Epigraphs are like little appetizers to the great entrée of a story. They illuminate important aspects of the story, and they get us headed in the right direction.
" … and he was so grateful and said I was the best friend old Jim had ever had in the world and the only one he's got now; and then I happened to look around and see that paper.
It was a close place. I took it up and held it in front of my hand. I was a-trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, between two things, I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:
"All right then, I'll go to hell"—and tore it up.
It was awful thoughts, and awful words, but they was said. And I let them stay said; and never thought no more about reforming. I shoved the whole thing out of my head, and said I would take up wickedness again, which was in my line, being brung up to it, and the other warn't."
- Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
"God, you don't want to stay with me," he said to the girl. "Someday you'll be in difficulty and need my help and I'd do to you exactly what I did to Leo; I'd let you sink without moving my right arm."
"But your own life was at –"
"It always is," he pointed out. "When you do anything. That's the name of the comedy we're stuck in."
- Philip K. Dick, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
What's Up With the Epigraph?
Okay, so Tales of the Madman Underground is totes epigraph insanity. Obviously, both epigraphs come from the two books Karl is reading during his five-day adventure. But, since we here at Shmoop are in the business of analyzing things, we tend to think the significance of these quotes go deeper than that.
Let's start with Huck. Basically, his whole story resolves around a choice he has to make: Is Jim a person who deserves freedom, or is he property that Huck is obligated to give back? He debates this dilemma so much that he actually writes a letter to Jim's owner outing him for running away. But then, Jim tells Huck that he is the only friend he has in the world, and Huck knows he can't betray him and tears up the letter.
After your diligent study of this book, two things should leap off the page at you (OK, leap off your computer screen, or your tablet, or smartphone, or whatever). First, Huck's dilemma sounds a ton like Karl's—he's trying to decide how important his friend is to him and whether it will help or hurt his standing in society. Second, doesn't Karl have a letter of his own that symbolizes that choice? He sure does. And, doesn't it get destroyed? You bet.
By contrast, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch jumps into the 21st century and is a post-apocalyptic sci-fi novel about how humans have destroyed Earth and colonized all the other planets as a way to make up for it (cue Matthew McConaughey in Interstellar and maybe also that crazy guitar guy from Mad Max: Fury Road).
Three Stigmata is a really bizarre, really complicated book, so we're just going to hit the highlights related to this epigraph. The basic context of the passage is this: Barney, the main character, has just gotten fired for not going to the moon to rescue his boss after the boss was kidnapped. In spite of this, his assistant, whom he's been having an affair with, still wants to continue their relationship—even though Barney feels that he's destined to betray her as he betrayed Leo, the head of the company.
So, how does a book about a runaway slave from the 1800s relate to a sci-fi cult classic from the mid-1960s? Easy—both deal with a character who is given the choice to either betray a friend or remain loyal. For Huck, betraying Jim would be a moral offense, especially after he tells Huck that he's his BFF and all. But for Barney, betrayal comes easily; he's simply too afraid to deal with the situation (which, as you might have guessed, is a lot more complex than what we can discuss here).
Karl, of course, is in the same predicament and chooses his friends, no matter what the cost. But the primary reason for the epigraph insanity is to set up loyalty as a theme in the story, setting the stage for the book to explore the importance of friendships and the lengths people go to protect them, even if it costs them their popularity, image, or life.