Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? is a science fiction
crime novel written by Philip K. Dick in 1968. It is set in the near distant
future of 1992 - a post-apocalyptic world where nuclear war has filled the air
with degenerative radioactive dust and rendered the earth largely unfit for
human existence. A world where the highest of status symbols is to own a live
animal and where citizens are offered free androids – robots that have been
developed to resemble human beings as acts as substitutes for various forms of
manual labour – in exchange for voluntary emigration to colonized planets.
The book centres on Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter employed
by the police to track down and ‘retire’ rebellious androids that have escaped
from their employ and returned to earth. The story covers a 24 hour period in
which Deckard must hunt a group of six of the most advanced androids to date.
The androids, however, are so indistinguishable from humans in function and appearance
that the difference can only be told through minute delays in response to situations
that require a show of empathy.
When reading Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? it was
very hard to do so without constant reference to Blade Runner, the 1982 film
adaption of the book directed by Ridley Scott and starring Harrison Ford. Blade
Runner has since become a cult sci-fi classic. The film folowed a similar plot
to the original book and had an underlying theme that questioned the morality
of hunting down robots that were perhaps developing human emotions. It also
famously suggested, subtly, that Deckard himself might have been a andoid (or ‘replecant’
as they were referred to in the film).
The book however, provides a different and far more complex
reading. While the story also deals with the yearning for freedom of the non-humans,
the main theme seems to centre on the notion and effects of empathy. While the android’s
empathetic responses are their Achilles’ heal in terms of being identified as
non-human, it is the human capacity for empathy that in turn creates their own point
of vulnerability.
Blade Runner depicted a battle of mental and physical
strength that culminated in the final confrontation between Deckard and the male
leader of the rebellious replicants. The battle in Do Androids Dream Of
Electric Sheep? is more one of weakness. It is a case of the flawed robots
versus the flawed humans, both in search of a better existence but both
ultimately doomed to fail by their inherent limitations. Here the pivotal
confrontation plays out not in the physical battle, but within the realms of the
relationship that develops between Deckard and the female android Rachael
Rosen.
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