The Man In the High Castle (Summary)

Students' Academy

Please share our summary videos with others. We  would be highly obliged. Thank you.

Transcript

00:00The Man in the High Castle, Brief Summary The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick

00:08was first published in 1963.

00:12It happens to be an alternative history novel that is set in 1962.

00:17The novel opens in 1962.

00:20It is 15 years after the victory of the Axis Powers, Imperial Japan, and Nazi Germany,

00:28in the Second World War.

00:30We are introduced to Robert Bob Childen.

00:33He happens to be the owner of an American antiques shop in San Francisco, California.

00:39The place is in the Japanese-occupied Pacific states of America.

00:45Several Japanese visit the place very frequently.

00:48They often make a fetish of romanticized American cultural artifacts.

00:54One day, a high-ranking Japanese trade officer named Nobusuke Tagomi contacts Childen.

01:02He wants to buy a gift to impress a Swedish industrialist named Banes.

01:08At Childen's store, there are some antiques brought from a metalwork company named Windermatsen

01:14Corporation.

01:15Frank has recently been fired from the Windermatsen factory.

01:20He was formerly known as Frink.

01:23He is a secretly Jewish-American veteran of the Second World War.

01:28He is fired because he happens to have joined a former co-worker to start a handicraft jewelry

01:34business.

01:35Frink's ex-wife, Juliana, works as a judo instructor in Cannon City, Colorado.

01:43She develops a sexual relationship with an Italian truck driver who used to be a former

01:48soldier named Joe Sinodella.

01:51Throughout the story, several of the characters often make certain important decisions with

01:57the help of messages they interpret from the I Ching.

02:01Several of these characters read a banned but highly popular novel called The Grasshopper

02:06Lies Heavy.

02:07The novel presents an alternative history which shows that the Allies had won the Second

02:12World War.

02:13The readers of the novel are obviously amazed and intrigued because they happen to be living

02:18in a period and the world that has the Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany as victorious forces.

02:26Through Frink it is revealed that Childen has been getting counterfeit antiques from

02:31the Windermatsen Corporation.

02:33Eventually, Frink blackmails the Windermatsen for money to finance his new jewelry business.

02:41Baines and Tagomi meet but Baines continues to delay the business because they have been

02:46waiting a third party from Japan.

02:50One day, the people receive the news that the Chancellor Germany, Martin Bormann has

02:55passed away.

02:57He had been ill.

02:59Childen, on one occasion, gets tempted and takes some of the original new metal work

03:05from Frink's consignment and tries to please a Japanese client.

03:10The Japanese client believes that Frink's jewelry is highly spiritually alive.

03:16We are introduced to Joe and Juliana.

03:19They go on a road trip to Denver, Colorado.

03:23Joe wants to meet Hawthorne Abenson, the author of The Grasshopper Lies Heavy.

03:29He decides that they should take a secret side trip to meet that author.

03:34The author happens to be in a heavily guarded fortress-like estate.

03:39The place is called the High Castle.

03:41It is located in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

03:45On the other hand, Joseph Goebbels becomes the new German Chancellor.

03:50Tagomi and Baines eventually meet the Japanese contact as agents of the Nazi secret police,

03:57the Sikostienst.

03:59They are about to arrest Baines.

04:02It is revealed that he is actually a Nazi defector named Rudolf Wegener.

04:08Wegener has a Japanese contact who happens to be a famous Japanese general during Operation

04:14Dandelion.

04:16It happens to be a secret plan for the Nazis to attack the Japanese home islands to kill

04:21them swiftly in one attack.

04:24On the other hand, Frink is revealed to be a Jew.

04:27He gets arrested.

04:29The SD agents interrogate Wegener and Tagomi.

04:33Tagomi shoots those agents dead with an antique American pistol.

04:38The narrative brings us back to Colorado.

04:42Before taking the trip to the High Castle, Joe changes his appearance and manners.

04:47Juliana thinks that he actually wants to kill a Benderson.

04:51Joe confirms it and reveals that he is an undercover Swiss Nazi assassin.

04:56Juliana is obviously shocked.

04:59Juliana irons him very seriously and drives off to inform a Benderson that his life is

05:06in danger.

05:07Wegener goes back to Germany.

05:10Tagomi is still unstable after the shootout.

05:14Tagomi goes to Childen to sell back the gun that he happens to have used in that gun fight.

05:21He senses the energy from one of Frink's jewels.

05:25Tagomi buys it from Childen.

05:28He has a sudden spiritual moment and he perceives an alternative history version of San Francisco.

05:34Tagomi is able to compel the German authorities to release Frink.

05:40He has never personally met Frink and does not know that Frink has made the jewel he

05:45has bought.

05:47When Juliana reaches Cheyenne, she has her own spiritual experience.

05:52She finds out that Benderson is now living in a normal house with his family.

05:58He has already left the High Castle because of a change of outlook.

06:02He is not lost in thoughts now that he will be killed.

06:07Juliana asks him several questions about his inspiration to his novel The Grasshopper.

06:13He confesses that he used the I Ching to guide his writing of the novel.

06:19Before her departure, Juliana understands that truth itself wrote the book so that the

06:24inner truth that Japan and Germany had actually lost the war could be revealed.

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended