A Masterpiece of 1960s Social Commentary: The Man in the High Castle Stephanie Perez College

One can argue that The Sixties began with the end of World War II. After all, life was never quite the same again for people all over the world after the war. A new world had emerged: a scary world where millions of people had just died from mechanized weaponry that still has 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 by the horrors they had seen. In short, people felt lost in this new world, and very few people knew how to put their overwhelming 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 sentiments that millions of Americans were feeling after the war and as The Sixties mentality was beginning to form. Through the use of allegory, recurring 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 is thought-provoking, effective, and masterful and that fully captures the essence of the birth of The Sixties.

The mindset of the American people is reflected...