Water symbolizes the Taoist concepts central to the novel, specifically the idea of Tao (“Way”), and wu wei (“effortless action”). Tao is a metaphysical concept that refers to the natural balance of the universe, as well as the path all living beings must take to act in accordance with that natural balance. In The Lathe of Heaven, water represents this collective balance. In the novel’s opening scene, for example, the jellyfish swims through “the moon-driven sea,” which alludes to the way the moon exerts a force on the ocean that results in the rise and fall of the tide. Just as the Tao compels the universe to exist in a state of balance, the rising and falling motion of the sea exerts a natural rhythm on itself and everything that exists within it. The rising and falling motion of the sea also embodies the concept of wu wei, or effortless action. The sea doesn’t think consciously about its movement or anguish over which direction it will go next: “moon-driven,” it merely follows the rhythmic movement the gravitational pull of the moon compels it to follow.
The absence of water is significant, too. If the presence and movement of water symbolizes the natural balance of the universe and the unconscious, effortless actions one must practice to act in accordance with this natural balance, then the absence of water symbolizes a disruption of this natural balance, as well as the conscious, deliberate actions that create this disruption. Near the end of the novel, Heather and Orr are on their way to dinner when the world around them begins to collapse in on itself, which is an indicator that Haber’s first effective dream has begun to go horribly wrong. One of the first signs of impending doom is the dire state of the river, which has suddenly and inexplicably run dry. Drained of its water, the riverbed is now “cracked and oozing,” and “full of grease and bones and lost tools and dying fish.” Vessels lay shipwrecked against the docks. Where water, vessels, and fish once flowed as one, there now exists only the filth, death, and suffering of disparate objects. Haber’s effective dream thus represents his final (and most dramatic) attempt to exert complete control over reality through deliberate action. Haber’s attempt to exert power over the collective world disrupts the universe’s natural balance and causes a domino effect of chaos. Here, the absence of water reflects the suffering and disorder that arises when the practice of deliberate action throws the universe out of balance.
Water Quotes in The Lathe of Heaven
Current-borne, wave-flung, tugged hugely by the whole might of ocean, the jellyfish drifts in the tidal abyss. The light shines through it, and the dark enters it. Borne, flung, tugged from anywhere to anywhere, for in the deep sea there is no compass but nearer and farther, higher and lower, the jellyfish hangs and sways; pulses move slight and quick within it, as the vast diurnal pulses beat in the moon-driven sea. Hanging, swaying, pulsing, the most vulnerable and insubstantial creature, it has for its defense the violence and power of the whole ocean, to which it has entrusted its being, its going, and its will. But here rise the stubborn continents. The shelves of gravel and the cliffs of rock break from water baldly into air, that dry, terrible outer space of radiance and instability, where there is no support for life. And now, now the currents mislead and the waves betray, breaking their endless circle, to leap up in loud foam against rock and air, breaking… What will the creature made all of sea-drift do on the dry sand of daylight; what will the mind do, each morning, waking?
Orr slept. He dreamed. There was no rub. His dreams, like waves of the deep sea far from any shore, came and went, rose and fell, profound and harmless, breaking nowhere, changing nothing. They danced the dance among all the other waves in the sea of being. Through his sleep the great, green sea turtles dived, swimming with heavy, inexhaustible grace through the depths, in their element.
“Take evening,” the Alien said. “There is time. There are returns. To go is to return.”
“Thank you very much,” Orr said, and shook hand with his boss. The big green flipper was cool on his human hand. He went out with Heather into the warm, rainy afternoon of summer. The Alien watched them from within the glass-fronted shop, as a sea creature might watch from an aquarium, seeing them pass and disappear into the mist.
Water Symbol Timeline in The Lathe of Heaven
