DADES 13-22

Please complete a blog entry for Chapters 13-22. Also complete free writing on the topic below. Use textual evidence from the novel and your notes, including those blow. Be prepared to discuss.

Humanity in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Discuss the problems of human identity Philip K. Dick addresses in the novel. What does Dick reveal about human beings as opposed to machines> How does he complicate the simple division between what is natural and what is unnatural?

The Problem of Human Identity

What characteristics make us distinctively human?

Androids and specials are persecuted “races” and DADES might be said to be an allegory of racial conflict, which includes urbanization and “white flight.”

Irony that a machine is used to test for humanness (Voight-Kampff test), an empathy box (machine) is needed to experience “fusion” with others, and a machine (Penfield mood organ) is used to regulate mood.

Recycling of Frankenstein myth—androids are human-created monsters on the loose

Is Deckard a human or an android and why?

Human (Natural) / Non-Human (Unnatural)

Birth/sexual reproduction / Artificially created
Empathy / Lack of empathy
Impulse/instinct / Programming
Love of animals / Animals as objects
Awareness of past / Lack of past; focus on present
Collective awareness / Self-preservation
Sisyphus mentality / Resignation to defeat
Ability to die / Shut down, retired
Human / Beyond human