Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Lathe of Heaven, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Limits of Utilitarianism
Dreams and the Limitations of Knowledge
Cosmic Balance
Power and Selfishness
Summary
Analysis
It’s the third week of April. Orr heads to Dave’s to meet Heather for a date, even though he knows she won’t be there. These days, he’s so overwhelmed by conflicting alternate realities that it’s hard to keep anything straight. In this reality, Orr has a prestigious job with Civil Planning Bureau, and he hates it. Orr has always worked as a draftsman no matter which continuum he’s in, but this is no longer the case after last Monday’s dream, in which Haber made him drastically restructure the Federal and State Governments as part of some bigger plan.
It’s unclear how Orr knows Heather won’t be at Dave’s. What is apparent, however, is that Haber’s new candidness allows him to be unrestrained in his quest for power, and the changes he makes are bolder than ever. Orr is used to maintaining an awareness of conflicting realities, so his inability to keep track of this latest version speaks to the incoherence and extreme nature of Haber’s most recent alterations. That Haber’s latest changes involve a drastic restructuring of the Federal and State Governments is probably a bad sign—it’s within the realm of possibility that Haber has plans to take over the world.
Themes
The latest version of reality frightens Orr because there’s no “continuity” between it and his other existences. In every other reality, he’d been a draftsman, lived on Corbett Avenue, and used his dreams to improve the environment in some way. He could rely on the static unchangeability of things like geography and “human nature.” Ever since Haber learned how to use the Augmentor to exercise more precise control over Orr’s dreams, though, this continuity has begun to dissolve. Albert M. Merdle is still president, but the United States is a much different entity. Portland houses the World Planning Center, “the chief agency of the supranational Federation of Peoples,” and is regarded as the “Capital of the Planet.” Downtown is now a glamorous, futuristic hub dominated by WPC buildings, Government employees, and tourists.
The lack of continuity between this reality and the ones that came before it is troubling to Orr because it robs him of the ability to be certain about the reality of anything in his life. He can no longer use the tangible reference points of a consistent job or apartment to tether himself to the world. The lack of continuity in this new reality also reflects Haber’s continued descent into power-hungry madness. His former adherence to Utilitarian ethics has been replaced by the selfish goal of making the planet revolve around his vision of a perfect world. The fact that Portland is now the “Capital of the Planet” is evidence of this: in giving Portland this distinction, Haber literally rearranges reality so that it’s centered around Haber’s physical location.
Themes
Orr tries and fails to remember the name of Heather’s firm, and he can’t find her name listed in the phonebook. Orr wonders if she exists in this reality to begin with and, if she does, if he’d recognize her: the Heather he’d known was brown, but everyone in this world is gray, ever since Haber made him dream of a world without “a racial problem.” Orr realizes that he won’t find Heather here; her biracial identity had been “an essential part of her,” and without it, she ceased to exist.
Orr’s failure to remember the name of Heather’s firm reflects his growing disassociation from reality. Yet again, Orr’s unconscious’s dystopic response to Haber’s utopian instructions to eliminate racism emphasizes two common critiques of Utilitarianism, which are the subjective, unqualifiable nature of happiness, and the unpredictability of consequence. Eliminating race might eliminate the social ill of racial prejudice, but it also eliminates things likeracial diversity, culture, and racial identity that are valuable to society. Heather’s nonexistence is further evidence of the subjectivity of happiness.
Themes
Haber, in contrast, has only grown more powerful and self-assured with every new continuum, and Orr is more under his control than ever before. Voluntary Therapeutic Treatment is now called Personal Welfare Control, and Haber’s new status makes him legally indestructible: he’s now the Director of HURAD, the center of the World Planning Center, “the place where the great decisions [are] made.”
As Orr grows weaker and less in touch with reality, Haber’s grip on reality grows stronger, until he effectively uses Orr’s dreams to promote himself to ruler of the world. The title of the organization he heads, the World Planning Center, reflects a grossly distorted adherence to Utilitarian ideals. The title suggests that people in the organization (mainly Haber) are capable of identifying what’s best for the entire world and acting on those “great decisions.”
