DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP ? (1968)

She's an Android working for the company that built the new Nexus-6 androids. In fact she's the niece of Eldon Rosen, the founder of this company: Rosen Corp. She has a quite important role in the story. She makes a kind of link between the world of Humans and the world of androids.

•  Phil Resch

He's an other Android Killer. But he appears to be less affected by the problems of consciousness caused by his job than Rick Deckard.

•  John Isidore

He's what the author calls a “special” or a “chickenhead”. It means someone intellectually limited because of the nuclear dust in the air. He has a quite important role in the story. His ingenuity allows him to make contact with the androids easier than if he was normal.

•  Max polokov, Luba Luft :

They are the two first androids Rick will meet. Max Polokov is important because Rick hadn't recognized at once that it was an android. That's what makes his job difficult. Luba Luft also makes his job difficult but in a really different way. She's a brilliant opera singer, and Rick finds it difficult to have to kill such a good voice, even if she's an android.

•  Pris Stratton

It's an android that found a place to flee in the same deserted building that John Isidore. They'll become allies.

•  Roy and Irmgard Baty

They are two androids married to each other. Roy is considered to be the boss of the eight androids Deckard must kill. The fact that they are husband and wife make them even more human.

•  Mercer

He's a kind of prophet. In the story, people of the entire world seem to be « connected » to him through what Philip K. Dick calls an Empathy Box . Mercer is trying to climb a hill and rocks are thrown at him. People using the Empathy Box are living this with him.

BRIEF SUMMARY 

In the future, San Francisco lies under a cloud of radioactive dust from the last world war. Animals have become very rare, and being in possession of one is showing your wealth. But Rick Deckard only has an electric sheep. He's dreaming of buying a real one, but the prices are really high, and when he is offered to earn a lot of money he can't refuse. He's working for the police; an android killer. His job is to kill androids that have escaped illegally from Mars. He's well paid for this job, but it isn't an easy job. This androids are Nexus-6, the new model. They look exactly like humans. His hunt will change him for ever. He's going to be confronted to queries about what makes the difference between a human being and a machine, and this will lead him to ask himself a lot of questions.

Mood Machine :

Since the beginning of the story and until the end, Philip K. Dick refers to this invention as if it was something completely usual. That's part of the atmosphere he manages to create. He makes the reader believe he's talking about something that already exists or will surely exist in the future. The Mood Machine consists of a personal item which can manage your mood. It means that if you want to feel happy, you just have to dial it on the Mood Machine , and you'll feel happy. In the story, there are several various moods such as “desire to watch television”, or “complete agreement with it's husband”, and the high number you have to dial to get this mood lets us imagine that there are even more numerous.

Empathy box :

This invention consists in a kind of screen linked to two handles you grab to connect yourself with the machine. It allows you to enter in a kind of virtual word where you are with the prophet Wilbur Mercer. It is difficult to figure out what this invention really is or how does it work. It seems that through this machine people of the entire world are connected together and feel empathy to help the prophet climb a hill while he is the target of rocks thrown at him. The way I see it is that this invention is a mix between videogames and internet. Philip K. Dick wrote this short story in 1968, videogames were at their very beginning and Internet didn't even exist in computer scientists' dreams. The author somehow invented a machine which allows the user to connect to a virtual word, and he shows this like a new religion… An other thing that I think concerning this invention is that it is a kind of link between the world of humans and androids in the book. Androids aren't able to feel empathy, but humans do. Even if androids try to simulate empathy in order to succeed the Voigt Kampff test, they don't have the use of empathy. They don't need this machine, and that could be a way to make the difference.

Videophone:

This can seem a banal invention to us, but even if it is present in a lot of Philip K. Dick's novel or any Science Fiction novel, I find it quite interesting to note. What I want to say is that, as I said earlier, the author wrote this book in 1968. It was more than twenty years before cellular had been invented! But Philip K. Dick had already imagined phones which could give back videos such as the newest of ours have difficulties to do. I think this is the kind of little inventions that appear one or two times in the story, but build a realistic atmosphere and show that the author was really a visionary.

Sidney 's catalogue:

In the future Philip K. Dick imagined, having a pet is a sign of wealth. And this wealth is quantified by the prices of the different pets classified in this catalogue. It may sound strange to think about a price catalogue for pets as if it was an object. But I think the author wanted to show the animals as antiquities. All along the story, he describes a destructed world covered with radioactive dust, where nearly no pet has survived, and even humans are victims of genetic modifications due to this radioactive cloud. We can see it as a warning of the author who seems to be aware since 1968 (and even earlier if you look at his bibliography) of the ecology problems we'll encounter. It seems that Philip K. Dick, as a lot of writer of this period, has been marked by the war, and overall the nuclear power used during this war. He seems to have understood immediately what some people have taken years to realise. Nuclear power isn't the unique reason of the hypothetical quasi-destruction of Earth, but Philip K. Dick appears to be conscious of the fact that our planet is endangered. He described a dull and sad world, but if we stop a moment to think about what our future will be if we continue polluting, we realise that he might be not so far from reality.

