“People like your wife are dangerous…They don’t belong to any group. They fool around with everything.”
McFeyffe directs this sentiment towards Jack regarding his wife who he accuses of being a communist sympathizer. The story takes place when fear of communism brought on McCarthyism and paranoia ran wild among people. As the security chief, McFeyffe takes the opportunity to out Marsha as a left-wing sympathizer. However later in the narrative, we learn that this was a misdirection on McFeyffe’s part because he is the one who is actually a communist. Using Marsha as the scapegoat to cover his own political leanings. Despite the group finding that he is a leftist through the manifestations in the alternate realities, they could not hold him accountable without actual proof.
“Disturbed and upset, Mrs. Pritchet gazed mutely out the window of the car and systematically abolished various categories. Old farmhouses with tottering windmills ceased to be. Ancient rusty automobiles vanished from this version of the universe.”
Following the accident in the lab, every manifestation the group resides in is dictated by a subjective reality of one of them. The universe where Mrs. Pritchet controls involves her censuring everything that brings joy to anyone. Thus in the assertion, she becomes angered by aspects of the world that give the group any delight and makes them disappear. As one of the realities the group had to particularly suffer through they rapidly seek a way to move on to the next reality.
“Since I first found out that my turn would come. Wouldn’t it be a shame to let all this go to waste?”
This statement further accentuates how the characters wish to impose their own subjective realities on others. Subjective reality is a recurring motif in Dick’s works; it is explored in a more tangible manner in the narrative through the main characters. Reiss who is pathologically paranoid imposes her paranoid delusions upon the rest of the group. Since everyone had to suffer the ordeal of everyone’s manifestations, she makes it clear to them she was eager for her turn. This speaks volumes in regard to the main theme and also the nature of man in how we seek to enact our reality on others.
