The Man in the High Castle

The Man in the High Castle is a 1962 alternative history novel by science fiction writer Philip K. Dick. The novel is set in the United States, 15 years after the Axis Powers defeated the Allies in World War II and the U.S. submitted to German and Japanese military occupation.

Plot

Back Story

The point of divergence between the world of The Man in the High Castle and actual history is the assassination of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933. A fictional President Bricker was elected afterwards. He was unable to revive the nation from the Great Depression and clung to an isolationist policy concerning the war.

Related Topics:
Point of divergence - Assassination - President - Franklin D. Roosevelt - 1933 - Great Depression - Isolationist

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Without U.S. assistance, Great Britain and then the rest of Europe fell to the Axis Powers. The Japanese completely destroyed the U.S.'s Pacific fleet in a much more expansive attack on Pearl Harbor. The U.S., ailing from years of economic distress, fell to the Axis and many important cities, such as New York, were destroyed.

Related Topics:
Great Britain - Europe - Attack on Pearl Harbor - New York

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By 1947, all Allies had surrendered to Axis control. The Eastern United States were placed under German control and the Western States under Japanese control. The Mountain States and much of the Midwest remained somewhat autonomous.

Related Topics:
1947 - Mountain States - Midwest

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After Adolf Hitler was incapacitated by syphilis, Nazi Party Chancellor Martin Bormann assumed the leadership of Germany. The Nazis created a colonial empire and continued their mass murder of races they considered inferior, murdering Jews in areas they controlled and mounting a massive genocide in Africa. They also pursued space exploration and experienced the spread of new technology, such as television, through Germany.

Related Topics:
Adolf Hitler - Syphilis - Nazi Party - Chancellor - Martin Bormann - Race - Jew - Africa - Space exploration - Television

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Meanwhile Japan continued a more peaceful, but certainly not democratic rule, in much of Asia and territories in the Pacific Ocean. Like the United States and the Soviet Union after the actual World War II, the Japanese and the Germans are distrustful of one another.

Related Topics:
Democratic - Asia - Pacific Ocean - Soviet Union

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During the novel, Martin Bormann dies and other Nazis such as Joseph Goebbels and Reinhard Heydrich challenge to become Reichs Chancellor. Various factions of the Nazi party are described as either seeking war with Japan or being more interested in colonising the solar system.

Related Topics:
Joseph Goebbels - Reinhard Heydrich

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Storylines

The Man in the High Castle has no one central plot but rotates between several somewhat interconnected storylines:

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• An Abwehr spy travels to San Francisco under cover as a Swedish trading merchant. He confers with Mr. Tagomi, head of the Japanese trade commission in the area, but must stall in pursuit of his true mission and avoid capture until the mysterious Mr. Yatabe arrives from Japan (Operation Dandelion).
• Mr. Tagomi has a crisis of faith about the righteousness of the core principles of modern day Japanese and German society and his own Buddhist beliefs.
• Robert Childan, proprietor of a San Francisco store selling American antiques and cultural artifacts that have become popular to the Japanese, tries to retain honor and dignity while catering to an occupying force. Although often sniveling in their presence and ambivalent in his own feelings towards the war, Childan eventually finds a sense of cultural pride. He also investigates widespread forgery within the antique market.
• Two San Franciscan industrial workers, Frank Frink and Ed McCarthy begin a jewelry business, creating some of the first authentic pieces of American art in several years. Their works have a strange effect on the Americans and Japanese who view them. Also Frink attempts to hide his Jewish ancestry from local police.
• Frink's ex-wife Juliana, living in Colorado, begins a relationship with Joe, a truck driver who claims to be an Italian veteran of the war. They travel to meet the titular Man in the High Castle, Hawthorne Abdensen, author of The Grasshopper Lies Heavy.