Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
Analysis:
(plot) • The story plays off in the near future of 2021, in this future a large part of the population has emigrated to mars, technology has advanced very much and they have androids that serve as their personal slaves. • The main character is Rick Deckard, he is a bounty hunter that works for the police and hunts down escaped androids to retire them (what basically means kill them). • In this book Rick Deckard has to hunt down 5 escaped nexus-6 androids, these are a new kind of androids that are much more advanced then any other type of androids. They look exactly the same as humans and are equally smart or smarter. • During this hunt for the androids Rick becomes confused about humanity and empathy and has a crisis of faith in the human ethics. • Besides Rick Deckard there is one other big character and this is john Isodore. He is a special or a chicken head (this means that he is mentally challenged as a result of the radioactive dust). • He ends up giving shelter to the remaining three nexus-6 androids (the other two are dead). When the final showdown comes and Deckard is going to retire the last three androids his path crosses with the path of Isodore.
Themes • Empathy as a means to determine whether a life has value or not: this is by far the biggest theme of the novel; it keeps coming back in every aspect of the story. Our main character, Rick Deckard, defines the human nature and the meaning of life according to this empathic ability. He hates his electric sheep because it doesn’t have any empathic feelings towards him (or anybody else for that matter), despite the fact that it behaves exactly like an ordinary sheep. Using the same logic he figgures that it’s ok killing androids (which of course is his job and gives meaning to his life) because they (these androids) also do not express any empathy. But throughout the story Deckard comes to learn that the line between human and android, between empathic and not
(plot) • The story plays off in the near future of 2021, in this future a large part of the population has emigrated to mars, technology has advanced very much and they have androids that serve as their personal slaves. • The main character is Rick Deckard, he is a bounty hunter that works for the police and hunts down escaped androids to retire them (what basically means kill them). • In this book Rick Deckard has to hunt down 5 escaped nexus-6 androids, these are a new kind of androids that are much more advanced then any other type of androids. They look exactly the same as humans and are equally smart or smarter. • During this hunt for the androids Rick becomes confused about humanity and empathy and has a crisis of faith in the human ethics. • Besides Rick Deckard there is one other big character and this is john Isodore. He is a special or a chicken head (this means that he is mentally challenged as a result of the radioactive dust). • He ends up giving shelter to the remaining three nexus-6 androids (the other two are dead). When the final showdown comes and Deckard is going to retire the last three androids his path crosses with the path of Isodore.
Themes • Empathy as a means to determine whether a life has value or not: this is by far the biggest theme of the novel; it keeps coming back in every aspect of the story. Our main character, Rick Deckard, defines the human nature and the meaning of life according to this empathic ability. He hates his electric sheep because it doesn’t have any empathic feelings towards him (or anybody else for that matter), despite the fact that it behaves exactly like an ordinary sheep. Using the same logic he figgures that it’s ok killing androids (which of course is his job and gives meaning to his life) because they (these androids) also do not express any empathy. But throughout the story Deckard comes to learn that the line between human and android, between empathic and not