History Literature / TheManInTheHighCastle

* DatedHistory: An intercontinental invasion of the United States requires so many different factors to favor the Axis that it might as well be physically impossible.
* {{Deconstruction}}: Of the AlternateHistory.

* GrassIsGreener: Captain Wegener, caught in a power struggle among the Nazi leadership, [[DeliberateValuesDissonance laments the lack of a clear-cut]] WhiteAndBlackMorality and longs for a world where good and evil are easy to recognize.

* DatedHistory: Dick was in an inferior position compared to modern AlternateHistory authors because many important factors in World War II, such as the breaking of the Enigma code, had not yet been declassified. The Axis victory as shown in the novel is totally implausible even if America stayed out of the war. An intercontinental invasion of the United States requires so many different factors to favor the Axis that it might as well be physically impossible.

* TakeThat: As you might expect, quite a few shots are taken at Nazis and their ideology. The characters calling them everything from cynics who blindly march to their orders without faith, to incestuous fairies so obsessed with purity that they're lusting after their own mothers, and delusional psychopaths with [[AGodIAm massively-inflated egos]] who would rather bring about their own destruction than let history decide it for them.

** Most Nazi victory AlternateHistory scenarios assume UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler would always be the revered founding father of the Third Reich. ''The Man in the High Castle'', on the other hand, deconstructs it--in 1962, aged 73, Hitler is still alive, but in a lunatic asylum, as even the Nazis have realised he's insane and rotten inside. This is part of the crapsackiness of the scenario--the entire modern world is built upon Hitler's dream, and no-one wants to admit that it was a mad nightmare.

* HistoricalHeroUpgrade: UsefulNotes/ImperialJapan. It's still an oppressive dystopia, but definitely not as bad as Nazi Germany; the Japanese characters (Mr Tagomi, the Kasoura couple, General Tedeki) are also treated much more sympathetically than the German characters. Much of Imperial Japan's racism against non-Japanese is downplayed well below historical levels as well. However, it's possible that this is mainly a local thing. After twenty years of living in their newly conquered territories, it is quite likely that the Japanese living in America would have picked up aspects of their new location and wards, as the British did in India.

* TakeThat: The characters take quite a few shots at Nazis and their ideology, calling them cynics who blindly march to their orders without faith, incestuous fairies so obsessed with purity that they're lusting after their own mothers, and delusional psychopaths with [[AGodIAm massively-inflated egos]] who would rather bring about their own destruction than let history decide it for them.

* DividedStatesOfAmerica: With the Nazis occupying the east, the Japanese occupying the west and a buffer zone in between. It's also possible, though never made explicitly clear, that the South has separated as well, most likely as a Nazi puppet state.

* DepopulationBomb: According to a comment by Frank, the world population is around two billion in 1962, a far cry from the 3.6 billion in was in our world. Considering [[ThoseWackyNazis who's in charge now]], [[FinalSolution this shouldn't be surprising.]]

* DividedStatesOfAmerica: With the Nazis occupying the east, the Japanese occupying the west and a buffer zone in between.

* FinalSolution: The Holocaust was completed. American 'Useless Mouths' (the disabled and elderly) are also disposed of.

* DoubleBlindWhatIf: The [[ShowWithinAShow Book Within a Book]] ''The Grasshopper Lies Heavy'' postulates a world where the Allies won the war, and predicts a Cold War occurring between the US and a dictatorial UK, instead of the USSR.

->''"[[Main/IronY On some other world, possibly it is different. Better.]] [[Main/BlackAndWhiteMorality There are clear good and evil alternatives.]] Not these obscure admixtures, these blends, with no proper tool by which to untangle the components. We do not have the ideal world, such as we would like, where morality is easy because cognition is easy. Where one can do right with no effort because he can detect the obvious."''

->''"[[Main/IronY On some other world, possibly it is different. Better. There are clear good and evil alternatives.]] Not these obscure admixtures, these blends, with no proper tool by which to untangle the components. We do not have the ideal world, such as we would like, where morality is easy because cognition is easy. Where one can do right with no effort because he can detect the obvious."''

->''"On some other world, possibly it is different. Better. There are clear good and evil alternatives. Not these obscure admixtures, these blends, with no proper tool by which to untangle the components. We do not have the ideal world, such as we would like, where morality is easy because cognition is easy. Where one can do right with no effort because he can detect the obvious."''

** By modern AH standards, the Nazis and Japanese conquering the USA by 1947 is rather unrealistic (even Hitler himself, in his long-term plans, thought conquering the USA would not be possible for the Germans until TheEighties). This is because Dick did not have access to much of the data about WW2 that has become common knowledge since then but was still classified in TheSixties when he wrote the novel.

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: With all the characters, but especially Robert Childan. Deliberate, as they live in a world where the Nazis / Imperial Japanese won World War II and divided up the entire world between them, which would no doubt result in a drastic shifting in the dominant attitudes and cultural mores. This is done particularly cleverly with how ''The Grasshopper Lies Heavy'', an AH-within-AH in which the Allies win WW2, is different from our own history. It's informed by the sensibilities of the author Abendsen, influenced by the Nazi-dominated world in which he lives, so it assumes that after the defeat of Germany the Cold War will be between the USA and the British Empire, as those subhuman Slavs in the USSR will never amount to anything. And in the end Britain wins the Cold War, because it is more racially pure than the USA and therefore superior.

* LesCollaborateurs: Robert Childan. He is intimidated by and subservient to the Japanese ruling class, while privately hating them and being contemptuous of them.