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Isabella Hays-Velasco

Professor Batty

English 102

12 December 2019

Are We the Monsters?: A Psychoanalysis of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

When I was nine, I was scared of dinosaurs because I had a nightmare that a

Tyrannosaurus rex ate the roof of my house. Looking back at that fear, I realized that, one, it was

irrational as dinosaurs are extinct, and, two, the nightmare had a deeper meaning; it represented

the outside forces that were wreaking havoc and finally breaking the shaky walls of my home.

Monsters, like dinosaurs, ghosts, and robots, terrify us, but why? They represent facets of

humanity that we try to repress because they are too ugly or horrible to reveal. We fear them

because, in some ways, they are us, or at least reveal parts of us that we do not want to see.

Philip K. Dick’s 1968 science fiction novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, is set in the

aftermath of World War Terminus in a dystopian San Francisco where humans are hunting

androids for killing their human masters, and animals are worshipped for their scarcity and used

as a tool to distinguish the difference between humans and androids. In Do Androids Dream of

Electric Sheep?, the humans view the androids as the monsters because they lack empathy for

animals and have killed their human owners; however, the humans are actually afraid of what the

androids represent: the worst parts of humanity. Moreover, humans are actually the monsters

through their institutionalized empathy for animals and their complete lack of empathy for the

androids that they created. It displays the hypocritical nature of mankind and highlights that the

things we fear the most, are often embodied within ourselves.

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The novel features two main character whose experiences with androids shape the

reader’s viewpoint. Rick Deckard, an android hunter, is tasked with “retiring” (killing) six

androids who escaped from Mars, the planet which most humans relocated to with the incentive

of receiving an android to serve them as Earth turned to a wasteland. His mindset towards

androids and the predetermined morals of his society changes with every android he encounters.

In juxtaposition with Deckard’s story is Isidore's. He is a special, a person who can no longer

procreate, who ends up discovering three of the escaped androids and becoming a part of their

escape plan. These encounters with androids provide the audience with examples of the human-

android relationship and allow the reader to establish their own viewpoint on the conundrum.

In all honesty, androids are not sinless creatures. As Rick states in his explanation for

being able to retire androids, “an escaped humanoid robot [...] had killed its master, [...] had no

regard for animals, [... and] possessed no ability to feel empathic joy for another life form’s

success or grief at its defeat” (Dick 30). Most androids who escaped Mars terminated their

human masters in order to gain freedom, which is a great moral violation; murdering anyone, in

most situations, is typically condemned. Also, androids lack the ability to truly empathize as

humans did not find it necessary to include that quality when creating them, and this lack of

empathy, specifically towards animals, is what humans use to test if a person is a human or an

android. Moreover, in the novel, androids have blatantly displayed their lack of empathy towards

animals which are revered in this society. Rachael, an extremely human-like Nexus 6 android,

who tricks Rick into thinking she will help him in killing androids and sleeps with him, “dragged

[Rick’s goat] out of its cage, and dragged it to the edge of the roof [, and] pushed it off” (Dick

208) in retaliation for Rick being able to execute the final three escapees after sleeping with her.

After Isidore excitedly finds a spider, which is rare, as sparse living creatures are found where he
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lives, the three androids he is helping ponder if the spider “doesn’t need all those legs” (Dick

189) and proceed to cut off its legs as Isidore pleads for them to stop. Both of these instances

exemplify the disregard androids have towards animals and displays the cruelty they can possess,

even if they do not always have a cruel intent. From a human’s viewpoint in this society, why

would they not find androids monstrous and want to kill something that has both killed their own

species and lacks empathy for the one thing they find sacred? The answer lies in the fact they

created these beings they find so monstrous.

Humans are actually afraid of androids because androids reveal the negative aspects of

humanity and force humans to look at their faults. Humans created androids to serve them on

Mars and used them as a marketing tool to convince people to leave Earth. As Asa Simon

Mittman discusses the qualities of monsters in literature in his introduction to The Ashgate

Research Companion to Monsters and the Monstrous, he states that monsters “swallow up our

cultural mores and expectations, and then, becoming what they eat, they reflect back to us our

own faces, made disgusting or, perhaps, revealed to always have been so” (Mittman 1). As

displayed in the previous paragraph, androids can be ruthless and do not value the lives of

animals. They represent some of the worst qualities to have in a society that so highly values

empathy. Thus, they represent the unfavorable aspects of humanity that humans strive so hard to

work against that they even use a mood organ, a device that simulates emotions, to encourage the

appropriate response.They were designed to be extremely intelligent beings who lacked empathy

as humans found it unnecessary to include one of their fundamental morals in beings who were

meant to serve them (Dick 30). But, as Andrew Howard notes in his article “The Postmodern

Prometheus: Humanity and Narration in the SF Worlds of Dick’s Do Androids Dream of

Electric Sheep? And Scott’s Blade Runner.” discussing the creation of androids and its
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implication in Dick’s novel and the movie adaptation, a problem arises when humans protect

themselves from the cold, emotionless androids who they are so threatened by; “the problem of

emotion surfaces when the humans have to be the cold, emotionless killers. ‘The problem in this

killing then would be, Could we not become like the androids, in our very effort to wipe them

out?’”(Howard 112). In killing the androids, humans become the very thing they despise:

empathy-lacking killers. But, they attempt to justify that by arguing that androids are the killers

so, therefore, androids need to be killed. Furthermore, the humans created androids without a

sense of empathy and exploit their fault, which humans chose to exclude, to justify killing them.

The reasoning is incredibly faulty and cruel as the humans created a system where the androids

have no chance of escaping which displays the selfishness and complete apathy that is a part of

the human society in the novel.

