Shell Bongares - (SciFi: The Man in the High Castle)

2) What does Brown (2001) identify as the central themes and concerns of the novel? What elements conform to the wider generic features of SF? 

Across all of Philip K. Dick’s [PKD] novels and stories, there are a number of themes that are continuously highlighted and explored. In PKD’s arguably most popular novel ever published, The Man in the High Castle [High Castle], one of the predominant themes is the perception of reality. Brown (2001) describes PKD, in his narratives, treating “reality … as a hoax” (p. vii). It is the idea that there is no one concrete reality, that there is, instead, a multiverse. Tagomi experiences this when he’s momentarily in a different San Francisco wherein the Japanese were the ones defeated in the war (Dick, 2001; 1962). This is also demonstrated through the use of the I Ching oracle some of the characters religiously relied upon that described the presence of other realities. More specifically, how Juliana finds out at the end of the novel that her timeline is not real, and that Hawthorne’s novel is the real truth. Altogether, these different realities and what is true emphasises Brown’s point of PKD perspective of the illusionary state of the universe. Themes of good versus evil, and the abuse of power were also present in High Castle (Brown, 2001). Especially with Tagomi feeling a strong internal conflict for shooting the men sent to kill Baynes, and also in freeing Frink who’s actually been a Jew all along. Science fiction, to some degree, can be considered a plausible form of reality that could happen in the far off future or might have happened in an alternate universe. As seen in High Castle, PKD investigated an alternate history where the Nazis had won World War II. Although PKD liked to deviate from or even add to the usual elements of the science fiction genre, Brown (2001) stated “like all great SF, [High Castle] gives us a what if glimpse of another world” (p. xii).

References

Brown, E. (2001). Introduction. In Dick, P.K., The man in the high castle (p.v-xii). London: Penguin.

Dick, P.K. (2001; 1962). The man in the high castle. London: Penguin.