Louisa Boswell

ENGL 146

4/29/2016

Professor Sarah Boyd

Shades of Grey

Finishing up watching the TV series Man in the High Castle, it occurred to me that there are many similarities between it and Alan Moore’s graphic novel V for Vendetta. To start with the obvious, both worlds are ruled by fascist governments. This is a common theme in the sci-fi, and dystopian genres. Both also deal in shades of grey, morally and visually. You won’t find traditional heroes and villains in either of these. Color wise neither of these is done in black and white but they do both contain very subdued colors. Other common themes include art, V’s old film and music collection and Frank’s artwork, and he importance of location.

The Man in the High Castle, the TV series based in Philip K. Dick, is a fascinating look at what could have been had the Nazi’s won World War II. It’s more then that though, it also has a sci-fi element though that’s not clear until near the end of season 1. It begins by seeming like a simple alternate history, it’s the 60s, the Nazi’s control the Eastern US, and the Japanese control the west. And then there are the rebels whose main purpose, as far as I can see, is to smuggle these movies to The Man in the High Castle. Over the course of the show it becomes apparent that these movies are more then they seem to be, that they may be revealing parallel universes where the outcome of the war was different. Finally at the end of the last episode of the season one of the characters actually sees one of these alternate universes. The Trade Minister, who throughout this show has been the most superstitious character, sits down in on a bench outside, closes his eyes and opens them to see an entirely different square, with an American flag.

V for Vendetta is the story of a man looking for revenge after being held, tortured and experimented on by the fascist government ruling England after much of the rest of the world has been destroyed by a nuclear war. Or possibly it’s the story of a masked vigilante trying to save his country from its fascist rulers. Either way, it’s a graphic novel set in a dystopian, fascist ruled, version of England, with a man in a Guy Fawkes mask attempting to destroy the government. He does this through by murdering, and bombing, and manipulating people in power. He recruits a 16 year old girl to his cause by kidnapping and torturing her, so she could experience the same thing he went through to arrive at his conclusion about his responsibility to the people. His methods of recruitment are effective and after his death the girl puts on one of his Guy Fawkes masks and continues his work.

Understanding the setting of a story is fundamental to appreciating the story. I think that is one reason so many fantasy books have maps in them. It’s very satisfying to look at a map as you read through a book, to understand the spatial relationship between the different countries, cities, etc. Man in the High Castle takes place in several distinct locations. Much of it takes place in the Japanese Pacific States, which is the whole Western part of the US. We can see in the show the influence of the Japanese on the area; martial arts seem to be popular, or at least Juliana practices Aikido, and we see Juliana buy traditional herbs for her mother. This is where Frank and Juliana live. Though a fair amount of the population is Caucasian, all the authorities seem to be Japanese. Certainly all the Kempeitai, or police, that we see are Japanese. There definitely seems to be some racial tension, Juliana’s mother criticizes her for liking anything to do with the Japanese after her father was killed in the war fighting them. Juliana’s stepfather has a job in the government but he doesn’t even have enough power to protect Trudy from the authorities when she gets involved in the rebellion.

The part of the show set in the American Nazi Reich is centered mainly on Obergruppenfuhrer John Smith; Joe in some scenes but while he lives there he spends much of the show either in the neutral zone or in the Japanese Pacific States with Juliana. The Nazi occupied places that we see include New York City, Berlin, and Smiths house, which is probably located shortly outside New York City. The whole holiday scene at the Smith’s house reminded me so strongly of something out of one of those American Girl books, a perfect family in their perfect neighborhood, sitting down outside together and eating pie.

The neutral zone provides a buffer between the Germans and the Japanese. It’s an area of refuge for anyone who is not able to live under German laws. It’s also a place where you can go to buy, sell, or trade outlawed items, as we see with the bookstore that is selling bibles. It’s the place designated for the delivery of the movie that Juliana is carrying because it is sort of out of reach of the authorities of either government. Because it’s ungoverned it’s also a dangerous place to be. It’s described as kind of a lawless, Wild West, frontier; though it seems relatively peaceful until the Marshall shows up, more on him later.

The importance of place in V for Vendetta is not related so much to the location where the story is set as the state of the world. We learn over the course of the story that much of the rest of the world has been destroyed by the war. That makes this very much a story about an isolated island.

Stylistically both of these have very muted colors, shades of grey. In V for Vendetta this is most obvious. In a graphic novel the images are always the fist impression, for me anyway. The pictures aren’t black and white, but the colors that are used are very subdued. In Man in the High Castle many scenes take place in big cities where everything seems grey and dirty. The clothes people wear are also typically subdued colors. One obvious exception is the holiday party at Obergruppenfuhrer Smith’s house that Joe attends. Everything in this scene is very bright and idyllic.

