Harsh Reality

In both The Man in The High Castle and Kindred, the reader is distressed looking back into our history. The Man in the High Castle destroys our reality of what actually happened in World War II, whereas Kindred physically brings us back to our past. Towards the end of The Man in The High Castle, Juliana realizes that she is a fictional character but there is no catastrophic outcome, she just continues to live her life in order not the have a mental breakdown like Tagomi. Similarly, Dana’s acceptance of moving between the two time periods is necessary for her sanity and her safety while living in the 1800s. Since the historical facts in Kindred are more or less accurate, there is very little distance for the reader to be removed from the story. However, In the Man In the High Castle, you know our world is not like that and are able to accept this alternate reality. Dana feels almost safe in the past because she knows the future, just like how the reader feels while reading The Man in The High Castle since we know actual outcome of World War II. In both novels, the reader feels uneasy because it’s reopening the past as we know it. Kindred explores the harsh reality of slavery, “the man was forced to hug the tree, and his hands were tied to prevent him from letting go. The man was naked… [The rider] brought [the whip] down across the back of the black man” (35-36). The explicit account of the traumas of slavery and Dana’s experience of the past brings the reader so much closer to the past than a textbook or movie since she is forced into an actual state of her history.