„Acta Humana” 4 (1/2013)

Mgr Zuzanna Gawrońska

UMCS Lublin

Landscapes of the Future: Space and (Post)Apocalypse

in Philip K. Dick’s novel The Penultimate Truth

Philip K. Dick’s book The Penultimate Truth published in 19641, although

indisputably valued among Dick readers, as it often happens with science-fiction
texts, has received relatively little attention and has sporadically been the subject
of exhaustive and sound analysis so far. Among those who contributed with a more
extensive critical treatment of the underrated novel are Kim Stanley Robinson
and his PhD thesis The Novels of P.K. Dick, Patricia S. Warrick Mind in Motion:
The Fiction of Philip K. Dick, and Merritt Abrash with his ‘Man Everywhere in
Chains’: Dick, Rousseau and “The Penultimate Truth”2. Other authors usually
dismiss it with just a few-word or line (most often unfavourable) commentary, or
would not even have its name mentioned, like Fredrick Jameson who in his chapter
on Dick’s novels only implicitly included the book into the group of “the trash and
the hack work”3.
The reason behind the book’s lack of critical popularity may be what Abrash
pronounces as “serious deficiencies” of The Penultimate Truth: “an excess of sub-
plots, a confusing and unconvincing major character, and some convoluted and
ultimately absurd time travel gimmickry”4. Undoubtedly the fact that Dick was
concurrently working on another novel, i.e. The Zap Gun, could influence the qual-
ity of his writing and result in some weaknesses in the construction of the novel.
However, what to one appears to be a drawback may on the other hand turn out to
be an asset worthy of consideration and able to spur a critical impulse. “An excess”
1 
Some aspects of an earlier short story “The Defenders” published in 1953 were developed
by Dick in this novel.
2 
In the collection Philip K. Dick: Contemporary Critical Interpretations, ed. S.J. Umland,
Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut and London, 1995.
3 
F. Jameson, Archeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science
Fictions, Verso, London and New York, 2005, p. 363.
4 
M. Abrash, ‘Man Everywhere in Chains’: Dick, Rousseau and “The Penultimate Truth”
[in:] Philip K. Dick: Contemporary Critical Interpretations, ed. Samuel J. Umland, Greenwood
Press, Westport, Connecticut and London, 1995, p. 157.
 Zuzanna Gawrońska

could well be expressed as “richness” or “abundance”, “confusing and unconvinc-

ing” might be interpreted as “impenetrable and undeveloped5”, and “convoluted” is
exactly the word one could apply with reference to the novel’s whole plot, taking
into account its surprising turns of the action and its complication. For what draws
attention on a closer reading and offers a rich material for analysis is precisely the
construction of action as well as of space in The Penultimate Truth.
Generally speaking, the book has been labelled as depicting a post-apocalyptic
dystopian vision of the world. But taking only a post-apocalyptic path of interpre-
tation might be slightly misleading, if only for the fact that apocalypse is present
throughout the novel on its various planes, and that for some of the characters it is
not only a matter of the past, but the very present. Therefore, in view of what has
been stated so far, the main scope of this article will be to undertake a preliminary
study which would offer an interpretation focusing especially on two aspects: the
complex organization of the dystopian space and its function(s) in the text as well
as on the implementation of the motif of apocalypse in both the construction of the
novel itself, especially its action, and the reading experience as well.
Before setting about to the analysis proper the last observation should be made
with regard to the methodology employed in the article. The analysis of space will
be conducted using James Phelan’s rhetorical theory of narrative6. Such choice of
methodology may at first sight seem an uncommon or even illegitimate practice,
since the theory has been created as a result of and for the analysis of character,
not space. Yet, those familiar with Phelan’s theory might agree that in the course
of reading his works one could arrive at a certain conclusion or to have a particular
intuition, namely that it would be possible to expand Phelan’s rhetorical theory to
other elements of the represented world and try to apply the categories proposed
by the author also in the analysis of time and space. Hence, the following inter-
pretation of the novel will also include, though as an experiment, an introductory
5 
Reduction or “undevelopedness” present in character creation is considered a character-
istic and in particular often a generic feature of SF characterization in comparison to realistic
fiction.
6 
In short, according to Phelan’s rhetorical theory of narrative stipulated in Reading
People, Reading Plots: Character, Progression, and the Interpretation of Narrative, characters
can be considered as “multichromatic” in a sense that it is possible to distinguish in them three
components: the mimetic, the synthetic and the thematic. The only indispensable component is
the synthetic one, present in every literary creation of the character, the other two are potential;
a character may possess all the three, however the synthetic element can be more or less fore-
grounded, whereas the mimetic and the thematic components may be more or less developed.
The three components are constituted by dimensions (attributes) which in turn can convert into
functions by the progression of the work (only in the case of the synthetic component dimen-
sions are always functions). Progression is understood as movement, it is “concerned with how
authors generate, sustain, develop, and resolve readers’ interests in narrative” (p. 17). Rhetorical
transactions involve the author, the text and its elements and the authorial audience(s).

