Introduction
People have had immense fantasies with technology. The sole purpose of making this passionate fantasy is to facilitate the creation of an ideal society that revolves around the notions of social harmony, political stability, equality, and economic prosperity. This is the concept advanced by utopian literature.
On the other hand, dystopian literature claims that technology has advanced beyond human capacity. Hence, rather than serving to the advantage of the society, it serves to disadvantage it. In this context, dystopia is the “idea that a society is repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian” (Gottlieb 16).
Popular examples of dystopian texts include Nineteen Eighty Four, Fahrenheit 451, and The Handmaids (Clute and Nicholls 361) amongst others. Dystopia literature presents a culture that bears a variety of tyrannical systems of communal control coupled with myriads of both submissive and vigorous forms of cruelty.
According to Gottlieb, “ideas and works about dystopian societies often explore the concept of human’s abusing technology and human’s individually and collectively coping or being unable to properly cope with technology that has progressed far more rapidly than humanity’s spiritual evolution” (7).
Ideally, subversive communities are like law enforcement nations that have an unrestricted strength of domination over the people. Key traits of dystopian literature entangle a unique setting in which events are projected in the future through virtual time and space characterized by technological innovations that are not accessible in the present reality.
Following this character, dystopia fiction is a science fiction under the umbrella of speculative fiction. In this paper, apart from the mentioned examples of dystopian literatures, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is yet another example of dystopian literature.
In the endeavor to place a case in support of this line of argument, the paper considers the key traits of dystopian literature then showing how Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep possesses them in its plot development.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep as a dystopian text
A common trait of dystopian literature is a projection in the future of both time and space. Arguably this is one of the characteristic widely depicted by Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. The novel opens up with Rick Deckard together with his wife waking up in 2021 futuristic San Francisco. They argue immensely about adjusting “Penfield wave transmitter”, a device with the capability of controlling its user’s state of mood.
They both opt for a fitting prescription that can help them wrestle with one another since Iran strongly holds to the notion that her husband is a rudimentary law enforcement officer who has the power to kill to earn his daily bread. Additionally, she enormously believes that Deckard squanders all his money coupled with her time.
These arguments replicate the wide accusations of technological innovations in influencing the future of social generations negatively. More important to note, the novel’s selection of the context is a clear reflection of an attempt to reach out for subversive literature mindset. Setting the novel in futuristic time and space is further enhanced by the fact that even the setting itself is in some future time.
For instance, Deckard dwells in an apartment situated in a half-empty building during pre-war period (2021). In this time, the authors of Subversive literal works present a person jangling to come into terms with their technological innovations, which ardently out-powers their abilities.
For instance, in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Iran informs her husband that she has scheduled “a dose of six-hour self-accusatory depression” (Dick 65).
The capacity of technological innovation to overcome human capacity is evident based on Iran when she tells her husband that, while she was watching a television in San Francisco, “she realized that the mood organ deprived her of “sensing the absence of life” (Dick 67). This drug enabled her to deal with depressing circumstances arising after the aftermaths of the world war terminus encounter.
In dystopian fiction, fictional universe is constructed through the selection of back stories about revolution, uprisings, disasters, and even dangers of overpopulation early enough in the literal work. According to Galvan, “this results in a shift in emphasis of control, from previous systems of government to a government run by bureaucracies; or from previous social norms to a changed society and new social norms” (413).
Apparently, dystopian literature incorporates proceedings to take place in some times to come featuring sophisticated technologies in comparison with those of the up-to-date civilization. In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, human beings create the androids via the deployment of significantly advanced technologies as compared to people creating them.
Consequently, they overpower people emigrating to planet mars with them with the intent of making them do the slavery work to the extent that they kill such people before the creatures escape to planet earth to hide. On the other hand, on planet earth, their direct creators are not able to control them. For instance, the Deckard’s superior explains to him his new mission. Eight androids had escaped from planet mars.
The bounty hunter crew had been shot while attempting to retire two of these eight androids. Even the manufacturers of the androids are overwhelmed by the technologies that they have created, which result into harming innocent people. Deckard visits the manufacturer (Rosen association) of one the more realistic android (Nexus-6) in the quest to learn about it.
However, as (Benesch) points out, “the president of the company immensely doubts the test (Voigt-Kampff”) deployed to distinguish real humans and the androids” (382). Rachael, the niece to the company’s president, goes through a test that concludes that she is not human. Thus, they presume that the test gives flawed results. The results surprise Rosen who offers to give Deckard a real owl as a bribe.
However, after a hunch, Deckard raises a query that proves that the previous test was actually true and accurate. Indeed, Rachael is an android. Arguably, this depicts a technology that is gone too far to erode the human capacity to regulate the world. Rather, the objects that the people have created by themselves regulate them. This is a major constituent of subversive literature.
In addition, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep explores technological obsessions through consideration of eight artificially constructed androids or humanoids. The literally work further explores the meaning of being human in the context of this largely mechanized world coupled with scrutinizing the value of artificial and real life.
In the text, humanoid robots arrive in the world of humans having killed their human masters in planet mars. However, they have no place in the planet earth. In fact, the stature of spiritual faction in the book Mercer campaigns for the need to slash out all murderers.
However, as Galvan notes, “the increasing difficulty of distinguishing androids from humans disturbs Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter called in to “retire” the fugitives” (417). One central query that is clear from the piece is why the cost of life for animals is extremely high to the extent that “people purchase sheep made artificially to tend, consider treating androids in a different manner” (Benesch 382).