Empathy for animals is institutionalized in the society of Do Androids Dream of Electric

Sheep?, and the creation of this empathy allows for the humans to justify their horrible treatment

towards others. As a result of the war, animals began to rapidly die off, and the animals that were

left are revered to that extent that nobody kills animals, and the lack of empathy for one classifies

the being as an android. Animals are a vital part of their society as animals define species and

class. Empathy for animals distinguishes if you are a human or an android, and the rarity of the

animal one owns, defines the wealth that they have. In Sherryl Vint’s article "Speciesism and

species being in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?," she discusses the speciesism between

humans, animals, and androids in the novel, and she notes that “if empathy were as important to

the experience of human culture as it is to the ideology of the human/android boundary, then

owning a real animal should be a social relationship, not a commodity one” (Vint 112). In the

novel’s society, one is expected to care for animals because of the defining qualities that caring
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for an animal establishes. Rick constantly tries to buy a more lavish animal to distinguish his

class and works extremely hard to obtain money so that he can do so as looking at his electric

sheep reminds him that “it’s not the same” (Dick 12) as having a real one. Whether one has a real

animal or an artificial one, having one establishes one’s empathy towards them and distinguishes

that one is a human. If living animals were truly valued, it would not be a necessity to own an

artificial one. The establishment of societal empathy towards animals allows for humans to

continue to be discriminative towards androids. Furthermore, as Vint notes, the human/animal

boundary “is the political core of why animals are in the novel: it is essential that Mercerism [,

the religion in the novel,] is founded on empathy with animals as it is precisely the

human/animal boundary that provides the grounds upon which to deny empathy and continue

exploitation” (Vint 111). Humans are able to justify their treatments towards androids because

they do not fit into the human/animal boundary; androids lack empathy towards animals, so

androids can be killed if they misbehave, and it will not actually count as killing. Moreover,

androids do not deserve empathy because they cannot feel empathy towards animals. Humans’

behavior of creating forced empathy towards animals and alienating other species in their society

based on these criteria is both sanctimonious and horrific.

The humans’ denial of personhood and rights for androids, who are so like humans, is

monstrous. In Jordana Greenblatt’s article “‘More Human than Human’: ‘Flattening of Affect,’

Synthetic Humans, and the Social Construction of Maleness.,” she discusses the relationship

between humans and androids. She notes that

Persons are bearers of rights. Andys/replicants can only be “retired” because they are not

persons with rights [...] Personhood is not necessarily exclusively human by definition,

and not all humans are always legal people, as in the case [of] slaves and of women.
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Meanwhile, the humanity of groups to whom personhood has been denied has often also

been denied. (Greenblatt 44)

Androids are not people; therefore, they do not have rights based on this logical fallacy. They are

denied humanity and empathy because they do not fall into society’s definition of a person. As

previously stated, androids were created to serve humans, and androids are simply supposed to

accept that. Being born into a life of servitude for humans, who are almost exactly like them

besides the empathy factor, would make anyone question why they of lower status. It is not

surprising why androids would try to escape as the history of enslaved people has shown us that

one can only be oppressed for so long. As Officer Garland, an android posing as an officer who

Rick has to kill, states, “[it’s] a chance anyway, breaking free and coming here to Earth, where

[androids are] not even considered animals [,] where every worm and woodlouse is considered

more desirable than all of [the androids] put together” (Dick 113). The androids are so desperate

for freedom that they will come to a hostile place where they have little worth and are considered

nuisances. And, while their method in which they gain their freedom by killing their master is

not the most viable choice, it is understandable as it is evident that humans would not allow them

freedom in any form.

In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, humans are actually the monsters as they

created a system based on empathy for animals in order to establish class and species rather than

concern for animals’ well-being and are apathetic to the androids, who they purposefully created

to stay beneath them. While humans appear to be afraid of the androids because androids lack

empathy and kill humans, they are actually afraid of what androids reveal about the hypocritical

nature of their society. Androids may be monsters, but they are a product of humans which

defines humans as monstrous too. Monsters tend to frighten us or make us want to hide, but
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looking closer at the monsters allows us to gain a deeper understanding of what we truly fear. It

could be symbolic of a problem occurring in our lives, or it may reveal a facet of ourselves that

we try to mask. And while it may be terrifying, learning to face our monsters allows us to

recognize what is truly affecting us, deal with it head-on, and learn from that experience.
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Works Cited

Dick, Philip K. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Del Rey, 2017.

Greenblatt, Jordana. “‘More Human than Human’: ‘Flattening of Affect,’ Synthetic Humans, and

the Social Construction of Maleness.” English Studies in Canada, no. 1–2, 2016, p. 41.

EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsglr&AN=edsgcl.4807

08431&site=eds-live.

Howard, Andrew. “The Postmodern Prometheus: Humanity and Narration in the SF Worlds of

Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? And Scott’s Blade Runner.”

Interdisciplinary Humanities, vol. 35, no. 1, Spring 2018, pp. 108–120. EBSCOhost,

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=135448993&site=eds-live.

Mittman, Asa Simon. “The Impact of Monsters and Monster Studies.” The Ashgate Research

Companion to Monsters and the Monstrous, edited by Peter J. Dendle and Asa Simon

Mittman, Routledge, 2017, pp. 1–14.

Vint, Sherryl. "Speciesism and species being in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" Mosaic:

A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature, vol. 40, no. 1, 2007, p. 111-112.

Gale Academic OneFile,

https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A162353986/AONE?u=lavc_main&sid=AONE&xid=f20c

77e3.