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realization of this idea through an application of categories and notions of Phelan’s

rhetorical theory to the analysis of space.
To begin with this task it will be necessary to regard the category of space as
a complex, “multichromatic” entity and to distinguish in it the three components:
the mimetic, the synthetic and the thematic. The basic dimensions which constitute
the mimetic component involve various aspects of space. It is the planet Earth as
we know it, having the same geophysical properties and subject to the same laws
of nature. The political division on two superpowers evokes the contemporaneous
deadlock of the Cold War era, an indispensable element of the large-scale reality
at the time when Dick was writing the novel. Also the well known names appear,
defining space and conjuring up familiar images. However, the mimetic element is
rather undeveloped as it frequently lacks even a slightly more detailed description,
and is given only in the signal form of e. g. a well-known name. In this way, it
becomes obvious that the author assumes the readers’ expertise and invokes their
knowledge or first-hand experience of what in the book forms the image of space.
In The Penultimate Truth the mimetic component is presented against and often
blended with the synthetic one. An exemplification of a closer localization would
be New York, still bearing its original name – so the first mental categorisation
would define it as “the same”, though as soon as we learn that it is the city without
the Times Square it becomes marked for “different”. Since The Penultimate Truth
is a work of speculative fiction, the synthetic dimensions have been maximally
foregrounded: the city is no longer the same New York, and the face of the whole
planet has undergone numerous and significant changes due to a particular “arma-
geddon” – World War III.
Thus the synthetic component of space is shaped in the text by temporal and
event framing of the apocalypse. At this point, it is important to note that apoca-
lypse functions in the text in its two meanings, that is that of a “catastrophe” and
“revelation”. So first of all, let us focus on the aspect of catastrophe, with the view
to its initiating circumstances and its aftermath. It can be gathered from the text that
the pre-war globe was the world divided and represented by two scientifically and
technologically advanced superpowers, which formed two ideologically hostile
territories, Wes-Dem and Pac-Peop (short forms of the names standing for West-
ern Democracies and Pacific Peoples Republic). After a few years of devastating
warfare, and at the peak moment of the World War III, the fighting sides decided to
use nuclear and biochemical weapons, which once conducted caused devastating
radioactive contamination of the Earth’s surface.
When the action of the novel actually starts the time is fifteen years past the
nuclear armageddon. However, the war and its aftermath do not seem to have
changed the officially recognized geo-political status quo and have affected people
in the way one could predict, which definitely may arouse tensions in the reader

