The novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick is set in a futuristic time in which Earth is nearly destroyed by a nuclear war and many have migrated to Mars as their new home. One of the new inventions brought upon in this novel is the creation of androids with very sophisticated programming that make them almost identical to humans. The protagonist of the story, Rick Deckard, is a bounty hunter whose goal is to “retire” dangerous androids. As we see throughout the novel, all events take place in the span of 24 hours in which Rick undergoes major changes in his attitude and perspective towards androids and electric things. Because humans are living in a new environment it is hard for them to cope with the daily realities that things are not the same for them after the war. As for Rick, he is dealing with internal conflicts because he begins to question what is right and wrong in terms of what he is doing with his life. As the story progresses, we see Rick Deckard ponder the ethics of his job while simultaneously showing a growing sense of empathy for the androids. However, Rick manages to change his disposition towards his life in just one day.
The story starts off with Rick and his wife Iran arguing because of the conflicting views each of them has towards Rick’s job. Although Rick feels indifferent about retiring the “andys”, Iran clearly shows us that what Rick is doing is wrong and unethical. When she tells Rick, “You’re worse… You’re a murder hired by cops”, Rick becomes irritated and threatens to dial to a thalamic suppressant which would irk him enough to win the argument (4). So then Iran steps in with a greater threat when she tells him, “If you dial…for greater venom, then I’ll dial the same. I’ll dial the maximum and you’ll see a fight that makes every argument we’ve had up to now seem like nothing” (4). This shows how much Iran despises Rick’s job because she is willing to fight for what she believes is right even though Rick will not change. This causes Rick to feel isolated from his relationship with Ira and lose empathy for her just to get a real animal.
The reason Rick does this job is to get money in order to buy a real animal because they represent status in that society. In a world where most animals have gone extinct, owning a real one means everything and is extremely rare. Because of this, electric animals are viewed as lesser and devalued in this society. As Rick tells us, “The electric animal, pondered, could be considered a sub-form of the other, a kind of vastly inferior robot. Or, conversely, the android could be regarded as a highly developed, evolved version of the ersatz animal. Both viewpoints repelled him” and by this it shows that he lacks all empathy for the androids, electric animals, and his wife (42). Ironically, Rick is punishing androids for lacking empathy yet he is being a hypocrite because for the first part of the novel he shows no emotion towards anything close to his life. Rick defines the characteristics of being a human in this portion of the story because as humans we all lack emotion for certain things and can be hypocritical as well. This happens to be Rick’s fallacy which is understandable due to the times he is living in.
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