It can be said that the 1960s began with the end of World War II. After all, life was never quite the same for people around the world after the war. A new world had appeared: a frightening world where millions of people had just died from mechanized weapons that still had the potential to kill millions more. A world where the greatest acts of human cruelty known to man had just been committed. A world where so many families had been displaced, so many boys forced to become men because of the horrors they had seen. In short, people felt lost in this new world, and very few people knew how to put their immense disillusionment with the world into words. Philip K. Dick was one of those few. Through The Man in the High Castle, Dick was able to express the feelings that millions of Americans felt after the war and as the mentality of the 1960s began to form. Through the use of recurring allegories, motifs and symbols and through the structure of his novel, Dick captures the uncertainty and loss of control and direction felt by many after World War II in a way that thought provoking, effective, masterful and which fully captures the essence of the birth of the 60s. Say no to plagiarism. Get a Custom Essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get an Original EssayThe mindset of the American people is reflected in the actions and desires of the characters in The Man in the High Castle. Take, for example, Tagomi and Frank's almost obsessive need to consult the I Ching before any major event in their lives. The I Ching is an oracle of ancient Chinese origin that first appears when readers are introduced to Frank Frink in the first chapter. Frank asks how he should approach his boss so as not to get fired from his job, and he receives Hexagram Fifteen, a favorable response. Frank immediately explains that “he couldn’t force [Wyndam-Matson] to take it back. All he could do was adopt the point of view of Hexagram Fifteen” (11). Thanks to the I Ching, Frank does not have to make his own decisions about the future; the oracle tells him exactly how to behave and what will result from his behavior. The motif of the I Ching is ironic given the uncertainty surrounding the world in which Dick lives. The future is cloudy and people have just witnessed atrocities they could not have even imagined. Given what has just happened, there is overwhelming fear about what other horrors could occur, especially with the looming threat of communism. The future, in the real world, is more unpredictable than it has ever been, and there are probably hundreds of thousands of people who could achieve peace of mind if they had their own I Ching. This irony, along with the omnipresence of the motif throughout the novel (many of the novel's most suspenseful plots unfold at the direction of the oracle) make the I Ching a very effective tool for conveying allegorical meaning from Dick's novel. Recurring images in The Man in the High Castle are American antiques, including Tagomi's revolver, the Mickey Mouse watch given to Baynes, and FDR's lighter. In the world depicted in Dick's novel, antiques are coveted objects, sought after by collectors or as diplomatic or congratulatory gifts. The value of antiques in Dick's fictional world is symbolic of the desire of some Americans to return to the way life was before World War II,when things were much simpler. Take for example family life. As women worked during World War II, in the 1960s there was a strong desire to return to traditional family values ​​of the father being the breadwinner and the mother the homemaker. And yet there is more to Dick's metaphor, as he writes: "No one could estimate the percentage of counterfeits in circulation. And no one, especially the dealers and collectors themselves – wanted it” (44). The characters in the novel want something they can't have, because there aren't enough real antiques in stock anymore, just as the American people long for something that can't be returned. Change is happening, and it’s happening quickly. What is needed is to accept the here and now, because the aftermath of the war has brought positive elements, including economic stability and the revitalization of the American dream. This new American lifestyle is represented in Dick's novel by Edfrank Jewelry, which Paul describes as "a truly new thing in the face of the world" (186). Additionally, Paul says that "it means a whole new world," referring to Edfrank's jewel given to him by Childan (186). Dick's inclusion of these two heavily implied symbols to represent the two Americas he experienced is clever and masterful and further serves to draw parallels between the real world and his fictional America. Another aspect of post-World War II society in the real world is the realization that the entire course of a person's life can change due to changes completely beyond their control or, in some case, from its domain of understanding. For example, nuclear weapons could completely decimate an entire region without warning. Dick very intelligently depicts this loss of control over his life through the structure of his novel, thereby advancing the allegory of The Man in the High Castle as a whole. There are several main characters in the novel, including Frank, Juliana, Tagomi, Childan, and Baynes. Some of these characters in the novel interact with each other while others never even meet. However, even though some of them don't know each other, all the characters have an impact on each other's lives. For example, Frank and Tagomi never meet during the course of the novel. However, when Frank is arrested because he is Jewish, Tagomi refuses to sign Frank's extradition papers, an act that Frank later describes as a "miracle...a coincidence of some sort" (255). Likewise, a weapon Frank makes will ultimately save Baynes' life at the end of the novel, but Frank and Bayne never meet. In Childan's case, he will never know that it was Frank who informed him that the vast majority of the products in his store were counterfeits. By choosing to adhere to this structure of the novel, Dick perfectly encapsulated the idea that our lives are shaped largely by forces beyond our control and that many people will likely never fully understand. While Dick is a master at crafting an allegory representative of the feelings felt by contemporary Americans, no novel is without its flaws. Although the structure of the novel is perfect for advancing Dick's goal, it seems to lack clear direction from a storytelling perspective. From the reader's perspective, it is sometimes difficult to follow the plot, as the characters' thoughts tend to wander in a distracting and misleading way. For example, Tagomi's reaction to the Edfrank jewel he receives in Chapter 14 is extremely drawn out. For eight pages, Dick.