The Voigt Kampff test :

In the book, Rick Deckard, as every Android killer, must find out who is an android and who is not. Philip K. Dick imagined a future where difference between human beings and androids cannot be made without the appropriate instrument. This instrument is what he calls the Voigt Kampff test . The only thing that the writer thinks can make the difference between a human being and an android is empathy. An android is a machine programmed by humans, and it can feel the same as them. They can't have artificial feelings. The Voigt Kampff test is based on this principle. A list of typical questions is asked to the suspect, and while answering, his reactions are analysed through high-tech sensors which link the emotions to the pupil dilatation for example. This machine would be useless now, but can we say that we'll never have the use of it? Robots and androids are more and more looking like human beings, and new technologies are growing faster and faster every day. Who can say what tomorrow will be like? Once again, Philip K. Dick might be advanced for his time…

ANALYSIS:

Well, it's difficult and a little bit proud to propose an analysis of a book. But what I want to write in these few lines is not an exact literary analysis of the book. I just want to say how I interpreted the story, why do I think Philip K. Dick wrote this.

If you read a few stories of Philip K. Dick, you'll soon realise that he almost always writes about the confrontation between reality and virtual. What's true and what's not. Well while reading this book, I had this idea in mind, and I realised that once again it was true. If you consider the whole story, you can see it as the exact expression of this problem. The major fact of the story, what the story is built around, is the difference between human beings and androids: reality and unreal. The story is to find out the difference between humans and androids. It's the main character's job to make this difference. But what I think Philip K. Dick wanted to show is that it isn't so easy. You can't deny you're a human or not, it's a fact, but aren't some androids more human than some humans? Do feelings make the difference? It's hard to say. And do androids have no feeling at all? In the story Rick Deckard quite falls in love with an android. It's to say how difficult it is to make the difference. Can we say we are better just because we are human? At one point in the story, Rick has to kill an opera singer who is an android. He finds it difficult to do this job because even if she's an android, she has such a beautiful voice. Isn't that real? Isn't it enough to be considered as human?

The question of reality isn't only in the confrontation between human beings and androids. I think Wilbur Mercer and Mercerism are a way to discuss about this. Is it real or just an invention? Does this prophet really exist? Or did he ever exist? Mercerism is surely linked with religion in general. Can we be sure of the truth of what religion says? At the end of the story, people are talking about this. Someone said on television that Mercer was a fake that the entire Empathy box had been created. The man that is seen on the screen of the box is an actor. The hill he tries to climb is a cinema decoration. What everybody has believed in for so long is a fake. That's something strong. It is like the film “The Body” with Antonio Banderas. In this film, a priest finds the remains of Jesus Christ. This finding is a problem: people cannot refute what they have always believed in. So what's reality then? What is true or what you have always believed in, what you have always been told?

THE TITLE EXPLAINED :

As I've already said in my article about Philip K. Dick, I'm fascinated by the titles of some of his stories. This one is quite interesting. It's a bit long for a title. “Do androids dream of electric sheep?” It's really strange for a title. A question, and a odd one… But once you've read the story, you find out that the title couldn't sum up more the story. First of all, “Do androids dream?”. This could have been the whole title. It's the main point of the story. What makes the difference between humans and androids. The faculty of dreaming is a human faculty, or at least an animal sense. But do androids have this sense? Do they have feelings? And if they do, what do they dream of? Everybody in the story dreams of having a real pet. But why? Is it because they are real? And then would androids which aren't real dream of real animals? Are they just different in the way they think? The title is the problem of the difference between humans and androids.

PERSONAL OPINION:

Well. As you must have seen, I do enjoy Philip K. Dick's stories. I enjoy asking myself these questions. When I read one of his books, I have the feeling he wants to make us think about it, to ask ourselves: “and if it was true…” I agree it's a bit dull and oppressed for an atmosphere, but beyond this, we can find a beautiful story where the characters are very different and are confronted to essential problems. It's a book that has to be read slowly. I don't think I've understood everything, even if it was in French I wouldn't have understood everything. But is there something to understand, or are we supposed to see the message we want in this book? In all science fiction books I've read, there has never been a sunny sky, green grass and birds singing. Science fiction is always dull and depressing, but that's what makes us reflect. Do we want our future to be like that ?