Philip K. Dick was an American science fiction author known for exploring themes of reality, identity, and the nature of human existence. Some of his most famous works include Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which was adapted into the film Blade Runner, and explored the difficulty of distinguishing humans from human-like androids. Dick married five times and was politically active in opposing the Vietnam War in the 1950s. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is set in a post-nuclear war future and follows a bounty hunter tasked with retiring six escaped androids, raising questions about what makes someone human. The document provides biographical details on Dick's life and career, and analyzes themes across his works such

1. PHILIP K DICK
Persico Francesco e Capano Tommaso

2. INDEX
 Personal life
 Career
 Themes
 Influence and legacy
 Do the androids dream of electric sheeps?
 Plot
 Main themes

3. PHILIP K DICK
● Philip Kindred Dick (December 16, 1928 – March 2,
1982) was an American novelist, short story writer
and essayist whose published work is almost entirely
accepted as being in the science fiction genre.
● He got married five times,
● Jeanette Marlin (May to November 1948)
● Kleo Apostolides (June 14, 1950 to 1959)
● Anne Williams Rubinstein (April 1, 1959 to October
1965)
● Nancy Hackett (July 6, 1966 to 1972)
● Leslie (Tessa) Busby (April 18, 1973 to 1977)
He greatly influenced every literary genre. However, in general, Dick’s fortune and
influence emerged after his death, when his works at first ignored or misunderstood
by the critics were revalued.

4. PERSONAL LIFE: CHILDHOOD AND STUDIES
● His intense political activity influenced his
career: in 50s he joined an anti-vietnam
war.
● He briefly attended University of
California, Berkely, but he was not a
brilliant student.

5. PERSONAL LIFE - 50S
● Even at that time he showed his opposition to
American Government: he likes to tell how
he became a close friend of two FBI agents
who controlled him so assiduously.
● 1952 he sold his first story: "The little
Movement”.
After the sale of this tale he decided to
become a full-time writer
● In 1955 he published “Solar lottery”.

6. PERSONAL LIFE – 60S AND 70S
● New intimate writing style
● Period of intense activity
● In 1965, devasted by a massive use of amphetamine,he fell
in depression and divorced with his third wife.
● 2 March, 1974: mystique experience and radical change of
life
● 1982: he died of a heart attack
7

7. CARRER
1960s
• “The Man in the High Castle”
• 1962
• dystopian world dominated
by the Nazism and the
Japanese imperialism
• Hugo Award
in 1963

8. • Martian Time-Slip
• 1964
autistic child
Manfred Steiner
Arnie Kott, the
rich chief of the
union of plumbers
planet Mars
• protagonist
• antagonist
• setting

9. • The Simulacra
• 1964
• sociopolitical allegory
• Democratic and
Republican Party
• United states of Europe
•and America (USEA)

10. • The Three Stigmata of Palmer
Eldritch
(1965)
• dystopian novel
• Nebula Award in 1965
• several layers of reality
and unreality
• religious themes
21st century
Colonization of the
planets and moons i
the solar system

11.  Do Androids Dream
of Electric Sheeps? (1968)
 film “Blade Runner”
of Ridley Scott
• Ubik (1969)
• dystopian novel
• "North American
Confederation" of 1992

12. 1970s
Jason Taverner
dystopian near
future police state.
• John W. Campbell Memorial
Award
• Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said (1974)
• protagonist
• setting

13. • British Science Fiction Association
Award (1978)
• Graouilly d'Or (1979).
• A Scanner Darkly (1977)
Substance D• police detective
• paranoia and dissociation
• multiple realities

14. THEMES – SPLINTERED IDENTITIES
● Many of Dick's stories deal with the idea that the reality is not as it
seems to be, expressed through parallel worlds, false and illusorial
identities of protagonists.

15. THEMES - PARANOIA AND MADNESS
Dick's characters are usuallly affected by mental disorders, presented by Dick
as reasonable responses, necessary reaction to extreme situation where they're
out of their minds on drugs, completely unsure of who they are and not even
certain what world they live in or whether they're alive or dead.

