Art, Perspective, and Truth Theme Analysis

The characters of The Man in the High Castle have startlingly different perspectives. Juliana Frink, a Judo instructor and the one-time wife of a Jewish man, sees the world very differently from Hugo Reiss, a Nazi ambassador. Likewise, prejudiced antiques salesman Robert Childan has little in common with pensive bureaucrat Nobusuke Tagomi. Yet even as each character experiences a dramatically different reality (shaped by his or her unique background, nationality, and worldview), they unite in their appreciation for a few works of art. Almost every person in the novel has read (and fallen in love with) The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, a book that imagines a universe in which the U.S. and Britain won World War II. Many of the characters are also fascinated by Edfrank jewelry, a collection of delicate metalwork designed by Frank Frink and Ed McCarthy. In perusing these artworks, the novel’s characters are able to access perspectives and realities outside of their own—and, in doing so, they are able to approach a more universal truth. The Man in the High Castle—itself an art object—therefore suggests that art, in granting people access to new worlds and worldviews, is able to reveal difficult, otherwise unknowable truths.

The Man in the High Castle depicts people of dramatically different perspectives finding pleasure and meaning in The Grasshopper Lies Heavy—not merely because of its content, but because of its artful form. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Americans of various generations love the novel, which imagines the United States victorious in the World War II. Juliana is enthralled by the book, while the much-younger Rita is able to recount every plot point in detail. Even for politically unengaged people, as Rita and Juliana both are, the book is fascinating—“it’s got to be entertaining or people wouldn’t read it,” as Rita explains. Rita thus articulates the great power of fiction (whether it is Grasshopper or The Man in the High Castle): a novel draws its readers in with “entertain[ment],” and then it forces them to care about situations and experiences they might otherwise ignore. But it is not only the Americans who find themselves forced to care: Paul and Betty Kasoura, both members of the young Japanese elite, are also reading The Grasshopper Lies Heavy. Tellingly, when Childan asks them to explain the plot, they refuse, telling him it is “better for you to read. It would spoil it for you, possibly, for you to hear.” In refusing to explain the plot to Childan, the Kasouras are acknowledging the importance of craft and artistry. Abendsen, the novel’s author, uses his skill with language to capture interior feeling or to suggest a mood. Were the Kasouras to reduce the story to merely its plot, they would flatten or “spoil” the text. Even Hugo Reiss, an ambassador to the Nazi regime (where the novel has been banned), finds himself captivated by Abendsen’s work. As he reads passages about the fall of Hitler, Reiss feels that “it was all somehow grander, more in the old spirit than the actual world,” and admits that “the novelist knows humanity.” Though Reiss could not be more opposed to the content of the book, its artful form—and its essential “humanity”—forces him to engage with Grasshopper’s politics.

Similarly, though they have different reactions to the strange Edfrank pieces, each character who interacts with the metal jewelry is able to gain access to a new worldview or understanding. Even as Paul Kasoura seems to insult the metalwork, he has to acknowledge that “an entire new world is pointed to by this […], we evidently lack a word for an object like this.” The strange jewelry provides a completely new—and shared—non-verbal language, allowing people of radically different perspectives (like Paul and Childan) to communicate with each other. Just as the jewelry allows for linguistic renewal, it also helps to transform political life. Childan, describing the Edfrank jewelry to potential customers, makes a similar claim: “this is the new life of my country,” he argues, “the beginning in the form of tiny imperishable seeds. Of beauty.” While there is no meaningful American government to speak of, the country can renew its national identity through artwork—and Americans can take pride in the homegrown, specific talents of their artisans. And most astonishingly, Tagomi is physically transported “out of [his] world”—and into the actual postwar United States, in which the United States won the war—by a little metal Edfrank triangle. In entering the real-life San Francisco, Tagomi encounters a different racial hierarchy: one where he must defer instead of wait for others’ deference, and where he himself is the victim of prejudice. This jewelry thus gives Tagomi a radical new perspective on the most hierarchical, harmful aspects of the Pacific States of America, giving him new empathy for the conquered Americans. 

Ultimately, art gives its audience a way to break free of their own narrow perceptions, and so it allows them greater (if never complete) access to difficult truths. Though Tagomi finds his experience with Edfrank disorienting, he nevertheless accepts that it has changed him: “I broke from my moorings […], one seeks to contravene one’s perceptions.” This ability to see beyond his own narrow “perceptions” then impacts how he does his job. When Tagomi returns to the office, for example, he does so with new purpose—for example, he is able to stand up to the Nazis by refusing to authorize the extraditions of Jewish people. Paul Kasoura, who actively seeks to break from his “moorings” through books, music and visual art, believes that such confusion leads to “insight of most original kind”—especially when the art’s creator is from a different background than its audience. The word “insight” here is worth noting: though Kasoura looks to a wide variety of sources for his artwork, he hopes ultimately to look inward, gaining clarity about himself and his own world. Most importantly, The Man in the High Castle ends with Juliana’s realization that art can illuminate the present reality even as it sheds light on alternate worlds. Reflecting on Abendsen’s work in The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, Juliana decides that “he told us about our own world […], he wants us to see it for what it is”; not coincidentally, the I Ching prophecies that Grasshopper will reveal Inner Truth. Though the book is fictional—created, like the Edfrank jewelry, by hand—it nevertheless allows its readers to see reality for “what it is,” as opposed to through their own skewed perceptions.