Objects in Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle and the new materialist approaches to reality

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to present a selection of findings from my doctoral dissertation on the relationship between Philip K. Dick’s novels’ and posthumanist philosophy. Specifically, I offer a reading of The Man in the High Castle that investigates the novel’s alternative-history setting and the role of inanimate objects, as well as the broader nature-culture material assemblages to which they belong, in revealing for the human subjects the contingent nature of reality. My analysis focuses on the climactic scene where the character of Mr. Tagomi, a high-ranking official of Imperial Japan, seemingly transports to an alternative timeline while contemplating a piece of jewelry made by a Jewish craftsman. Drawing on Graham Harman’s object-oriented ontology, Jane Bennett’s philosophy of vital materialism and Francesca Ferrando’s thought experiment of the posthuman multiverse, I argue that, within the narrative of the novel, inanimate objects and works of art are portrayed as active agents capable of altering individual perceptions of reality. Such instances uncover the complex contingencies guiding the organization of their reality, refuting the essentialist ideology of fascism dominant in the novel’s setting. Ultimately, I argue that Dick’s novel, in concurrence with new materialist philosophies, challenges dominant hierarchies of essential humanism and highlights the transformative power of encounters between humans and nonhuman actants.