16. THEMES – POLICE AND WAR
Dick's political ideas are often expressed is an overwhelming dread of
the effects of war. The fear of destruction, after all, is a fear of death
and annihilation at the hands of abusive authority, that often comes in
the guise of an intense antipathy toward the police.

17. THEMES – ROBOT AND HUMANS
Dicks likes to present the image of a
robot that is indistinguishable from
human being.
Androids are able to feel emotions,
pain, even memories, but they're
infinitely reproducible; this is an
essential difference that makes robots
different from men, thus creating
considerable problems in defining the
concept of life.

18. • “Blade Runner” (1982)
directed Ridley Scott
• cinematographic adaptations
Influence and legacy
• “Do Androids Dream of Electric
Sheeps?” (1968)

19.  “Total Recall” (1990), directed by Paul Verhoeven
• short story "We Can Remember It
for You Wholesale”,
•“A Scanner Darkly” (2006),
directed by
Richard Linklater

20. •“Next” (2007), directed by Lee
Tamahori
•“The Adjustment Bureau”
(2011) of George Nolfi
• “Adjustment Team.”(1954)
• short story "The Golden
Man” (1980)

21.  cyberpunk, (cyber fantasy)
 Ucronìa (The Man in the High Castle)
Influences in the postmodern
literature
technology
robotic
the Historical Course represented is
different than the real one.

22.  The Terminator (1984)
 The Truman Show (1998)
Influences in the cinema
killer androids confound
themselves between the human
beings
Screamers
pseudo-reality
Time Out of Joint

23.  the trilogy of Matrix (1999-2003)
 Inception(2010)
• alienation
• the existence of several sides of reality
• superior entity
•Valis
•Ubik
•The Man in the
High Castle
• "Journey into the Subconscious"
• "Oneiric Architecture"
Ubik

24. DO THE ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEPS?
 PLOT
setting future 1992 nuclear war
most of mankind
escape to Earth
off-world colonies on Mars
has destoyed animal
and plant lives
androids
slaves
state of isolation
specific tests
lack of empathy
towards the other
living forms

25. THE PROTAGONIST
Who: Rick Deckard, a Bounty hunter
When: 1992
Where: S.Francico
What: the task to find six replicants
escaped from a colony and “retire” them.
Why: to give a meaning to his life and fight the boredom of
his existence
and to overcome the social stigma that afflicts him

26. Deckard’s wife
• Rachael Rosen
apparently
unaware
loving relationship
her feelings are false
ends his mission
fist android
known
Rick Deckard
retiring all the androids escaped
• conclusion
electrical
insects
artificial toad
found in the desert
by Deckard

27. HUMAN AND ANDROID
● Central issue: difficulty to discern humans from androids; I
● Androids: presented as sentient but inhuman machines who do
not possess the empathy that would qualify them as humans.

28. THE ONLY SUBJECT
Ego cogito.
Ergo sum?
The novel lives of another great contrast, the
religious and epistemological shifted in the struggle
between Deckard and the androids.
If an android isn’t conscious to be android and a
man isn’t conscious to be human, how can you
discern real true from false? Dick affirms it’s
impossible.

29. BIBLIOGRAPHY
 http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick7
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick_bibliography
 http://biografieonline.it/biografia.htm?BioID=372&biografia=Philip+K.+Dick
 http://www.philipkdickfans.com/
 Philip K. Dick Fan site: www.philipkdickfans.com
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_in_the_High_Castle
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_Time-Slip
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Simulacra
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Stigmata_of_Palmer_Eldritch
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Androids_Dream_of_Electric_Sheep%3F
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubik
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_My_Tears,_the_Policeman_Said
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Scanner_Darkly
 http://pkdreligion.blogspot.it/2011/10/quick-thoughts-on-undermining-ontology.html
 http://www.avclub.com/article/ema-scanner-darklyem-philip-k-dicks-thematic-obses-42528