Themes
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In this continuum, the Alien landing wasn’t such a big deal, since the Aliens had created their translation machines earlier and were thus able to convey their peaceful intentions ahead of time, apologize for the War in Space, and avoid the misunderstanding that created such chaos in the earlier continuum. The extraterrestrial beings have since been allowed to leave their landing site in the Oregon desert and mingle with the humans. The Earth’s oxygen requires the Aliens to always wear their turtle suits, so nobody really knows what they look like. They seem intent on staying on Earth, and many have opened small businesses.
The ease with which the Aliens adapt to life on Earth reflects their natural ability to go with the flow, identify their harmonious place within the world, and engage effortlessly with the larger universe, which implies a Taoist influence on the Aliens’ way of life. Additionally, the Aliens’ sea turtle suits categorize them as aquatic creatures, which, in the context of the novel’s use of water as a symbol for living in accordance with the Tao, reinforces Taoism’s influence on the Aliens at the symbolic level.
Themes
The only problem left unsolved from the previous continuum is Mount Hood’s transformation into an active volcano, though in this reality, its awakening was naturally occurring and not the effect of a dropped bomb.
Mount Hood’s status as an active volcano reflects the looming threat of danger that Haber’s sustained, conscious meddling with fate poses for the universe.
Themes
In the present, Orr sits in a crowded restaurant and eats a tasteless plate of food. He grieves for the non-existent Heather. Through the restaurant’s glass walls, Orr watches crowds of people make their way toward the Portland Palace of Sport to engage in “togetherness,” in which they watch athletes fight each other, sometimes to death.
The prevalence of murder for sport in this new world is further proof that willing into existence world peace hasn’t eradicated humanity’s capacity for violence and hatred. Haber’s meddling can’t fully alter the fundamental truth of human nature. That these sporting events are called “togetherness” suggests that this capacity for violence is a shared, uniting aspect of human nature.
Themes
As Orr walks, he encounters a citizen’s arrest in which a man apprehends and administers euthanasia to a terminally ill man using a hypodermic gun. Orr pushes through the crowd and tries not to watch. All citizens who have earned a Civic Responsibility Certificate carry a hypodermic gun, though Orr’s status as a psychiatric patient prohibits him from carrying one that’s loaded. In this continuum, being afflicted by a mental illness isn’t a crime, unlike “communicable or hereditary disease[s].” Orr wonders how the man could’ve had cancer in the aftermath of the carcinomic Plague and decides that must’ve occurred in a different continuum.
This scene presents another example of the moral dubiousness of Haber’s Utilitarian ethics: here, citizens can murder people who have hereditary diseases with the goal of eventually removing such diseases from the human experience. This arrangement suggests that the health of future generations outvalues the individual lives of the people murdered in order to make possible this healthy future. Quantifying happiness and suffering forces one to make uncomfortable decisions about what kind of consequences justify what kind of moral transgressions. What’s more, this “Civic Responsibility” program only operates under the assumption that new, worse diseases won’t develop in place of diseases such as cancer and bring about more suffering that one could’ve imagined.
Themes
Orr arrives at the HURAD Tower, which looms above the entire city and the valleys that lie beyond it. The tower’s entrance bears the message, “THE GREATEST GOOD FOR THE GREATEST NUMBER.”
The message at the HURAD Tower’s entrance is a play on a quote by Jeremy Bentham, an 18th- and 19th-century English philosopher who is considered to be the founder of modern Utilitarianism.
Themes
Orr walks to the West Wing and enters Haber’s magnificent, half-acre office suite. Haber is in his office making adjustments to the Augmentor. Haber calls hello to Orr but doesn’t get up from his work to greet him. As Haber fiddles with the machine, he casually asks Orr if he’d like to know the results of the psychological assessments he took when he was admitted to the Medical School. Haber’s head emerges from beneath the Augmentor, and his eyes “reflect[] the light of the wall-size window.” Haber’s beard is black now and, like everyone else’s, his skin is gray. Haber informs Orr that he is “so sane as to be an anomaly,” having scored right down the middle on every test. Though an older Med School doctor thinks Orr’s middling scores are a sign of “holistic adjustment,” Haber regards them as “self-cancellation.” “Both, neither,” he sneers at Orr. “Either, or.”