In both of these stories it’s a little hard to tell who the hero is, or if there is in fact a hero. I think this quote from Rudolph Wegener sums it up; he says to his family “It is far from easy to be a good man. In fact, as one gets older, it becomes more and more difficult to know… what a good man is. Yet it also becomes increasingly important to at least try”. Wegener is trying to be a good man, he and the Japanese trade minister attempt to carry out a plot to prevent war between the Japanese and the Germans. Juliana certainly isn’t trying to be a hero, as she says “I’m not here to kill Nazis. I’m here because I need answers, and I’m not leaving until I get them”. I think V is also trying in his own way to be a good man. There is no doubt that the government he is fighting is evil. His methods may not be good, but it’s easy to imagine that he would have a hard time recognizing what good is after everything he has been through. His is a world with very little “good” left in it.

I found Joe to be a really interesting character. I don’t understand his motivation, and I could never figure out if he was a good or bad guy. I think he was most likely neither. We don’t get to hear his backstory, at least not in season one. He works for the Nazi’s but doesn’t seem to trust them entirely, he has a girlfriend with a son who he keeps secret from them. But he also flirts with Juliana and seems jealous of Frank. It begs the question of how much of what we see him do and say is an act, and who he is trying to fool. If he were simply interested in self-preservation he might work for the Nazi’s, but it doesn’t seem likely that he would get mixed up with Juliana and then lie to Obergruppenfuhrer Smith about her. He does actually seem to care about Juliana, tries to keep her a secret from the people he works for and doesn’t shoot her when ordered to. He works hard to protect her from the Marshall. And in the end when he is running away he asks her to come with him.

Art is often seen as something uniquely human. It’s an appreciation for something simply because it’s beautiful, without interest for function. Or sometimes art is an abstract idea. We recognize art in many different forms, literature, poetry, painting, sculpting, or music, just to name a few. In both V for Vendetta and Man in the High Castle we see governments that are destroying art in some way; whether it’s destroying the art or the artists themselves. But art is beauty and humanity always finds a way to create beauty. Obviously people writing books and TV shows may be biased on the subject of the importance of artists to the world, but I think the number of artists whose names we remember now, hundreds or thousands of years after they’ve died, is a good indication of how most people feel about artists.

In The Man in the High Castle Frank is an artist, or at least he was. Now he makes a living by making fake guns. He rarely creates art now because he says nobody will buy it, but a friend tells him “Art is important, Frank. It gives people hope”. And in fact a couple pieces of Frank’s art feature prominently in the show. First there’s the drawing of Juliana that he gives her. She brings it to the neutral zone. After that it goes from person to person, the Marshall uses it to look for her after finding the drawing at the site where the Nazi agent died. The drawing then passes to Joe, and then to Obergruppenfuhrer Smith. Another piece of Frank’s art that shows up repeatedly is the heart necklace that he made for Juliana. As with the drawing, she loses it and it ends up in other hands. The necklace ends up with The Japanese trade minister. He keeps it in his office where we see him holding it a lot. He is holding it at the end of the show when he sits down in the square, closes his eyes and opens them to see a different version of the city. The trade minister constantly consults the I Ching throughout the show and I think we are supposed to conclude that he is sensing something from the necklace. Perhaps the necklace is what shows him the alternate universe because Frank and Juliana, who the necklace belonged to, have watched the films that also show these alternate universes.

V’s collection of old music and movies-V for Vendetta is a very artistic novel, as well as containing references to art. Much of the book is written in an almost poetic way. V has a great love of art, especially drama. He is constantly quoting things, he reads to Evey, and he listens to a lot of music, he has a jukebox in his secret hideout. And when he blows up building in the middle of the novel we see him standing on a rooftop like he’s conducting an orchestra, even turning around at the end and giving a bow. He tells Evey “They’ve forgotten the drama of it all, you see they abandoned their scripts when the world withered in the glare of the nuclear footlights. I’m going to remind them about the melodrama. About the tuppenny rush and the penny dreadful. You see Evey, all the world’s a stage”. Even his rose garden is a creation of a sort. All the roses in his garden represent lives.

The Nazi’s are probably the main villains we see in Man in the High Castle, even though much of the show is set in the Pacific States or in the Neutral Zone. The Nazi’s will always be the villains that we associate with World War II. One thing that we see in the Nazi’s is a requirement for perfection. The ill or disabled are not fit to live in the their opinion. We see this with Obergruppenfuhrer Smith’s brother and son. His brother we only see pictures of when Smith and his wife talk about him, this is right after Smith has been told that his son is sick and should be killed. His wife states that it was better that his brother was put out of his misery and didn’t have to continue to live how he was living. We aren’t told exactly what was wrong with him; we just see a picture of him in a wheelchair. Another scene that emphasizes this is the scene where Joe is talking to the police officer on the side of the road after replacing a tire on his truck. Joe notices ash in the air and when he asks about it the officer tells him it’s from the hospital. It’s a horrifying scene because the officer mentions it so casually. It shows a severe lack of understanding of illness, that they believe someone ill would rather be dead.

