Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep: Analysis
Philip Dick's 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' is an interesting though complex piece of fiction that criticizes the influx of technology in our world through the use of robots. Androids in this novel are robots that appear like humans but lack the capacity of empathy and hence are not actually humans. They are either enslaved or hunted down for enslavement. Some try to pass as human beings in order to avoid enslavement but aggressively hunted down by bounty hunters like Rick Deckard, the protagonist of the novel. The novel's main premise can be described in one single sentence- men are selfish by nature and want to maintain their supremacy on earth. But that is not exactly all. On deeper analysis, we realize that technology is the main crux of the issue. It is technology that is pitting man against robots and at the same time, allowing men to dominate the rest of the species because they are the only ones who can use this technology effectively. But the premise hits again: man is selfish. He is b
, killing--an andy, he did not violate the rule of life laid down by Mercer. He wants to eliminate their existence from this planet and hence they are aggressively hunted down or enslaved. Thus man had no clear rules on killing others. Put another way, a Mercerite was free to locate the nebulous presence of The Killers wherever he saw fit" (32). He came to the conclusion that mercerites were free to choose who "the killers" were because there is no clear definition provided. Androids on the other hand are mechanical creatures that man abhors. While in the novel it may first appear that man really cares about animals. She informs Deckard that while this is acceptable now and even wanted because it decreases depression but there was a time when failure to react with despair to bad situations "used to be considered a sign of mental illness; they called it 'absence of appropriate affect'" (p. The use of the mood organ is another attack on technology. ecoming more and more machine-like and lacks basic empathy for other human and other species as well. The inability to react emotionally to depressing situations may not actually be healthy but lately more and more drugs are making us immune to natural feelings of grief, loss or despair. Deckard also finds some flaws with the religion of Mercernism that had developed in the wake of diminishing natural life. Also it is important to see that the love for animals is not for any individual animal but for animal community on the whole. That should have been a good sign but the reality is that animals are loved not because of how and what they are but actually for what they represent.
Common topics in this essay:
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Electric Sheep',
natural life,
Philip Dick's,
doesn't care humans,
care humans,
animals considered sacred,
natural life force,
aggressively hunted,
animals considered,
life force,
doesn't care,
mood organ,
considered sacred,
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Acceptance Essays