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 Zuzanna Gawrońska

and redound to develop progression of the work. The result of the World War III
is not the Earth united under one victorious power, but the world still horizontally
divided in two, Wes-Dem and Pac-Peop (obvious synthetic attributes of space).
Moreover, we learn that the division had also been made on the vertical plane, since
the majority of the population both in Wes-Dem and Pac-Peop was made to hide
underground in order to survive the atomic blast and its subsequent consequences.
Fifteen years later, they are still kept in numerous bunker-colonies underground
called “tanks”. The tanks contain complete living spaces, though relatively small,
and factories with elaborate production lines. The activity of the “tankers” centres
around production of specialized robots, which are meant to be used on the surface
instead of people to fight under radioactive conditions. Each of the underground
colony members is seen as performing a crucial role both in the society and in
the process of production, so that the loss of any of them is not only a threat to
the sustainability of the social life balance, but may also, as propaganda teaches
them, have an impact on the process of production and, as a consequence, on their
peoples’ winning or losing the war. One of the tankers in a colony performs the
role of a supervisor and he is at the same time the only person contacting with
his authorities on the surface. People receive information about the warfare and
the situation above through transmitter devices, such as the radio and television,
working only one way, that is only broadcasting. Thus, the tankers are convinced
that the war and radioactive contamination of the Earth continue and that ascending
to the surface would end in radiation sickness followed by inevitable death. For
them, the apocalypse goes on.
Meanwhile, on the ground, the ruling elites of Western and Eastern powers
live in peace and relative comfort. It is such organization the spatial plane – as
contrasted imagery (dimensions) – that constitutes the thematic component of the
novel. Although all animals are dead and there’s no longer the old New York,
people live and work in comfortable buildings equipped with automats and other
technologically advanced devices. Interestingly, it seems that people do not inhabit
the city, but its remaining premises are solely the offices owned by government
institutions, the media and business thus. Therefore, even at this level space is again
divided, it is organised according to an opposition: living space – private, the centre
of personal power, and working space – official, the centre of executive power.
Robots are no longer used as soldiers, but perform all kinds of jobs for their owners.
In Wes-Dem people under the political ruler, Talbot Yancy (therefore called yance-
men), form a hierarchical society, where status is measured by two categories:
power – depending on the degree of executive power and the importance of the
post acquired, and wealth, which reflects itself in the number of robot-slaves and
the amount of land owned outside of the Wes-Dem cities. Radioactive contamina-
tion is eventually passing away and hence, there is much competition between

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 Landscapes of the Future: Space and (Post)Apocalypse in Philip K. Dick’s novel…

yancemen, who would willingly risk their health in order to take over a new piece
of land, even not yet completely free from radiation, where they could build their
luxurious villas. It is space marked for inequality. All yancemen are interested in
maintaining the present state of affairs, therefore their main activities focus on
organizing and sustaining the mystification by manipulation and fabrication of in-
formation (e.g. Yance Talbot’s speeches), artefacts and even history (at some point
in the novel they use a time machine in order to plant evidence of alien artifacts
on land belonging to a housing developer, Louis Runcible, so that the hoax could
be discovered and the land could be legitimately seized). Their work is dedicated
to sustaining an illusion that both the war and radioactive contamination of the
planet continue. In order to do this, a group of linguistically talented individuals
within Yance-men elite prepare Talbot’s speeches using a device called rhetorisor,
a machine for converting linguistic units, even the most absurd or senseless ones,
into eloquent propagandist speeches:
Coleen read the sentence aloud. “‘The well-informed dead rat romped under the tongue-
-tied pink log.”
“Listen,” he said grimly. “I want to see what this stupid assist that cost me fifteen thousand
Wes-Dem dollars is going to do with that. I’m serious; I’m waiting.” He jabbed the rerun tab
of the machine.
The rhetorizor, in its cricket’s voice, intoned: “We think of rats, of course, as our enemy.
But consider their vast value to us in cancer research alone. The lowly rat has done yeoman’s
service for humanity…”7.

Furthermore, both spaces described above are presented to the reader from
the perspective of two protagonists, representing the separate worlds. Nicholas
St. James is the president in one of the tankers, while Joseph Adams belongs to
a group of the Yancemen working for the Agency – Talbot Yancy’s office in New
York. The pattern of spatial organization becomes more complicated when the
lead-mechanic in the tank falls ill and Nicholas is forced to leave the underground
shelter in search for an artificial pancreas for transplantation. As he ascends to the
ground, he finds himself on a barren, desert-like terrain (which he believes to be
still radioactive) where he discovers groups of other underground refugees hiding
in the nearby ruins. This situation discloses to the reader a third space on the verti-
cal axis, an area which is an example of a physical intermundium, a transitory space
between the two major spaces, which does not belong to any of them but also the
one that does not offer any sense of security to the hiding people. The yancemen
realm occasionally exerts its influence there sending the robots in search for the
new refugees, who either do not survive confrontation with their weapons or are
taken prisoners and put in one of the official refuge shelters (conapts), which in
7 
P.K. Dick, The Penultimate Truth, Bluejay Books, New York 1984, p. 54.

53
 Zuzanna Gawrońska

reality performed a function of a jail for tankers. Yet, despite all hardships involved
in living in the extreme conditions, the group dwells there and does not choose
either to return underground nor to be forced to move to comfortable conapts. The
explanation which one of the squatters gives is simple but existentially exhaustive:
“Then how come,” Blair said, “you’re squatting here in these ruins instead of lounging at
a swimming pool in one of those conapt constellations?”.
The man grunted, gestured. “I just like to be free”8.

