A Review of Philip K. Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”

In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Philip K. Dick questions what it is to be human, to be real, and uses the seemingly human-only feeling of empathy to blur the distinction between androids and humans. Real (human) and unreal (android) exist together, though androids are despised, as they do not feel empathy, and this key difference is the basis of human existence in the near future. Dick makes the point to suggest that empathy is not a human-only feeling. Some androids have the ability to express empathy, just as some humans seem to lack this ability. This departure from the accepted way of thinking shows Dick's view that real and unreal exist only in the mind of the individual. If something exists as real in one's mind, then regardless of the truth in actuality, that individual can experience it as reality. Some androids believe they are real, and show empathy as normal humans would.

Rick Deckard's livelihood of android hunting is based on the unreal, and he begins to question what is actually real. The Voigt- Kampff Empathy Test is given to test the androids, as "empathy... existed only within the human community" and "it would tend to abort [an organism's] ability to survive" (Dick 14). Deckard ponders this after hears the fate of a fellow bounty hunter who was shot by an android. Without empathy, most organisms can prey on other organisms for food, and therefore survival. Androids must then share this quality with lower organisms and not have any hesitation in killing humans. Dick, through Deckard, makes this statement almost as an argument for the idea that humans are set above, even set above other organisms and androids because we can feel empathy. Later in the novel, when

Rachel, an android, shows empathy, it now serves to question what is means to be human, or possibly suggest that androids can be "human" too. Deckard owns an electric sheep, which is looked down upon in their society as androids are, because it is fake, a machine. Robot animals cannot feel empathy, or anything really, and caring for a robot animal reflects on the owner, looked down upon as "immoral and anti- empathetic" (Dick 7). Deckard knows this, and is ashamed of his electric sheep. He feels a "need for a real animal" and "hatred...toward his electric sheep" because "like the androids, it had no ability to appreciate the existence of another" (Dick 20). This statement really delves into the whole idea of what sets human apart from the rest of the natural world. Deckard despises the unreal, his electric sheep and the androids he hunts. But as the book progresses, he starts to feel something toward Rachael, an android. At one point, he says that he would marry her if it were legal or she were human. This confession brings up an interesting question about being human. Deckard has feeling towards Rachael despite her being an android, which goes against the beliefs of the society. But what it shows is the blurring of real and unreal, between human and android, and the ability to feel empathy toward another person. Rachael shows empathy towards

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Deckard as well, which is unheard of for an android, who are supposed to be cold and unable to have any emotions. This whole feeling towards each other really questions the basis of humans in the book. Dick really compels the reader to question what it means to be human. He uses the struggle between real and unreal, between human and android to put forth the belief that truth and reality exist solely in the individual's mind. Reality therefore, is in the eye of the beholder. Reality can be controlled by each person, and to be human is to believe fully in one's personal reality.

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