It is interesting that plastics is the profession Wegener uses to hide his true identity. On the one hand, plastics are an industry in which the Germans have far outpaced the Japanese in invention and production; on the other hand, plastics often signal falsity or meaninglessness in the novel. By making his alias work in plastics, then, Wegener is giving a signal that “Baynes” is a malleable, fabricated character, and not his true identity.

Mr. Baynes/Rudolf Wegener Quotes in The Man in the High Castle

The The Man in the High Castle quotes below are all either spoken by Mr. Baynes/Rudolf Wegener or refer to Mr. Baynes/Rudolf Wegener. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Prejudice and Power Theme Icon
).
Chapter 2  Quotes

The cipher was the metaphor type, utilizing poetic allusion, which had been adopted to baffle the Reich monitors—who could crack any literal code, no matter how elaborate. So clearly it was the Reich whom the Tokyo authorities had in mind, not quasi-disloyal cliques in the Home Islands. The key phrase, “Skim milk in his diet” referred to Pinafore, to the eerie song that expounded the doctrine, “. . . Things are seldom what they seem—Skim milk masquerades as cream.”

Related Characters: Nobusuke Tagomi (speaker), Robert Childan, Mr. Baynes/Rudolf Wegener
Related Symbols: Colt .44
Page Number: 20
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3  Quotes

Their view; it is cosmic. Not of a man here, a child there, but an abstraction: race, land. Volk. Land. Blut. Ehre. Not of honorable men but of Ehre itself, honor; the abstract is real, the actual is invisible to them. Die Gute, but not good men, this good man. It is their sense of space and time. They see through the here, the now, into the vast black deep beyond, the unchanging. And that is fatal to life […] What they do not comprehend is man’s helplessness. I am weak, small, of no consequence to the universe. It does not notice me; I live on unseen.

Related Characters: Mr. Baynes/Rudolf Wegener (speaker), Alex Lotze
Related Symbols: TV and Rockets
Page Number: 42
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4 Quotes

Oy gewalt! he thought. What’s happening? Did I start it in motion? Or is someone else tinkering someone I don’t even know? Or - the whole lot of us. It’s the fault of those physicists and that synchronicity theory every particle being connected with every other; you can’t fart without changing the balance in the universe […] I should take my tools, get my motors from McCarthy, open my shop, start my piddling business, go on despite the horrible line. Be working, creating in my own way right up to the end, living as best I can, as actively as possible […] I’m too small, he thought, I can only read what’s written, glance up and then lower my head and plod along where I left off.

Related Characters: Frank Frink (speaker), Mr. Baynes/Rudolf Wegener, Ed McCarthy
Page Number: 52
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10 Quotes

But he had to remain where he was, in San Francisco. Still trying to arrange the meeting for which he had come. Forty-five minutes by Lufthansa rocket from Berlin, and now this. A weird time in which we are alive. We can travel anywhere we want, even to other planets. And for what? To sit day after day, declining in morale and hope.

Related Characters: Mr. Baynes/Rudolf Wegener (speaker), Mr. Yatabe/General Tedeki
Related Symbols: TV and Rockets
Page Number: 158
Explanation and Analysis:

Listen, I’m not an intellectual—Fascism has no need of that. What is wanted is the deed. Theory derives from action. What our corporate state demands from us is comprehension of the social forces—of history. You see? I tell you; I know, Juliana.

Related Characters: Joe Cinnadella (speaker), Juliana Frink, Frank Frink , Mr. Baynes/Rudolf Wegener
Page Number: 170
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12 Quotes

Evil, Mr. Tagomi thought. Yes, it is. Are we to assist it in gaining power, in order to save our lives? Is that the paradox of our earthly situation? I cannot face this dilemma, Mr. Tagomi said to himself. That man should have to act in such moral ambiguity. There is no Way in this; all is muddled. All chaos of light and dark, shadow and substance.

