Morales 1

Taina Morales

Professor Batty

English 102

November 15th 2017

Electric Empathy

When we think of monsters, tend to picture them as the scary bad guys in

stories. The other. Traditionally, monsters are the evil creatures that the humans are up

against. In some stories, the monsters are the ones we must defeat in order to save the

humanity. At time, those monsters dont resemble creatures at all. No excessive hair, long

fangs, or sharp claws. And sometimes, in stories such as Phillip K. Dicks Do Androids

Dream of Electric Sheep? humans take on the monster role, themselves. Monsters scare

us for a variety of reasons-the uncanny strikes a fear or anxiety in humans that through a

Psychoanalytic lens, were able to analyze the literature written, as to, why? Though to

most who read Dicks Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? could concise that the

replicants are the monsters-I, however, argue that when viewing the literature through a

Psychoanalytic lens, we learn about the human condition through monstrous behaviors

driven by their psychic apparatus; lack of empathy; and the exploitation of non-human

life forms.

Using Freuds theory of psychoanalysis, we are able to analyze the human

behaviors we deem monstrous in the text. Sigmund Freud, who fathered

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psychoanalysis-a method of investigating the mind and especially the unconscious mind.

In a 2016 article for Magills Medical Guide, Psychoanalysis,

Psychoanalysis is a method that is used to understand the workings of the human

mind. Adherents to psychoanalysis believe that many forces operate to influence

and shape the mind, including some that exist beneath the level of conscious

awareness and control . . . Freud conceived of the human mind, or psyche, as

Having three parts: id, ego, and superego. (Williams and Russell, 2016).

With this psychoanalytic lens, we are able to learn about the human condition through

both the replicants, and the humans in which they mirror. Psychoanalysis consists of a

three-part psychic-apparatus: the id, ego, and super-ego. Each level drives different

actions to satisfy different needs. From both the replicants, and humans in this book, we

see actions driven by the id, and the super-ego.

The id embodies more libidinal, forbidden, or sexual wishes. Per the Funk &

Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia, 2017,

The id can be equated with the unconscious of common usage, which is the

reservoir of the instinctual drives of the individual, including biological urges,

wishes, and affective motives. The id is dominated by the pleasure principle,

through which the individual is pressed for immediate gratification of his or her

desires.

Taking into example, the actions of Roy Batty and Pris Stratton, in their struggle to live

past their expiration date. One could even argue, that their actions mirror a humans id-

driven instinct to stay alive. Roy is the android group leader, and for the purpose of the

id, much like a mechanical sociopath. His selfishness and self-fulfilling needs mirror the
 Morales 3

behaviors of humans, in their scramble for survival. At the beginning of chapter fifteen,

in the process of the group voting for what to do with Isidore, Roy, with no remorse says,

I vote we kill Mr. Isidore and hide somewhere else (page 166.) Roys actions, through

a psychoanalytic lens, embody that of a monster.

The super-ego is also at play, in this story. The super-ego, per the Salem

Press Encyclopedia of Health, The conscience is formed by the moral influences of

parents and society, including rules and standards of conduct. It serves as the judge of

what is right and wrong and can be quite harsh and perfectionistic. (Hedgespeth, 2016)

In this case, through the use of symbolism, we can see the super-ego being symbolized

through the Voight-Kampff test. This test-used by the bounty hunters, and is used to

help identify androids through their lack of empathy, in scenarios that humans would

have empathy for. In this case the social standard of conduct would be communal

empathy towards real, and electric animal life.

One could also counter-argue that due their inability to empathize, the androids are the

monsters of the book. However, it is through the super-ego driven actions of the humans,

upon failing the test, in which humans become monstrous. Empathy towards non-human

life is driven by the id, and super-ego of Freuds theory of psychoanalysis.

Empathy towards non-human life is the central theme in Do Androids. Dick uses

the empathy for replicants to teach us about empathy in the human condition. When

looking for the monsters in this book through a psychoanalytic lens, one could argue that

the replicants; being the other, are the monsters. We can also assume that the monsters

in this story are the replicants because they lack the ability to empathize in the way
 Morales 4

humans do. However, due to the fact that the androids are meant to replicate humans in

almost every way, it leads us to assume that its the humans that are actually taking on the

role of the monsters.

Rick Deckard, the protagonist in our story, is a self-interested elf-centered man

that bounty-hunts replicants for a living. Ricks job consists of retiring replicants who

are living incognito on earth. However, one could argue that these retirements seems

more like executions, due to the shared fear of death by androids. Despite their resistance

to death, Rick continues to kill replicants for a living in hopes of buying a real goat on

what a city employee makes (p. 13) Ricks home life consists of a wife-whos

depression, and their pet electric goat, he empathized little-to-none with. Parallel to the

replicants, a Blade-runners job description demands zero empathy to be had. This alone

makes the actions that Blade-runners take towards the replicantants that makes them

monstrous.

Why does lack of empathy scare us? Using Jungian Criticism, we explore the

theory of Sigmund Freuds processor, Carl Jung. Unlike Freuds theory of

psychoanalysis, that weighed the life-instinct against the death-wish, Jung discussed the

split in the individual between the ego and the shadow (animal side of the psyche).

