Symbolism

A major focus in The Man in the High Castle is on the significance of material objects, in particular, the value of real and fake goods. Three instances in the book highlight this topic particularly well. Wyndham-Matson, a collector, possesses two relatively similar zippo lighters, one that was in FDR’s pocket at the time of his assassination and one that is artificial. Even though the lighters look quite similar, Matson places a much higher value in FDR’s lighter as opposed to the artificial lighter, because FDR’s lighter contains “historicity”. Likewise, Childan, a merchant of old American goods, is mortified when he realizes he is selling potentially fraudulent guns. The perceived history behind the lighters and the guns is what determines their value, yet this history is impossible to prove, rendering the value to be arbitrary. The closest verification we can achieve is a certificate of authenticity, but even that can be forged. We also read about the supposed “wu” (inner-truth) of the pins that Frank and Ed are creating. The experience of this wu is left up entirely to interpretation; people can experience wu differently, some may not experience it at all. The underlying theme of these three examples is that, in this book, the value of material objects is determined by the intangible significance people arbitrarily place in them.

This application of value to an object based on interpretation reminds me of how we analyze books. We extract certain lines from a book and add our personal interpretation to them, in order to give them meaning. The basic point of symbolism is to read an object or event as representing something greater than its presence at face value. However, most of the symbolism we find in books can have different interpretations, depending on who is reading the book.

We discussed in class that The Man in the High Castle is a metaphor for reading a book. I think Dick constructed a piece of this metaphor by writing about people literally using symbolism, by attaching value to material goods based on their interpretation of the significance of those goods, similar to the way readers assign value to certain words, images and objects in books. However, Dick constructed a world where people cannot distinguish between the authentic and the artificial and result in placing value arbitrarily based on only what they think is true. This phenomenon sends me, as a reader, the message to not even try to determine the “truth” in a book, because it is impossible to determine. I should instead value the parts of the book that mean something to me, while realizing that my interpretation is purely personal and may not hold much value to a different reader.