The Nazi’s may be the ones who are the biggest threat to Jews in this show, but Jews in the Pacific States are not safe by any means. The Japanese don’t seem to care that much about them one way or another, but they are not kindly disposed towards them. Frank’s sister and her kids are not killed because they are Jewish, but because The Japanese are threatening Frank to try to get information. It’s about his relationship to Juliana, and through her, Trudy, that gets his family killed. Not their Jewish blood. A recurring theme in this show is the technological differences between the Japanese and the Germans. The Germans have vastly superior weapons, while the Japanese live in a less civilized society, still following their traditional practices. One example of this would be the ritual suicide that the chief of the Kempeitai is going to commit after failing to capture the assassin. Because of this some of the terrible things we see the Kempeitai do are motivated by a desire to avoid war with Germany. It’s hard to see this as an excuse for torture, or framing an innocent man for the assassination attempt on the prince. Still, it does provide some context for their actions.

The Marshall is a strange character; he’s almost comically evil, for example in his collection of the fingers of his victims as souvenirs. The fact that the actor who plays him was also Owen in Torchwood makes it even harder for me to take him seriously. He is the only form of law out in the neutral zone, hunting down Jews who are hiding out there. Though he works alone, it doesn’t seem to occur to anyone that he could be stopped. He works hard to keep everyone as afraid of him as possible. He kills the man who owns the bookstore and hangs his body up in the street, forbidding anyone to take it down. Everyone is frightened enough that they obey.

The government in V for Vendetta is your typical dystopian, fascist government. They are racist and homophobic and we learn some, though not much, about a place where they experimented on and disposed of some of these people that they didn’t approve of. The government is set up in such a way as to mimic a living thing, with the different parts of it called the head, the eye, the ear, the finger, the nose, and the mouth. There is no respect for privacy and everyone is being watched and listened to at all times.

One last thing that seemed to be significant in both these stories, and I think we touched on this in class when we discussed V for Vendetta, was that lead characters in these two stories didn’t remember the world before the wars. Evey has very little memory of her life with her parents before the war. And in Man in the High Castle it has been twenty or so years since the war. Joe, Juliana, and Frank are all too young to really remember what the United States was like. Perhaps this is to show that even people who are accustomed to a certain way of living can recognize when it’s wrong, and rebel against it.

Both Man in the High Castle and V for Vendetta fall under the sci-fi, dystopian heading, which is home to a vast array of different novels and shows. The common themes that I’ve talked about in these two are present in many others. Sci-fi and dystopian stories are like stories found in all genres, they’re about people first and foremost. Where they differ from other genres is there exploration of humanity in new, extreme situations. In the midst of chaos, war, the unknown and unexplainable, people are still people. Not great or evil but full of potential.

Lastly, I have loved every moment of this class, even reading Black Hole. Thank you for being a great, and encouraging teacher.

I did enjoy Life After Life a lot but I was initially disappointed by the ending. I was expecting the plot to come to some sort of conclusion; Ursula would find the correct combination of decisions in her life, and the right luck, to have a happy ending for herself and/or others, Groundhog Day style. I thought it might be the life where she shot Hitler, the one that we saw in the very beginning of the book. Not a happy ending for her, but it could have saved many lives. When we got back to that though there was another life after. After the life where she lived through the war and found Teddy alive I thought that was going to be the last one, but after that the book ended on another Feb 11^th, 1910. That indicated to me that there was no reason she was reliving her life over and over again, and that there wasn’t necessarily a right or wrong way for her to be living her life. The more I have thought about the ending the more I like it.

On a somewhat different note, while I was reading this book I kept thinking about the Vlogbrothers debate about whether if you had a time machine it would be okay to go back in time and kill baby Hitler to stop him. This book had several instances where you had to question whether the ends justified the means, when Ursula pushed Bridget down the stairs. She saved them all from getting sick, but she could have killed her. And of course when she shoots Hitler. The Nerdfighters came up with the Evil Baby Orphanage to solve the evil baby Hitler question, but it’s easier to come up with a solution to a hypothetical problem when you have a hypothetical time machine.

There was something interesting I wanted to mention because we were talking in class about the significance of the animals in this book. I was watching an interview with a conservation biologist the other day and she was talking about all the challenges there are in saving endangered predatory animals, like tigers and wolves. She mentioned that people all over the world have a very negative perception of wolves in particular for some reason. This book contained several characters whose names were similar to, or meant, wolf, or who were described as wolfish.

