THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE: CRITICISMS OF REALITY AND DICTATORSHIP
Stephanie Lane Sutton

“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.” -Philip K. Dick

Botwinick writes in A History of the Holocaust, “The principle that resistance to evil was a moral duty did not exist for the vast majority of Germans. Not until the end of the war did men like Martin Niemoeller and Elie Wiesel arouse the world’s conscience to the realization that the bystander cannot escape guilt or shame” (pg. 45). In The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick writes of a world where Niemoeller and Wiesel’s voices never would have surfaced and in which Germany not only never would have repented for the Holocaust, but would have prided …show more content…

This interaction is deeply symbolic of Fink and the Jew’s place in a contemporary Nazi world and exposing the backbone of culture as fake. This act is also reflective of how Jews opposed oppressive authority in wartime by means of subtle sabotage. A few weeks later, Fink’s business partner convinces Childan to buy pieces of the new American contemporary jewelry, affirming that although artifacts are only worth their meaning in arbitrary history, art is valuable for its cultural significance and emotional appeal.

Baynes is a secret agent sent to America on a Reich counter-intelligence mission. On the plane ride over, he engages in conversation with a fellow passenger, Lotze. Lotze is the personification of contemporary Nazi ideals and a reflection of the gentile German citizen during the Holocaust. As a literary character, he is also the personification of ignorance. He considers himself a modern artist (a reference to Hitler’s failed career as an artist, which is considered by Botwinick to be the fuel into his fanatical anti-seminism); in this way, he is attracted to ideals rather than the integrity of