Mountford (2006) regards the structure of ‘The man in the high castle’ is the combination of cybertextuality and oracularity with the help of the I Ching. Dick (as cited in Mountford, 2006) states the device is used by letting the question to be exposed to the I Ching. It will then ‘reply’ with an oracle answer and be interpreted by the questioner, thus, the fiction is organised totally by using I Ching. In ‘The man in the high castle’, Dick consulted the I Ching of how and what will be in the events and consequences accordingly to the character’s situation, hence, which way the story would go. This use of the I Ching led to the event where Tagomi and Frink who neither known of the other existence to cross-path secretly, in other words, to influence each other life without knowing so (Mountford, 2006). Toward the end of the story, I Ching told the lesson not to disregard true inner self of its users. Dick also regards this device as the “malicious spirit” as he suspect the I Ching told lies in the end. We can see this through the way he depict the writer to write "Grasshopper Lies Heavy" toward the end as a story in story. Dick seem to put the story of himself into the story he written based wholly on I Ching. "Grasshopper Lies Heavy" implies that the President Roosevelt was not assassinated and the British empire still preserve its military strength and together with the Soviet and Italian (which was betrayed) win over Germany in Stalingrad and Berlin afterward. This is when Hawthorne finally admit that his fiction exits in another dimension of its own as Dick (as cited in Mountford, 2006) see I Ching as if it lead him to his worse nightmare where the "bad guys win" (pp. 13).
Reference:
Mountfort, P. (2006). Oracle-text/Cybertext in Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle. Conference paper, Popular Culture Association/ American Culture Association annual joint conference, Atlanta, 2006.
A great summary of key points in Paul's article in response to the question - though I'd like to see you include more reference to the primary text where possible - perhaps using extracts from the narrative itself as a way of developing some of the points you make. For example the discussion that "We can see this through the way he depict the writer to write "Grasshopper Lies Heavy" toward the end as a story in story" could be further developed - what do you mean by this?
ReplyDeleteI edited the post, hope it is more clear somehow
ReplyDeleteHi Simon, good post this week. It seems you have included the main points.
ReplyDeleteThis is an excellent post.I read this article and totally agree what your analysis. well done, Simon.
ReplyDelete