The last couple weeks, while I was reading Never Let Me Go, I was also reading about GMO’s and cloning in BIOL 202. It was an interesting experience, even though Never Let Me Go is not at all about the science behind cloning, but rather the morality of it. Also it was written like a period drama rather then a Sci-Fi novel. I think that made the book more interesting because it was harder to define.

I found this book fascinating for a number of reasons. One thing that struck me was the suggestion that the “possibles” were all criminals/prostitutes. This is something that the clones thought, so it may have been merely a rumor that spread like many others in this book. But, assuming it was true, I have been trying to figure out the logic behind that. Perhaps they wanted to use people who would never be likely to benefit from the organ donations. Or maybe whatever process they use to clone people is harmful. But they wanted the clones to be extremely healthy, presumably they wanted to avoid cloning a person who was had a family history of breast cancer, diabetes, or some other heritable disorder that could affect the life and health of the clone, and thus the viability of their organs.

The other thing that bothered me was that people would want to deny that they had created life, that the clones had souls. Growing human organs would be a great scientific advancement of course, but so is cloning an organism, just look at Dolly the sheep. And surely you are taking a lot away from that achievement if you deny that they are really alive, Even if you’re just denying it to justify what you’re using them for. Plus, the clones are given lives of sorts. Some of them have their own apartments, they learn to drive, and they work, providing care before they start donating.

I may be over-thinking this book. Regardless, I really enjoyed reading it.

In class we discussed briefly what V’s motivation really was for his actions against the government. Certainly he told Eve that he was fighting for justice. But, at least to me, it would appear that his crusade is motivated by a desire for revenge, as is suggested by the title of the book. The first evidence of this is that V tracks down and murders everyone connected to the facility where he was held and tortured. V may have done that to get rid of anyone who might have had a chance of figuring out that he was behind the terrorist attacks, and therefore had a better chance of apprehending him. Or he may simply have been looking for revenge.

I think the main argument in favor of his entire mission being built on revenge is the fact that he tortured Eve. He seems to think that she won’t be able to appreciate his mission if she hasn’t experienced exactly what he himself has experienced. V doesn’t believe that just explaining to her, or even what she’s seen and experienced herself, is enough to convince her that his mission is justified. Perhaps because she is too young to really remember what the world was like before. Instead she has to endure the same terror and torture that he was subjected to.

What V manages to create in the end is complete chaos. An anarchy that, he probably hoped, would resolve into a better world. I love watching superhero movies and TV shows, and I always find it particularly fascinating when the vigilante/hero is morally ambiguous. I feel that life is more morally grey, and no people are really either good or bad. So having a protagonist who doesn’t always do things for the right reason, or who sometimes goes to far, is very interesting to think about. In the case of V for Vendetta though, I didn’t find much to identify with because I’m not sure that V has any noble motivations at all for what he does.

In A Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood reached out to a deep-seated fear in our society. Handmaid’s Tale is not what I usually think of as dystopian literature. It’s not set in a post-apocalyptic future, it’s not even telling the story of an apocalypse. It’s made clear at the end of the book that in this world the horrifying Gileadean society is over. The last thing we see in the book is a lecture being given in the year 2195 at a historical convention.

A big issue introduced near the beginning of this book is the debate between freedom to vs. freedom from. The country before Gilead where everyone could do as they liked, marry whoever they liked, work where they liked, read what they liked, but also accept that freedom meant less safety. Or the society in Gilead, where everyone had freedom from crime and uncertainty. It’s an issue that many people argue about in the real world; do we want a larger central government that provides us with more freedom from? Or a smaller government that gives us more freedom to? Gun control that gives us more freedom from gun-related crimes? Or freedom to own whatever guns we want?

In the book though it’s not really a valid argument. Neither society offers absolute freedom from, or absolute freedom to. The women in Gilead aren’t free from rape, it’s just been institutionalized.

In the introduction to her book, The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K Le Guin states that what authors are “trying to do is tell you what they’re like, what you’re like-what’s going on-what the weather is now” etc., and the main thing Le Guin seems to be telling us in this story is how screwed up gender roles are. Admittedly, as this book was written in the 60s, we can recognize that this has changed at least somewhat. But when hearing Genly Ai describe what a woman is like to Estraven by saying “the heaviest single factor in one’s life, is whether one’s born male or female…it determines one’s expectations, activities, outlook, ethics manners” he furthermore states that women ”don’t often seem to turn up mathematicians, or composers of music, or inventors, or abstract thinkers” (p. 253). We still live in a world where much fewer women go into certain fields then men, the sciences and the military particularly come to mind, and it’s hard not to wonder whether humans will ever really evolve past our heteronormative society.