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According to I.Halmgren, "science fictional worlds" "the distinctive feature of science fiction is in its generic license to create worlds that are other than the world we know." This statement is partly true for Phillip K Dick's novel Do androids dream of electric sheep?. However, the genre of science fiction is better described by the Oxford Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms, "Prose fiction that explores the probable outcomes of some improbable or impossible transformations of the basic human (or intelligent nonhuman) condition."(Baldick0) This essay will argue that Do Androids Dream of Electric sheep?, fits into that criteria perfectly because, although there are some new things that place the novel in the science fiction category, the world created by Dick is basically the world that we inhabit.
The nova, which are the new things that are different about the world of Do Androids Dream Electric Sheep, are that it is set in the future in a decaying post-nuclear environment. Therefore there is a lot more technology. People have colonized other planets and they have hovercrafts. The most important technological difference is that now androids are so completely self-aware and similar to humans that it has become difficult to decide who is who. The people in the novel are like us except that their lives and ethics seem different because of their dystopic environment and because of the new dilemma they face concerning the ethical treatment of androids. However, the differences are only surface variations of life, as we know it in our own world.
Even at face value, the world of Do Androids Dream of Electric sheep? immediately has elements that reflect our own world. For example, the main protagonist, Rick Deckard at first appears to be an ordinary man with an ordinary, stereotypical marriage and domestic life. He has regular thoughtless ideals that are very familiar to us. He wants to keep up with the neighbors. It is a capitalist, consumeristic world complete with commercials and brand names and living in a way that one does not particularly like in order to hold down a job and pay for merchandise. In both worlds materialism is a barrier to true understanding. Even animals are commodified in this story and traded like used cars.
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On a more philosophical level, the world of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is like our world in that it has existentialist themes because it questions what it is to be human by examining different kinds of self awareness. The novel provides it's own methods of classification for humanness and then purposefully disturbs those precepts so that the reader may query their own definitions about what it is to be human and accordingly, who they believe to be valuable and who is not.
Like our world, the novel defines what is human in a culturally subjective way. Apart from the obvious difference, that humans are organically born and androids created, the novel defines humans according to their ability to feel empathy for others. We know that they characterize humans by their ability to show empathy because the machine they use to prove authentic humanness does so by measuring empathic reactions to a series of emotional scenarios. According to the test, an example of a proper human response is the repulsion to the idea of eating meat, which is an interesting cultural question. It is making the statement that morality is purely subjective. It is very important for those in Dick's world to show that they have empathy to others and are therefore human by taking care of an animal. Also, in order to feel human they can fuse with Wilbur Mercer, and experience others, with is another example of empathy as proof of humanness. An extra explanation of what it is to be human according to the novel is a being that is self-deterministic and not preprogrammed, complete with false memories.
Both the characters of the novel and we treat certain humans differently. A classification that is neither human nor android is for those who are "special" (genetically damaged), like John Isodore. In our world, some people with genetic mental disabilities are discouraged from having children and many believe that they should be sterilized. Humans are often not comfortable with those who have an outstanding flaw. Nor do humans show much empathy for these people. John Isodores loneliness and social isolation is an all too common truth of our world.
In the novel, and in our real life, the boundaries that make someone human or not human are not rational or clear. At the same time as setting those characterizations of human beings, the novel intentionally breaks those conventions so that ultimately, the similarities outweigh the differences by far. Human beings could be mistaken for androids. An example of an event in the novel where humans are like androids is when Deckard and his wife use the mood organ. If the very basis of their being human is that they have spontaneous emotion, the electric mood organ surely interferes with their humanity. Also, the mood enhancer as an object is not entirely alien to our world. Mood altering prescription drugs are used in our culture regularly as a method for people to escape their despair.
As animals, and people that are alien to us are often the same, androids can also be mistaken for humans in the novel. At many times throughout the novel androids show human characteristics. The fact that they want to rebel and seek a better life is self-determining behavior rather than programmed into them. The most lifelike androids up to date were called nexus, which means link (macquarie dictionary68) That meant that that model of android symbolized the "missing link" between androids and humans. Also the nexus 6 androids of the novel are a link because they occupy the space between the boundaries of what it is to be human or not. Also there are examples whereby androids do show empathy for others. One of these is when Rob Baty screamed out in pain when his partner was killed. The rebel androids did care about the welfare of the group.
The confusion about what is human and valuable and what is not is also very much a problem in our world. For example, Nazi Germany dehumanized Jews, as did European settlers to Australian aboriginals. Even right now, in our time and culture there are people in Australian detention centers who are treated inhumanely. The attitudes behind these atrocities are satirized in the novel when an advertisement for colonization refers to the days of slavery in Southern America as halcyon. (Dick.p16) Often our treatment of animals involves separating ourselves from their emotions.
We sometimes justify our actions by ignoring the self-awareness of others and objectifying them, as though they were androids. Thus we can set double standards. Those double standards are represented in the novel by humans caring for electric sheep in their leisure hours and desiring affection and sexual connection androids yet killing them for a living.
In reality no-one can truly understand what the minds of others is about, just as Deckard cannot decide what thoughts make someone human. It is a fact, that just as androids are deprived of human rights in the novel, so are many people and animals not given their rights in our world. In the novel, the real reason that it happens is because the people are afraid and that is the same in our world too. The people are afraid that the androids will become superior to them and also they have to be different to androids to maintain their identity.
Another way that Deckard's world mirrors our own is by the similarities of the cult religions between each world, The cult religions of the novel are divided by the followers of Wilbur Mercer (humans) and the followers of Buster Friendly (androids). Wilbur Mercer is a Christ-like figure because he is self sacrificing for the good of humanity. He is also a little bit like the Greek legendary hero Sisyphus, who is condemned to repeatedly push a rock up a mountain as punishment for his craving for life. Just as the absurd plight of Sisyphus represented the struggles of life that we all share, so does Wilbur Mercer.
It is interesting that the name "Mercer" sounds like mercantile and mercenary, which is what characterizes humans weather real or in the novel. Creating the androids in the first place to be so self-aware and to have emotions is an extreme mercenary act. They are created so that the corporations can make money without any care given to what misery they are bound to encounter. The question is, why do the consumers want the androids to be so like humans? Perhaps is about having power over another? Buster Friendly is like a hero to the androids because he is an android and he exposes Wilbur Mercer, who is responsible for some of the persecution that they suffer.
In conclusion, I do not agree with Halmgren that Science fictional worlds are necessarily different from our own. Although there may be some differences, the things that bring meaning to the genre of science fiction are those things that are the same. The science fictional world created by Phillip K Dick in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is different from our world because it is set in the future after an ecological disaster but the humans have not changed a bit. They are still politically dysfunctional as they are socially motivated purely by materialism and greed. They are still unreasonable, confused creatures that have no understanding for others. Just as the mistreatment of those who are different from us, and the practical slavery of animals are parts of our world, the humans of the future created by Dick have still not learnt to break down cultural boundaries and live at peace with others.
List of Works Consulted
Baldick, Chris. Oxford Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms. New York Oxford University Press, 001.
Dick, Philip K. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Great Britain Millennium, 1.
The Macquarie Dictionary. Australia The Macquarie Library Pty Ltd, 001
List of Works Consulted
Baldick, Chris. Oxford Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms. New York Oxford University Press, 001.
Dick, Philip K. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Great Britain Millennium, 1.
The Macquarie Dictionary. Australia The Macquarie Library Pty Ltd, 001
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