'Reality is that in which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away' -   Philip K. Dick

‘Do Androids Dream ...’ is a futuristic novel set in the aftermath of World War Terminus (abbreviated WWT), representing our world as a devastated dystopian world, killing nearly all wildlife and animal life from radiation poisoning. Humanities population on planet Earth is sparse since “the dust contaminated most of the planet’s surface” (pg. 11). This settled nuclear radioactive dust has prompted the human race to enter a new colonizing phase into outer space, planets such as Mars “emigrate or degenerate! The choice is yours!” (pg.5); actively encouraged by the government “the UN had made it easy to emigrate, difficult if not impossible to stay” (pg.12).  A principle incentive to emigration is a Synthetic Freedom Fighter, an android servant. However, there are thousands of people left to live on planet Earth clinging on to what they find familiar. Some humans like John Isidore do not have this pleasure to emigrate, he is considered a ‘chickenhead’ where he is socially ostracised because of being mentally impaired from being subject to the radioactive dust. The main protagonist however, is Rick Deckard a bounty hunter working with the San Francisco police department who’s job is to ‘retire’ six specific androids Nexus-6’s who have claimed human identities, who have escaped and returned to Earth from colonised Mars. Rick seems to be a parallel character to John, he begins as a self centred character obsessed by the social status he would gain from owning an organic animal (his sheep which has died and since been replaced by a robotic electric sheep) and the financial gain from retiring these humanoid robots. Rick now has the demoralising task to take care of an android sheep but in Rick’s own mind to kill these androids will only contribute to his financial gain and taking him one step closer to owning a prestigious organic animal.

 

The novel explores many controversies and themes, the principle being the blur on reality; dreams and hallucinations, superior artificial intelligence on mechanical replicas that you are unable to tell the difference between original and the copy in human and animal form. This problematic issue takes into account the calamities of capitalism and with it consumerism “we produced [androids] what the colonists wanted” (pg.43). Rick’s bounty hunter characteristics portray him as a man of control, even over control of life, he shows us the fragility of life when firstly threatened by the repercussions of nuclear war and the pressure it has on personal and interpersonal relationships with those left on Earth, especially between him and his wife Iran. A way of connecting colonised humanity and humanity on Earth is through mass media a process of mind control created through the television set and Buster Friendly’s news reporter’s sub-reality. What P. K. Dick examines is the moral philosophy of what it means and makes you to be a human being with Dick emphasising a large part of the novel is based on the feeling of empathy and to understand and share the feelings of others, a trait androids are not programmed to possess.

‘Do Androids Dream ...’  is a novel which concerns a individual and cultural transformation it has a narrative that twists and turns and questions your ability to understand the characters that playfully toy with your mind. Both Rick and John find themselves placed in situations that show them to be more alike than first presumed; the task is for them to hunt for the ultimate truth like predator and prey.