Week 10
What distinctions are there between alternate history, postmodern alternate history and uchronie genres?
Alternate history is classified as fictional or subgenre of historical science fiction. The creation of Alternate history is mainly focused on the doctrine of “WHAT IF”, that is, what happens next if a certain historical event changes. It’s like Nazi Germany and the Empire Japan in the “Man in the high castle”, who defeated the Allies in the WWII and then divided the world and the United States, this is the world in the story where the protagonists begin their adventures and battles (Mountfortl, 2020). From the perspective of “Man in the high castle”, alternate history is set in real history and a certain event, the only critical element is swapping the roles of the two sides. For example, the Axis became the winner of WWII who supposed to be the defeats, while Allies became defeats who supposed to be the victors of WWII. This is also the most fascinating part of alternate history; the “what if” concept makes the audiences curious about the genre.
Postmodern alternate history, on the other hand, is very similar to the original alternate history, but postmodern alternate history focuses on a single event known as synchronic, where a threat must be stopped in order to save the world or by doing something to prevent a certain disaster happening. It also combines many postmodernism concepts like postmodern relativism, which emphasizes pluralism in favour of multiple coexistences (Mountfort, 2016).
Uchronia is a French term, which combines the concepts of alternate history and postmodern alternate history, and with the combination of Pure Uchronia, Pural Uchronia and Infinite Uchronia. Pure Uchronia refers to a single alternate history that has been changed by a certain act. Pural Uchronia refers to there is more than one world within parallel time and space. Infinite Uchronia, in which there are many or even countless different parallel worlds (Mountfort, 2016). In the story of “man in the high castle”, from the original single alternate history, due to excessive frequent deaths caused parallel time and space imbalances, thus created the possibility of travelling through time and space into different parallel worlds, and each parallel world has different development and consequence because of different major choices made (Scott & Cedar, 2020).
The most prominent hint of “man in high castle” is that every change or decision would lead to a good or bad fate. The director Philip Dick used the elements of alternate history, postmodern and Uchronia to turn the tragic alternate world into as good as the original real world. For instance, in the story, the protagonist Alexa, inspired by the Book I-Ching, found the way the United States should be by traversing into the original world. Finally, together with the resistance groups successfully overthrow the colonization of Japan and Germany, and re-established the United States as wonderful as the United States in the original real world (Scott & Cedar, 2015-2019).
Mountfort, P. (2020). ENGL602 Popular Genres: The Man in the High Castle, uchronie and the I Ching [PowerPoint slides]. Blackboard. https://blackboard.aut.ac.nz/bbcswebdav/pid-5273124-dt-content-rid-10490442_4/xid-10490442_4
Mountfort, P. (2016). The I Ching and Philip K. Dicks The Man in the High Castle. Science Fiction Studies, 43(2). doi:10.5621/sciefictstud.43.2.0287
Scott, R. (Excutive producer) & Cedar, M. (producer). (2015-2019). The man in the high castle [TV Series]. Amazon Studio
Pop Genres 2020 