Related Characters: Nobusuke Tagomi (speaker), Robert Childan, Mr. Baynes/Rudolf Wegener, Mr. Yatabe/General Tedeki, R. Heydrich
Page Number: 200
Explanation and Analysis:

Nevertheless, Mr. Baynes thought, the crucial point lies not in the present, not in either my death or the death of the two SD men; it lies—hypothetically—in the future. What has happened here is justified, or not justified, by what happens later. Can we perhaps save the lives of millions, all Japan in fact?

But the man manipulating the vegetable stalks could not think of that; the present, the actuality, was too tangible, the dead and dying Germans on the floor of his office.

Related Characters: Mr. Baynes/Rudolf Wegener (speaker), Nobusuke Tagomi
Page Number: 213
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

Mr. Nobusuke Tagomi thought, There is no answer. No understanding. Even in the oracle. Yet I must go on living day to day anyhow.

I will go and find the small. Live unseen, at any rate. Until some later time when—

Related Characters: Nobusuke Tagomi (speaker), Mr. Baynes/Rudolf Wegener
Page Number: 234
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15 Quotes

And what will that leave, that Third World Insanity? Will that put an end to all life, of every kind, everywhere? When our planet becomes a dead planet, by our own hands?

[Baynes] could not believe that. Even if all life on our planet is destroyed, there must be other life somewhere which we know nothing of. It is impossible that ours is the only world; there must be world after world unseen by us, in some region or dimension that we simply do not perceive.

Related Characters: Mr. Baynes/Rudolf Wegener (speaker), Nobusuke Tagomi
Page Number: 258
Explanation and Analysis:

We can only control the end by making a choice at each step.

[Baynes] thought, We can only hope. And try.

On some other world, possibly it is different. Better. There are clear good and evil alternatives. Not these obscure admixtures, these blends, with no proper tool by which to untangle the components.

We do not have the ideal world, such as we would like, where morality is easy because cognition is easy. Where one can do right with no effort because he can detect the obvious.

Related Characters: Mr. Baynes/Rudolf Wegener (speaker), R. Heydrich
Page Number: 260
Explanation and Analysis:
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Mr. Baynes/Rudolf Wegener Quotes in The Man in the High Castle

The The Man in the High Castle quotes below are all either spoken by Mr. Baynes/Rudolf Wegener or refer to Mr. Baynes/Rudolf Wegener. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Prejudice and Power Theme Icon
).
Chapter 2  Quotes

The cipher was the metaphor type, utilizing poetic allusion, which had been adopted to baffle the Reich monitors—who could crack any literal code, no matter how elaborate. So clearly it was the Reich whom the Tokyo authorities had in mind, not quasi-disloyal cliques in the Home Islands. The key phrase, “Skim milk in his diet” referred to Pinafore, to the eerie song that expounded the doctrine, “. . . Things are seldom what they seem—Skim milk masquerades as cream.”

Related Characters: Nobusuke Tagomi (speaker), Robert Childan, Mr. Baynes/Rudolf Wegener
Related Symbols: Colt .44
Page Number: 20
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3  Quotes

Their view; it is cosmic. Not of a man here, a child there, but an abstraction: race, land. Volk. Land. Blut. Ehre. Not of honorable men but of Ehre itself, honor; the abstract is real, the actual is invisible to them. Die Gute, but not good men, this good man. It is their sense of space and time. They see through the here, the now, into the vast black deep beyond, the unchanging. And that is fatal to life […] What they do not comprehend is man’s helplessness. I am weak, small, of no consequence to the universe. It does not notice me; I live on unseen.