Haber’s office is completely transformed since the first time Orr stepped foot in it, and its exaggerated size and luxuriousness suggests that it’s actually greed and power that drives Haber to change the world—despite the grand display of Utilitarianism that adorns the entrance to the HURAD Tower. The opinion of the doctor who regards Orr’s average test scores as a sign of “holistic adjustment” is in line with the Taoist thought espoused throughout the novel, but Haber’s aggressive embrace of deliberate action and individual power prevents him from seeing the virtue of a balanced existence, which is why he mocks Orr, accusing him of willful “self-cancellation.”
Themes
After Haber finishes working on the Augmentor, he tells Orr they’re going to try something new today and attach him to the machine while he’s awake. Haber will use the machine to stimulate select pieces of Orr’s brain activity, compare those with his d-state patterns, and finally find out how Orr’s effective dreams work. Orr repeats his desire to be cured, not used, and Haber criticizes Orr’s resistance to change, arguing that he needs to accept that “the whole universe […] is essentially change.” Orr takes an opposite stance, arguing that “stillness” is another central characteristic of the universe.
Orr’s and Haber’s opposite views on whether the world is in a state of constant “change” or “stillness” is another instance in which the novel portrays the two men as counterbalancing forces. While Haber and Orr are both technically correct—change and stillness are both present, integral forces at play in the world—Haber’s stance that “the whole universe […] is essentially change” enforces an absolute, homogenous view of the world to justify his Utilitarian ethics. Such a view discounts the Taoist notion that the universe’s natural rhythm is one of a wave-like ebb-and-flow that is (ideally) devoid of the deliberate, conscious sort of “change” Haber is describing. In contrast, Orr’s stance that stillness is a (but not the) characteristic of the universe allows for this wave-like rhythm.
Themes
Haber presents Orr with a hypothetical situation in which Orr stumbles upon a woman who’s alone in the jungle and dying of a snakebite. Orr carries the antidote with him in his kit. Does Orr think it’s right to let the woman die—to “let her be?” Orr says it depends: does reincarnation exist and, if so, would saving this woman deny her the chance to be reborn into a better life? And what will the woman do after Orr cures her? Will she return to her village and commit multiple murders? There’s simply no way to know that saving the woman “is good or evil or both.” Haber laughs at Orr’s response and Orr smiles tepidly.
Haber’s thought experiment is intended to make Orr choose between two opposite outcomes: using his antidote to save the woman or leaving her to die. Orr thinks Haber’s premise is oversimplistic and ignores the infinite number of consequences made possible by either choice. Orr’s disagreement that anyone can know with certainty whether an action “is good or evil or both” is a critique of Utilitarianism’s failure to account for the unpredictability of consequences, and its emphasis on the consequences of actions over the actions themselves.
Themes
As Haber finishes applying electrodes to Orr’s scalp, Orr mentions the Citizen’s Arrest for euthanasia he witnessed on his way to HURAD Tower. Haber nods sympathetically, acknowledging the difficulty of “accept[ing] the use of controlled violence for the good of the community.” Orr observes a phoniness in Haber’s tone and wonders if Haber likes the world he’s created.
Haber’s justification of “controlled violence for the good of the community” reflects his adherence to Utilitarian ethics, yet the phoniness Orr detects in Haber’s tone suggests that Haber has become disillusioned with his own principles.
Themes
Haber tells Orr to keep his eyes open. He switches on the Augmentor, and Orr is walking around downtown when an Alien bumps into him. Orr apologizes, and the Alien stops and speaks to him through its translator machine: “Jor Jor,” which is Orr’s name in their language. The Alien tells Orr that he’s a “human capable of iahklu’,” which “troubles self.” It continues, speaking cryptically of Aliens being disturbed as well, of “concepts cross[ing] in mist,” and that “volcanoes emit fire.” The Alien offers Orr advice: “snakebite serum is not prescribed for all,” and: “before following directions leading in wrong directions, auxiliary forces may be summoned, in immediate-following fashion: Er’ perrehnne!” Orr repeats back the Alien word, gripped by a deep desire to understand the cryptic message. Before parting ways, the Alien tells Orr that “speech is silver, silence is gold,” and “Self is universe.”