So consequently, this physical intermundium, although not totally beyond the

scope of yancemen’s influence, is as close to be the symbolic representation of
freedom as possible in the novel.
What is more, another intermundium can be identified in the novel if we take
the tanker’s perspective into account. To their belief the tank is just a transitory
space, a place in between the past and the future. It is their shelter (in its function-
ing resembling a womb) from the dangers of the radioactive disease and war, their
vessel carrying them towards better times. However, although designed with this
purpose, this space is only mentally generated by the anticipatory approach of its
inhabitants because from the position of yancemen, this is a default place for tank-
ers. In consequence, a space which should arise positive connotations, is turned
into one displaying the function of a space of oppression, for in reality it resembles
more a jail or a prison camp, forming and opposition with the other intermundium.
There is yet another apocalyptical element in the novel which serves the crea-
tion of tension and furthers progression of the work, namely the character called
David Lantano. For the larger part of the novel, he can be regarded as a messianic
figure, the merciful, the saviour. Not only does he rescue Nicholas who normally
would have been killed on the spot by the robots right after his emergence on the
ground surface, but he also takes him to his villa, feeds him, gives him clothes and
offers a place to stay. However, there are two qualities that distinguish him from
ordinary human beings which might suggest his supernatural provenience. First
of all, what singles him out from other yancemen, apart from a reddish skin colour
of a Cherokee Indian, are his outstanding rhetorical abilities. All the speeches he
prepared would surpass those of his colleagues in terms of phrasing, argument and
content. Secondly, there is this mysterious feature in him of appearing to be of a dif-
ferent age at different times. To Joseph he sometimes looks like a young boy, and
not a long while later like an elderly wiseman in his seventies. Moreover, judging
from his words and actions, Joseph Adams seems convinced that this would be the
man that is going to lead the tankers and restore the right order of things (although
Dick is not precise in the novel about what kind of order that might be).

8 
Ibidem, p. 96.

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 Landscapes of the Future: Space and (Post)Apocalypse in Philip K. Dick’s novel…

Then finally in terms of the action the novel can be said to be constructed as
a book of revelations. The number of turning points there is excessive, all the veils
are pulled down as the action progresses and the reader participates in the unveil-
ing concurrently with the protagonists. In the course of events it becomes clear
that the two superpowers are no longer ideologically hostile, that Talbot Yancy is
just a technologically sophisticated puppet attached to a desk in his presidential
office, reciting his speeches synthesized by a rhetorizor while another machine is
at the same time producing his simulacrum, the picture and sound then broadcast
to the underground colonies. We learn that Nicholas will never get a pancreas for
the colony mechanic, because all artificially produced organs intended for soldiers
have been claimed by Brose, the actual aged Wes-Dem leader. Additionally, Joseph
discovers that history has also been manipulated, that there exist two official ver-
sions of the events, A and B, one for Wes-Dem tankers and the other for Pac-Peops.
And finally, that he himself is being manipulated by a bunch of power hungry and
greedy individuals, and that the reality he thought he was shaping and creating is
in fact a conspiracy designed by others. But the worse truth is revealed at the end,
when all his hopes for Lantano’s intervention shatter to pieces when he learns that
Lantano has been actually following his own goals from the very beginning, using
others as means, and has no intention of freeing the people living underground. This
final disillusionment could be seen as playing with Christian tradition, when Jesus’s
decision to go to Jerusalem and offer his life for the mankind thwarts the dream
of a Messiah that the contemporaneous Jews had, who would ensure regaining the
kingdom on earth becoming a leader of a possible political revolt.
Moreover, the model of an apocalyptic text which can be traced in Dick’s
novel is to a large extent reminiscent of Karl Popper’s philosophy of science. In
his book he argues that the core of scientific inquiry is the truth, it can be measured
as the function of explanatory power of false theories, and can be expressed as its
approximation to the truth (Verisimilitude).9 Likewise, in the novel the ultimate
aim of the protagonists’ inquiry also turns out to be the truth. But the problem of
verisimilitude becomes central to the thematic plane of the text also because it
seems that the narrative itself follows this pattern of approximation to the truth by
unmasking illusion after illusion (falsification of ideas), leaving the final idea (or
ideal) of the truth beyond the characters’ and the readers’ reach. Thus, the book
ends when the biggest lie of all is going to be exposed; however, the author leaves
the reader in suspension and does not reveal its substance. As the title suggests,
we only arrive at the penultimate truth. Moreover, it is the space of the book itself
which is a place where the actual apocalypse occurs, where the process if not of

