Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Published on Nov 24, 2015
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PRESENTATION OUTLINE
Do androids dream of electric sheep?
By: Marc Geller, Miranda Cary, and Sarah Leinwand
Thesis
- Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick was published in 1968
- highlights the fear of technology, especially relating to robots becoming too “human”
- and relating to the threat of nuclear war.
Connection to dystopia
- Fear of advanced technology
- Disaster ripped apart society
- Government control
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? adheres to the style of a dystopia through it’s view of technology--an icon of the future--as a means to humanity’s ultimate demise. The backdrop of the story is set in the far off future, in a time after “World War Terminus”, a violent nuclear war that has left the entire world uninhabitable. From the war humanity has developed androids that, after years of development, have reached such a high level of intellect that they are almost identical to humans while still wreaking havoc on society. Apart from the fear of technology, the book also relates through the ways the government controls its citizens: one, through Mercerism, a religion that unites humanity through the struggles of a Christ-like figure named William Mercer; and two, through Buster Friendly, a TV comedian who is broadcasted twenty-three hours a day.
"The morning air, spilling over with radioactive motes, gray and sun — beclouding, belched about him, haunting his nose; fie sniffed involuntarily the taint of death. ... The legacy of World War Terminus had diminished in potency; those who could not survive the dust had passed into oblivion years ago, and the dust, weaker now and confronting the strong survivors, only deranged minds and genetic properties."
"The dust which had contaminated most of the planet's surface had originated in no
country and no one, even the wartime enemy, had planned on it. First, strangely, the owls had died. ... Medieval plagues had manifested themselves in a similar way, in the form of many dead rats. This plague, however, had descended from above.”
“An electric cat: it lay in the plastic dust-proof carrying cage in the rear of the truck and panted erratically. You'd almost think it was real… The electric mechanism, within its compellingly authentic style gray pelt, gurgled and blew bubbles, its vid-lenses glassy, its metal jaws locked together. This had always amazed him, these "disease" circuits built into false animals; the construct which he now held on his lap had been put together in such a fashion that when a primary component misfired, the whole thing appeared — not broken — but organically ill. It would have fooled me, Isidore said to himself”
“‘Do you think I’m an android? Is that it?’ Her voice had faded almost to extinction. “I’m not an android. I haven’t been on Mars; I’ve never even seen an android!’... he saw her trying to appear calm.”
Fears in the 1960's According to posner
- "Technology was advancing more rapidly than people were understanding it."
- "[Nuclear war] could eliminate most of the human race."
- Long history of automatons, and rapid development in 1960's added to fear
- "Infiltrating type of presence"
Journal Articles
- "Man and the Machine in the 1960s"
- "New Documents Show US Feared Proliferation of Nuclear Technology in 1960s"
- "The Regulation of Technology, and the Technology of Regulation"
- "The Development and Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons"
Newspaper Articles
- "Automation Anxiety"
- "Wisconsin Family's 1960's Nuclear Fallout Shelter"
Towards the end of the novel, the character Rick Deckard goes out to the desert and, upon his departure, discovers a small toad, an animal that is supposed to be extinct. When he brings it home, his wife discovers the animal is electric, just like their sheep. However, instead of being upset like he was towards the beginning of the novel when showing his neighbor his electric sheep, Rick realizes that all life, even artificial life, is still life; that whether they are born or constructed, both man and machine are able to feel and live just the same.
Ap questions
- Room number: 825263