The Alien’s observation that Orr is “capable of iahklu’” is further evidence that iahklu’ has something to do with effective dreaming. That the Alien offers advice about how to navigate iahklu’ suggests that Aliens are quite familiar with, and perhaps capable themselves, of effective dreaming. The Alien’s comment that “snakebite serum is not prescribed for all” seems to imply that the Aliens, like Orr, possess a more nuanced, fluid view of the moral imperative to act. The Alien’s two final comments, “speech is silver, silence is gold,” and “self is universe” seem to embrace a Taoist view of the world, in which simply existing (silence) is better than deliberate action (speech), and that the self—or any living being—is interconnected with and therefore indistinguishable from the collective universe.
Themes
Orr is back in Haber’s office. Haber is freaked out: apparently, Orr’s thoughts had produced odd, intense brainwaves in his cortex without being supplemented by the Augmentor. Haber demands to know what Orr was thinking. Orr is extremely reluctant to pass along his conversation with the Alien to Haber and only mentions that he ran into an Alien on the street. Haber hypothesizes that Orr’s unconscious must have been thinking about the euthanasia he saw performed earlier that day. Orr doesn’t correct him. Orr senses that Haber is looking for reassurance and realizes that he is “past reassurance.”
Orr’s intense brainwaves seem to be the consequence of receiving valuable wisdom from the Alien. It’s clear that the Aliens know a lot about the dream world and look to Taoist principles to navigate their way through it. Perhaps the Aliens hold the key that will allow Orr to control—or at least, make peace with—his effective dreams. That Orr no longer needs “reassurance” suggests that he has already embarked on a path of healing.
Themes
Haber restarts the EEG and makes Orr undergo a second session. In this session, Orr remains on the couch in Haber’s office when he’s suddenly overcome by “a sense of well-being, a certainty that things were all right, and that he was in the middle of things.” He feels himself regain the sense of inner balance he lost when the world ended four years ago. When Orr comes to, he assumes his good feelings were the work of the Augmentor, but Haber, barely concealing his irritation, tells him the device isn’t doing anything. They begin another session with Haber instructing Orr to close his eyes and think of a red cube.
A lack of certainty has been something that’s always plagued Orr, particularly as of late, since Haber’s alterations have deprived reality of its former continuity. Now, though, thanks to the Alien’s cryptic message, Orr feels centered and “in the middle of things,” having found continuity and balance within himself. In this moment, Orr’s power is greater than Haber’s, which is fully externalized and dependent on earthly notions like machines and power.
Themes
When Orr’s final session is over and Haber detaches him from the machine, Orr finds that the “serenity” he experienced earlier is still with him, and he boldly tells Haber he won’t let him use his dreams any longer. Haber ignores Orr’s request, but Orr refuses to back down this time. Haber stares deeply at Orr before sitting at his desk. He tells Orr that he’s on the cusp of a breakthrough: he’ll soon be able to use the Augmentor to induce effective dreaming in anyone and will no longer need Orr. Until then, Haber needs Orr’s cooperation, and if he can’t get it willingly, he’ll be coerced through drugs or a Personal Welfare Constraint.
Heeding the Aliens’ cryptic advice restores Orr’s moral centeredness, which emboldens him to stand up to Haber. That Orr carries the “serenity” he experienced in his dream into consciousness suggests that he’s learning to engage his conscious mind in the effortless, spontaneous manner that is normally only possible in the dream world. Haber’s blunt admission that he’s going to use Orr’s dreams even if Orr doesn’t consent to it shows how corrupted Haber has become.