Related Characters: Mr. Baynes/Rudolf Wegener (speaker), Alex Lotze
Related Symbols: TV and Rockets
Page Number: 42
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4 Quotes

Oy gewalt! he thought. What’s happening? Did I start it in motion? Or is someone else tinkering someone I don’t even know? Or - the whole lot of us. It’s the fault of those physicists and that synchronicity theory every particle being connected with every other; you can’t fart without changing the balance in the universe […] I should take my tools, get my motors from McCarthy, open my shop, start my piddling business, go on despite the horrible line. Be working, creating in my own way right up to the end, living as best I can, as actively as possible […] I’m too small, he thought, I can only read what’s written, glance up and then lower my head and plod along where I left off.

Related Characters: Frank Frink (speaker), Mr. Baynes/Rudolf Wegener, Ed McCarthy
Page Number: 52
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10 Quotes

But he had to remain where he was, in San Francisco. Still trying to arrange the meeting for which he had come. Forty-five minutes by Lufthansa rocket from Berlin, and now this. A weird time in which we are alive. We can travel anywhere we want, even to other planets. And for what? To sit day after day, declining in morale and hope.

Related Characters: Mr. Baynes/Rudolf Wegener (speaker), Mr. Yatabe/General Tedeki
Related Symbols: TV and Rockets
Page Number: 158
Explanation and Analysis:

Listen, I’m not an intellectual—Fascism has no need of that. What is wanted is the deed. Theory derives from action. What our corporate state demands from us is comprehension of the social forces—of history. You see? I tell you; I know, Juliana.

Related Characters: Joe Cinnadella (speaker), Juliana Frink, Frank Frink , Mr. Baynes/Rudolf Wegener
Page Number: 170
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12 Quotes

Evil, Mr. Tagomi thought. Yes, it is. Are we to assist it in gaining power, in order to save our lives? Is that the paradox of our earthly situation? I cannot face this dilemma, Mr. Tagomi said to himself. That man should have to act in such moral ambiguity. There is no Way in this; all is muddled. All chaos of light and dark, shadow and substance.

Related Characters: Nobusuke Tagomi (speaker), Robert Childan, Mr. Baynes/Rudolf Wegener, Mr. Yatabe/General Tedeki, R. Heydrich
Page Number: 200
Explanation and Analysis:

Nevertheless, Mr. Baynes thought, the crucial point lies not in the present, not in either my death or the death of the two SD men; it lies—hypothetically—in the future. What has happened here is justified, or not justified, by what happens later. Can we perhaps save the lives of millions, all Japan in fact?

But the man manipulating the vegetable stalks could not think of that; the present, the actuality, was too tangible, the dead and dying Germans on the floor of his office.

Related Characters: Mr. Baynes/Rudolf Wegener (speaker), Nobusuke Tagomi
Page Number: 213
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

Mr. Nobusuke Tagomi thought, There is no answer. No understanding. Even in the oracle. Yet I must go on living day to day anyhow.

I will go and find the small. Live unseen, at any rate. Until some later time when—

Related Characters: Nobusuke Tagomi (speaker), Mr. Baynes/Rudolf Wegener
Page Number: 234
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15 Quotes

And what will that leave, that Third World Insanity? Will that put an end to all life, of every kind, everywhere? When our planet becomes a dead planet, by our own hands?

[Baynes] could not believe that. Even if all life on our planet is destroyed, there must be other life somewhere which we know nothing of. It is impossible that ours is the only world; there must be world after world unseen by us, in some region or dimension that we simply do not perceive.

Related Characters: Mr. Baynes/Rudolf Wegener (speaker), Nobusuke Tagomi
Page Number: 258
Explanation and Analysis:

We can only control the end by making a choice at each step.

[Baynes] thought, We can only hope. And try.

On some other world, possibly it is different. Better. There are clear good and evil alternatives. Not these obscure admixtures, these blends, with no proper tool by which to untangle the components.

We do not have the ideal world, such as we would like, where morality is easy because cognition is easy. Where one can do right with no effort because he can detect the obvious.

Related Characters: Mr. Baynes/Rudolf Wegener (speaker), R. Heydrich
Page Number: 260
Explanation and Analysis: