From the beginning of his professional writing career, Gene Wolfe has expressed a fascination for a number of interrelated psychological phenomena that are significant to an understanding of his oeuvre. These phenomena include the subjective perception of ontological reality; the reconstruction of perceived reality from memory; the psychological manipulation of the individual within economic, political and spiritual systems; the relationship between internal fantasy and external reality; and the psychological potency of myth, faith and symbolism.

Michael Bishop observes that, as a consequence of this ‘persistent interest’ in psychology, Wolfe

The ambiguity found in Wolfe's fiction, in his characterisation and in his plotting, is an essential strategy in the production of what Wolfe believes to be ‘good writing’. He argues that ‘good writing’ should be ‘multileveled, like a club sandwich. Savants talk of writing being linear— one thing at a time. But a good writer is often saying two things at once, and sometimes three or even four.’ In Wolfe's opinion, ‘good writing’ also requires the author to deal with ‘major themes’, and his deployment of ambiguity enables him to synthesise and develop ‘three or even four’ ‘major [psychological] themes’ simultaneously.

Wolfe's habitual concern with one such theme, the subjective nature of perception, is apparent from the publication of his first short story, ‘The Dead Man’, to Exodus from the Long Sun. ‘The Dead Man’ draws its principal conceit, the notion of a dead man, unaware of his demise, being alerted to his condition, from Wolfe's earlier story, ‘The Grave Secret’, which appeared in the Texas A&M magazine The Commentator in 1951. Throughout his career, Wolfe has returned to this simple narrative idea to produce ‘The Packerhous Method’ (1970), ‘Checking Out’ (1986), and the self-consciously titled ‘The Other Dead Man’ (1987).