(Slomski, 2017). In an 2005 article for his book, Jung and Education: Elements of an

Archetypal Pedagogy, Ten Pillars of a Jungian Approach to Education. Clifford

Mayaes defines Carl Jungs shadow archetypal as, the shadow that contains the

repressed contents that we do not want to admit to ourselves the behavior we consider

bad or evil. (Mayes, 2005) A Judian-critic could suggest that through the Blade-runners
 Morales 5

execution of replicants, Dick disguises the shadow which admits a behavior we

consider bad or evil; in this case, monstrous about the human condition in the text.

We can also take a Marxist approach to proving why we should fear man than

more than the machines he creates. Per Karl Marxs The Communist Manifesto, where he

predicts the fall a society through the collapse of capitalism. Dick, symbolizes World

War Terminus as the fall of society due to the capitalization of androids. Under U.N.

law each emigrant automatically received possession of an android, and, by 2019, the

variety of subtypes passed all understanding, in the manner of American automobiles of

the 1960s. (p.16) Through a Marxist lens, we could compare the alienation between the

worker (androids) who are being exploited for labor by the bourgeois (the humans.)

Like Marx predicts in The Communist Manifesto, we fear that the replicants will

overthrow mankind, like the proletarians will one day overthrow the bourgeois.

Through these actions, humans lack of empathy resulted in the exploitation of androids.

Lastly, through exposing the exploitation of non-human lives for human profit,

one could argue is the central action that makes humans monstrous in this book. In Do

Androids, Dick creates a society where real animals-born from an organic nativity, were

empathized, and valued to the highest degree. The near extinction of real animals puts a

high value on them. Bill Barbour, Ricks neighbor, claims pregnant horse. One day, the

two were looking over the Sidneys Animal and Fowl Catalogue, Barbour, giving his

reasoning as to why hed never sell his horse to Rick, says You bring an animal like this

anywhere around Colorado or Wyoming and theyll knock you off to get hold of it. You

know why? Because back before W.W.T. there existed literally hundreds- (p. 11) In
 Morales 6

todays world. Humans not only exploit horses for sport and entertainment, but also kill

horses for consumption in various parts of the world. It could be assumed that in the

1960s-time era, when Dick wrote Do Androids, influenced the subconscious focus on the

exploitation of non-human life forms.

The 1960s served as a time of great economic-progressivism due to domestic

production in America. Machines and man created dual-labor that invaded almost every

industry in the Unites States. The meat and dairy industry also capitalized from dual-

labor of man and machine. Only twenty years later, in a 1983 article published by the

Journal of Animal Science, states Mechanization has resulted in high-efficiency, high-

volume cattle slaughter-dressing facilities. (Breidenstein and Carpenter, 1983.) To the

humans on Earth in 2021, animal exploitation, and the killing of real animals like that of

the 1960s would be deemed as monstrous.

When using psychoanalytic criticism in literature, one begins to look for what the

unconscious-inferential messages the author is making in the text are. Per Freudian

theory, the latent content is unconscious wishes that find some satisfaction in a

distorted form. In this book, to question if someones animal were real or not as Rick

states would be the worse breach in manners. (p.8) Through a psychoanalytic lens, the

irony in the value that the humans in this book put on real and replicant animals,

compared to the real world may serve as the latent content that Dick was releasing in the

text. The unconscious message in this case would be the treatment, and exploitation of

non-human life forms.

 Morales 7

Through the works of Freud, Jung, Marx, and other theorist, we are able to

analyze the text in Philip K. Dicks Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? to learn

something monstrous about the human condition. Humans begin to embody the monster

role through their actions driven by the different layers of Freuds psychic-apparatus.

The id, and super-ego heavily account for the actions of both androids, and the humans

they mirror. Secondly, the apathy of androids reflects the lack of empathy we have as

humans, which leads to the exploitation of non-human lives in this book. I believe that by

using a psychoanalytic lens, Dicks purpose in writing this book, is for readers to reflect

on the world they live in. When using a psychoanalytic lens to analyze the monstrous

actions of humans driven by our psychic apparatus; lack of empathy; and the exploitation

of non-human life forms, we can learn how to empathize for all life forms.
 Morales 8

Works Cited

Breidenstein, B. C., and Z. L. Carpenter. 1983. The Red Meat Industry: Product And
Consumerism. J. Anim. Sci. 57(Suppl2):119-132.
doi:10.2527/animalsci1983.57Supplement_2119x

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Mariner Books, 2017.

Hedgespeth, Joanne. "Ego, Superego, and Id." Salem Press Encyclopedia of Health,
January. EBSCOhost,
library.lavc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db
=ers&AN=93871902&site=eds-live.

"Id." Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia, 2017, p. 1p. 1. EBSCOhost,
library.lavc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db
=funk&AN=ID005600&site=eds-live.

Leontief, Wassily. MACHINES AND MAN. Scientific American, vol. 187, no. 3,
1952, pp. 150164., www.jstor.org/stable/24950787.

Mayes, Clifford. "Ten Pillars of a Jungian Approach to Education." Encounter, vol. 18,
no. 2, Summer2005, pp. 30-41. EBSCOhost,
library.lavc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db
=aph&AN=18019655&site=eds-live.

Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. The communist manifesto. First Avenue Editions,
2017.

Slomski, Genevieve. "Carl Jung." Salem Press Biographical Encyclopedia, January.

EBSCOhost,
library.lavc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db
=ers&AN=88801411&site=eds-live.

Williams, Russell, MSW. "Psychoanalysis." Magills Medical Guide (Online Edition),

January. EBSCOhost,
library.lavc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db
=ers&AN=87690612&site=eds-live.