Morales 1

Taina Morales

Professor Batty

English 102

December 10th, 2017

Electric Empathy

Monsters scare us for a variety of reasons. When we imagine monsters, we tent to

envision them as the scary bad guys in stories. Traditionally, monsters come as 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. While other times, those monsters dont

resemble creatures at all. Not all the monsters we see have excessive hair, long fangs, or

sharp claws. In monster novels such as Phillip K. Dicks Do Androids Dream of Electric

Sheep? the monsters appear to be, if not are the humans themselves. Psychoanalytic

criticism in literature builds on Freudian theories of psychology and can be used as a

literary lens to helps us understand what it is about monsters that evoke fear in us.

Though to most who read Dicks Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep would assume

the replicants to be the monsters-I, however, argue that when analyzing this book through

a Psychoanalytic lens, the humans become monsters through their Id-driven actions; lack

of empathy and mechanization of non-human life forms.

Using Freuds theory of psychoanalysis, we are able to analyze what

human behaviors we deem monstrous in this book. Sigmund Freud, who fathered the

theory of Psychoanalysis-a method of investigating the unconscious mind. In a 2016

article for Magills Medical Guide: Psychoanalysis,

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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). When

applying a psychoanalytic lens to the text, can also learn about the human

condition. Psychoanalysis consists of a three-part psychic-apparatus: the id, ego,

and super-ego. Each level drives different actions to satisfy different humanistic

needs. 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.

When we take a psychoanalytic lens to the Id-drive 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, behaves like a mechanical sociopath. His selfishness

and self-fulfilling needs propel him to become violent. However, the actions of Roy make

us self-reflective to how humans behave when struggling to survive. One example of the

Id in effect is shown 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
 Morales 3

hide somewhere else (p. 166). Roys actions scare us because they are not far from what

humans actions would be given the right amount of necessity.

Lack of empathy to non-human life is the central theme in Do Androids Dream of

Electric Sheep. Dick utilizes the pathos of empathy to teach us something about 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

see the replicants as monsters because they supposedly lack the ability to empathize like

humans. However it is due to the fact that the androids in this story are created to

replicate humans in almost every way, which inferences that the humans are actually the

monsters in this novel.

Dick inferences the lack of empathy in humans is through Rick Deckard. Deckard

is the protagonist in our story, and self-interested, self-centered man. His job as a bounty

hunter is to retire replicants for a living. 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 that he empathizes little-to-none.

Ricks job as a bounty hunter also demands zero empathy to be had for replicants.

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
 Morales 4

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 Judean-critic could suggest that through the Blade-runners

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.

The exploitation of non-human lives for human profit, is the final action that

makes the humans monsters in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Dick creates a

post-apocalyptic world where real animals-born from an organic nativity are empathized

and valued to the highest degree. The near extinction of real animals has put a high price

on them on earth.

Bill Barbour, Ricks neighbor, claims pregnant horse. One day Rick and Bill

were looking at 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

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

horses for consumption in various parts of the world. It due the mechanization of the

animal industry in the 1960s-when Dick wrote this book 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 mechanization
 Morales 5

of livestock. 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.

Through the works of Freud, Jung, and other Psychoanalytic theorists, we are able

to analyze Philip K. Dicks Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? What it is about the

humans in this book that makes them the monster, and what it is about monsters that

scare us. 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 in humans in the exploitation of non-human lives. I

believe that when applying a psychoanalytic lens, Dicks purpose in writing this book
 Morales 6

was for the readers to become self-reflective of their Id-driven actions; lack of empathy

and mechanization of non-human life forms, to avoid becoming the monsters ourselves.

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.

"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.

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.