9 
K.R. Popper, Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge, Basic
Books, New York 1963.

55
 Zuzanna Gawrońska

arriving at the truth but its approximation proves to be equally important, as the
only “true” option.
The analysis conducted so far allows to form a conclusion that Dick’s narra-
tive as a realization of apocalyptic and dystopian model significantly determines
spatial organization of the represented world: the space of the novel is a complex
construct divided both horizontally and vertically, with additional transitory spaces,
the intermundia. Organising space as divided, as a set of oppositions on horizontal
and vertical axes, reveals that spatial plane in the novel is in fact – to use Lotman’s
concepts – a complex semiosphere10. Thus, the function of the vertical organization
of space and its opposition “above – under”, “superior – inferior” is to represent
the thematic plane of the novel, social and political relations which serve to create
a dystopian vision of the world. The division of space reflects the organization
of social hierarchy, an unequally divided world of reversed values, where “up”
instead of being the synonym of “good” means “wicked and corrupt”, and “down”
translates as “good and pure”. Also the horizontal division into Wes-Dem and Pac-
Peop proves to be a fake opposition, as in the course of his investigations Adams
discovers for himself and discloses to the reader as well that nothing is real or true,
that the only reality available is indeed a constructed one. What is more, it can be
inferred from the previous remarks that the oppositions built upon both axes in fact
are not simple juxtapositions, but rather they enter into and form dialectical dynam-
ics of the work. Likewise, not only on the level of characterization but also on the
spatial plane dimensions and attributes used in the novel seem to display a similar
dialectical potential, since the same characteristics describe the dynamics of rela-
tions between the three components: the synthetic is understood in opposition to
the mimetic one and they both “coalescence” into the thematic component. Thus
the dystopian discourse of Identity and Difference proves to be encoded and func-
tions not only on the thematic plane but also in the very structure of a literary work.

Summary

Landscapes of the Future: Space and (Post-)Apocalypse

in Philip K. Dick’s Novel The Penultimate Truth

The article is a study of a dystopian vision of the world after the Third World War presented
in Philip K. Dick’s novel The Penultimate Truth. The author of the article analyses the
complex construction of space with special reference to its function and structure divided
horizontally and vertically, along with physical and mental intermundia. Additionally the

10 
As defined by J. Lotman in Structure of the Artistic Text, University of Michigan, 1977.

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 Landscapes of the Future: Space and (Post)Apocalypse in Philip K. Dick’s novel…

article discusses implementation of the motif of post-apocalypse on various planes of the

novel, especially in the construction of the plot and character.
Additionally, the article is based on the assumption that the category of space can be
studied with the use of methodology proposed by James Phelan, which so far has been
used in the analysis of literary characters. Therefore, the leading methodology applied in
the article is rhetorical theory of a narrative.

Streszczenie

Krajobrazy przyszłości – przestrzeń i (post)apokalipsa

w powieści Philipa K. Dicka Prawda półostateczna

Niniejszy artykuł stanowi studium prezentowanej w powieści Philipa K. Dicka Prawda

półostateczna wizji dystopijnego świata po trzeciej wojnie światowej. Autorka poddała
analizie złożoną konstrukcję przestrzeni, ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem jej funkcji oraz
struktury podzielonej horyzontalnie i wertykalnie, wraz z dającymi się wyodrębnić fizycz-
nymi i mentalnymi między-światami. Dodatkowo omówione zostało zastosowanie motywu
postapokalipsy na różnych płaszczyznach powieści, m.in. w konstrukcji postaci i akcji.
Artykuł opiera się również na założeniu, że kategoria przestrzeni może być badana
przy pomocy metodologii zaproponowanej przez Jamesa Phelana, stosowanej wcześniej
w analizie postaci literackich. Dlatego wiodącym narzędziem metodologicznym stosowa-
nym w artykule jest retoryczna teoria narracji.

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