The Man in the High Castle

In The Man in the High Castle, the author, Philip K. Dick, creates a parallel universe where Germany and Japan won WWII. As a result of the Axis' victory over the Allies, the United States is split. Everything west of the Rockies is under Japanese rule and everything to the east is under German rule.

Juliana Frink lives in the neutral buffer of the Rockies. Despite gaining the attention of everyone she meets and being popular with those she lives near, she is unhappy. Juliana never knows if she can trust other people and frequently reflects on her past decisions, wondering if they were the right ones to make. Her hesitance and inner conflict is heavily emphasized when she begins a relationship with Joe Cinnadella -- an Italian truck driver from the east. She never knows the man's true intentions, yet she continues her relationship with him cautiously. Juliana also relies on the fortune telling I Ching for answers for each situation she finds herself in.

Though these qualities seem like they'd block Juliana from finding some type of inner peace, she proves this isn't the case by the end of the novel. Joe introduces her to a book written by Hawthorne Abendsen that describes the world if the Allies had won. Juliana gets really interested in the book as it depicts what she believes to be a better world. It's one of the first times she confidently forms an opinion on something. After wanting to have a conversation with the author and learning that Germany has formed a plan to assassinate Abendsen, Juliana travels to the author's home. Out of nowhere, she has the revelation that Abendsen used the I Ching as direction while writing his book, and the author confesses to doing so. It is revealed that the book was written to uncover the "inner truth"that Germany and Japan were actually the ones to lose the war.

The Man in the High Castle ends with a lot of loose ends, but based on experiences other characters had while finding "inner truth," I think Juliana has been living in a different universe and figures that out during her visit with Abendsen. For suddenly learning this, she takes this new information well. She doesn't start to question everything. She peacefully accepts it. This is a dramatic change from how she had acted throughout the book. Juliana was constantly in the middle of every situation. She could never find an absolute answer or decide something with pure confidence. She lived in a neutral zone, further illustrating this characteristic of hers. I think that because she was never fully committed to an idea and was never sure of the world around her, learning that she has been living in a false reality was easy for her to accept; in fact, it seemed to fulfill her. It didn't force her to give up any certainty of hers because she had none to begin with. I found that interesting. This isn't the case with most characters. Philip K. Dick managed to explain that being lost or conflicted isn't always a bad thing.