Themes
Haber tries to reason with Orr that it’s illogical to quit now, after they’ve made so much progress, but Orr disagrees: the more Haber experiments with the Augmentor, the worse the world becomes, and Orr thinks the worst is yet to come if Haber starts having his own effective dreams. Haber rebuffs Orr’s claim by listing all the humanitarian feats they’ve accomplished together, such as eliminating cancer and overpopulation. Orr argues that these things don’t matter if Haber’s society is full of joyless people who have no sense of personal freedom. Haber accuses Orr of sabotaging his visions of progress with his “deviousness and stupidity,” citing Heather and Orr’s hypnosis session leading to the Alien invasion. Orr tells Haber that Heather is dead. Haber is glad, since Lelache was a bad influence on Orr, who was a “moral jellyfish” with “no altruism” to begin with.
Orr believes that the coercive, deliberate force Haber had to apply to accomplish his humanitarian projects renders the positive consequences of those projects obsolete. Whereas Haber’s Utilitarian worldview values the consequence of an action over the action itself, Orr’s Taoist worldview values the actions themselves, condemning forceful or deliberate actions—regardless of their corresponding consequences—on the basis that they disrupt the natural balance of the universe and, therefore, create as much suffering for humanity as they do happiness. When Haber calls Orr a “moral jellyfish,” he insinuates that Orr is spineless and too cowardly or indifferent to participate in acts of “altruism” that could make the world a better place. Haber’s use of the jellyfish as a symbol of weakness upends the positive image of the jellyfish presented in the opening scene of Chapter 1. Haber’s invocation of the jellyfish to associate inaction with weakness reinforces the incompatibility of his worldview with the Taoist ideas that the Aliens and Orr look to for balance and fulfillment.
Themes
Orr and Haber continue to argue back and forth. Orr realizes it’s useless to try to communicate with Haber, who is just “speechmaking” at this point, staring at Orr with his “opaque eyes.” Haber makes a grand speech about new scientific concepts needing to be “replicable” to be useful to humanity. He claims that Orr’s “e-state” is as useless as “a key locked inside a room,” so long as Orr selfishly keeps his power to himself. Haber vows to retrieve the “key” to effective dreaming and gain full control of the world. In Haber’s new world, “nothing will be left to chance, to random impulse, to irrational narcissistic whim.” Haber resolves not to let Orr’s “will to nihilism” defeat his “will to progress.” Haber promises to cure and release Orr once Haber has discovered how to induce an effective dream in himself.
Haber’s “opaque eyes” symbolize his unwillingness to communicate honestly with Orr. Haber needs to maintain the upper hand in every situation, so he avoids putting himself in situations that demand vulnerability, such as open communication. Haber’s claims about making a world where “nothing will be left to chance, to random impulse, to irrational narcissistic whim” reflects his rejection of the Taoist principle of wu wei, or effortless action. Haber believes that letting things run their natural course will lead to destruction and suffering, and that the world needs human interference to steer things in the right direction. Haber associates deliberate action with “progress” and Orr’s inaction with “nihilism,” or the belief that life is meaningless. He sees Orr’s inaction as indifference, when Orr’s inaction actually reflects a deep respect for the collective universe independent of its relationship to humanity: he believes in a universal meaning beyond humanity’s ability to comprehend, which is why he refuses to impose himself and his whims on it. In this way, Haber’s comment about creating a world where “nothing will be left […] to irrational narcissistic whim” is ironic, since the act of creating such a world is itself an irrational narcissistic whim.
Themes
Orr tries to convince Haber that undergoing an effective dream by himself will be dangerous, but Haber is too wrapped up in his plans to be reasoned with. Once the whole world is living under the control of his effective dreams, he declares, “this world will be like heaven, and men will be like gods!” Orr mumbles “volcanoes emit fire” beneath his breath, but Haber doesn’t hear him. Orr leaves and promises to return to Haber’s office tomorrow at 5:00.
Haber’s declaration that “this world will be like heaven, and men will be like gods” betrays his unchecked egotism: he regards himself as a god who possesses the power of creation. “Volcanoes emit fire” is a reference to the advice the Alien gave Orr in his dream earlier in this session. Since a volcano is an awakened or “conscious” mountain, the phrase suggests that consciousness, or conscious/deliberate action, “emit[s] fire,” or creates chaos. The Alien’s message—and the message Orr is relaying to Haber now—is that Haber should stop consciously meddling with fate if he doesn’t want to get burned.
Themes
