Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

Written in the mid 1900’s, Philip K. Dick novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? takes place in the futuristic—and, at the time, distant—year 2020. The radiation and dust left over from World War Terminus has left the earth in a declining state of decay, causing many forms of animals to die out. In 2020, it is a rare and valuable thing to possess a real animal, and owning and caring for a live animal is not only a sign of compassion but also demonstrates one’s social status (animals have become rather expensive, so having one, or even more than one, is a symbol of wealth). It is also to demonstrate one’s compassion, because compassion is the one thing that separates humans from androids, who are considered to be sub-human. If you can’t afford a real animal, or if your animal has died out, advanced, life-like electric animals are available. That way, you can fool others into thinking that you have a real animal and, as a result, you will not be looked down upon or scorned by your neighbors.

            This idea of compassion for animals is a mixed one. Owning an animal is supposed to be a sign of compassion, of caring for another living thing, yet catalogs are made assigning prices to these living creatures, so that they may be bought, sold, and traded like furniture or other inanimate objects. For Rick Deckard, our protagonist, his objective at the beginning of the story was to own a real animal, not because he personally felt compassion for or cared about the animal (he said himself that taking care of his electric sheep felt the same to him as it had taking care of his wife’s real sheep when it was still alive), but because he wanted to show that he had equal status as his neighbors, so that he wouldn’t be looked down upon by others for having let the real sheep die and replacing it with an inferior robotic copy. Rick seems to view animals the way people today might view property in Martha’s Vineyard: just a way to denote one’s wealth and social status.

            On the other hand, when John Isidore vidcalls Mrs. Pilsen to tell her that her real cat Horace had died, she is in tears. When he, Dr. Sloat, and Milt first try to comfort her by offering her an electrical replacement, she explains that nothing could replace Horace, that her husband loved Horace so much that he couldn’t even get physically close to him out of fear of the pain of losing him. It’s then that she decides to order the electric cat, so as not to break Mr. Pilsen’s heart by telling him of Horace’s death. In this case, it seems as if both the real animal and the robotic copy both bring about compassion within Philip K. Dick’s characters. Yet this still doesn’t coincide with how little compassion is displayed in the market of selling and buying animals as items in a catalog. This seems to be demonstrating the contrast between humanity and industry, how humanity displays sympathy while the other a colder sense of self-gain. Industry, like the stereotypical androids and electric animals it creates, is itself robotic and compassionless.