In the attempt to iron out this alarming issue, the work of fiction investigates and reflects intensely on the contents that make up people’s accountability to the surroundings and individual’s life that determines civilization to ensure its destruction.
Androids have no options, but they have to operate in the manner, which their masters want them to do. This means that people possess the capacity to control objects, which they create using their technologies. However, as the novel storyline progresses, it is clear that this technology of making androids gets out of hand.
This major concern of dystopian texts evidences that the Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is indeed a dystopian text. Dick writes, “’Emigrate or degenerate…The choice is yours” (6). Arguably, the call for the degeneration of the androids depicts the degeneration of the American government following the world war’s terminus incident.
In this context, the management assumes that the only way of ensuring that people redevelop is through migrating to fresh lands. However, as the novel moves on, new life on planet earth (America) is still evident. In case the androids become discontented, they do away with their bosses as a way of evading slavery by seeking refuge in planet earth.
This prompts “bounty hunters from Earth’s various police forces to get sent to locate these escapees and “retire” them but because the androids have become more humanlike, retiring them has become more and more like killing” (Benesch 381).
The plot development of the novel opens out in one of the bounty hunters, Deckard, together with his wife Iran. Benesch reckons, “as he leaves for work, she tries to decide what mood to “dial up” for herself with their Penfield mood enhancing machine” (383). Arguably, this makes it clear that people deploy technologically created objects to enhance every aspect of their life. It is also major trait of dystopian text.
In the setting of the novel, a world war terminus spreads a radioactive dust cloud across the entire globe. Consequently, an immense number of plant and animal species gets extinct. On the other hand, people who survive the impacts of the radioactive cloud emigrate to planet mars. Those who remain are “specials” and “regular” (Benesch 379).
These people are either too affected by radiation or too stupid for them to get permission to reproduce. Due to these factors, depopulation of the cities takes place. As a result, “ownership of animals is taken as a status symbol and a sign of righteous empathy” (Galvan 414). This brings about a significant rise in the price tag of both emulated and genuine animals.
In fact, renewing price tags takes place monthly. Martin colonialists are in need of slaves, but due to diminishing population of both people and animals, androids gain immense popularity.
Commercially produced androids, which have become more of humans than mechanical objects as they are endowed with emotions and flesh, are custom designed for the emigrating colonialist for use as slaves in their new territories (planet mars).
In this context, technology serves to disadvantage people, as it results to a reduction of global population of both people and animals. This is the line of argument held by Subversive literature.
Many critics of overreliance on technological innovations capacity to control humans in future place a strong case against such technological innovations claiming that the force of morality of people would disappear. The presence of androids in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep makes Mercer command Rick to kill them although Rick immensely believes that it is not right.
In fact, Mercer tells Rick, “you will be required to do wrong no matter where you go: It is the basic condition of life, to be required to violate your own identity” (Dick 177). To Mercer, life demands people to do things that people believe they are wrong. This kind of belief largely opposes the call for observance of morality as a virtue by illustrating that empathy does not produce good things at all times.
Additionally, this illustration produces an immense problem to humans especially bearing in mind Rick’s lamentation that “an android does not care what happens to another android” (Dick 99). This means that technologies can team up to produce even more harm to their creators.
Nevertheless, it turns out that “androids can care about what happens to their fellow android in comparison what may happen to their creator’s (humans) life” (Galvan 415). Arguably, this bond produced artificially made Nexus-6 remain intact together due to the fear they had for the safety of one another. For example, Phil Resch says, “If I test out android, you’ll undergo renewed faith in the human race.
But since it’s not going to work out that way, I suggest you begin framing an ideology which will account for” (Dick 138). These words come before Rick takes an android test to determine whether the fact that he could kill in cold blood was a key indicator that he was actually an android. If the test was to return positive results, then Rick could have validated his immerse belief that Android had no life empathy.
Unfortunately, Rick has to know that even real human beings had the capacity to kill. This created blurred distinction of what is real and vague. This conclusion again satisfies one of the characteristics of science fiction literature in which the reader is normally left completely caught up in a cross road between what is real and what is not real.
The fact that androids turn out as being better than human in terms of caring for each other makes it hard to distinguish between human and androids. Furthermore, this illustrates the capacity of technological innovations to out power people, which is a major concern of subversive literature.
Conclusion
Through fantasizing with technology, people create an immense number of objects to help in bettering their life and production processes. Subversive literature or Dystopia in science fiction novels take such events in the future time and introspect how such technologies would influence the future generation especially in case people advance at a slower pace as compared to these technologies. In the paper, this is a quest to move events ahead in both time and space.
Through consideration of this as a good example of traits of subversive literature among other traits, the paper contends that Philip Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is indeed a dystopian literal work.
Works Cited
Benesch, Klaus. “Technology, Art, and the Cybernetic Body: The Cyborg as Cultural Other in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.” American Studies 44.3 (1999): 379–392. Print.
Clute, John, and Peter Nicholls. Dystopia: the encyclopedia of science fiction. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1995. Print.
Dick, Philip. Do androids dream of electric sheep? New York: Ballantine Books, 1996. Print.
Galvan, Jill. “Entering the Posthuman Collective in Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” Science-Fiction Studies 24:3 (1997): 413–429. Print.
Gottlieb, Erika. Dystopian Fiction East and West: Universe of Terror and Trial. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s Press, 2001. Print.