This document analyzes technology's power to diminish humanity in Philip K. Dick's novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?". It discusses how the electric animals create social stigmas focused more on appearances than humanity. The "empathy box" allows humans a fraudulent religious experience, showing technology can convince people to prioritize artificial experiences over real empathy. Ultimately, the novel challenges the distinction between human and artificial by depicting a world where that difference is nearly undetectable, questioning what truly makes one human.

1. Landry Goodgame
Professor Christopher Pizzino
ENGL 4897
23 September 2014
“The Tyranny of An Object”: Technology’s Dehumanization in Do Androids Dream of
Electric Sheep
In Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, there are many
pieces of technology that are both foreign to the reader and essential to the
environment of the novel. As defined by Darko Suvin, these differing technologies
are considered “novums,” or things that present “a strange newness” (Suvin 4) to
the reader; more than simply being novel, however, a defining characteristic of the
science fiction novum is that “its novelty is ‘totalizing’ in the sense that it entails a
change of the whole universe of the tale” (Suvin 64). According to this qualification,
the ultimate novum in Androids is not so much any specific piece of technology, but
the power that the technology expresses, specifically the power to overshadow and
diminish humanity itself.
One of the first novel pieces of technology to which Dick introduces the
reader is the electric “ersatz” animal. It is through this relationship between Rick
Decker and his electric sheep that the initial expression of technology’s power is
revealed. Due to the nuclear war, almost all animal species have become extinct on
earth; therefore, those who own actual live animals have gained a certain
distinguished status, proving to society that they can both afford and maintain a
genuine animal. Decker is not one of these individuals, and his hatred for his own

2. electric sheep, along with his covetousness for a real animal, is apparent from the
book’s beginning. Decker ponders his “need for a real animal” upon arriving at the
Rosen Association Building: “within him an actual hatred once more manifested
itself toward his electric sheep, which he had to tend, had to care about, as if it lived.
The tyranny of an object, he thought…it had no ability to appreciate the existence of
another” (Dick 42). As defined by Decker, the “tyranny” of the technology is in its
lack of humanity, ‘humanity’ defined as the “ability to appreciate the existence of
another.” However, Decker’s interaction with the sheep and desire for a real animal
does not arise out of any innate emotional need such as loyalty or affection; rather,
Decker is purely concerned with using the animal to sustain an image, leading the
reader to ask whether Decker has an appreciation for the animal itself or merely its
purpose. For example, when Decker discusses the possibility of his electric sheep
breaking down, his only concern is that “if anyone saw [the malfunctions]…they’d
recognize it as a mechanical breakdown [and thus realize the sheep is electric]”
(Dick 13). Moreover, Decker’s neighbor Barbour is concerned that if others discover
his sheep is electric, “they’ll look down on him” (Dick 13). Through both Decker and
Barbour’s references to an enigmatic “they,” the characters reveal an oppressive
societal expectation to display or create an image of humane-ness, namely through
the ownership and upkeep of an animal. If a true novum has a “totalizing” effect as
stated by Suvin, the novum is not the electric animal, however innovative; rather,
the novelty lies in the power of the electric animal. It is the power and influence of
the electric sheep on humans that has “entail[ed] a change of the whole universe of
the tale,” creating an entire new set of socioeconomic stigmas that make the human

3. characters in Androids more concerned with proving their humanity than actually
being humane. Therefore, Dick takes the novum of technology’s power so far as to
diminish the human-ness of humanity, transforming a characteristically humane
desire for relationship into a sterile compliance to societal norm.
The novum of technology’s power not only diminishes humanity, but also
objectifies it. As previously stated by Decker, humanity is defined by its “ability to
appreciate the existence of another” (Dick 42). This ability to step outside of oneself,
to cease being a completely self-serving creature, can be equated with the
“empathy” frequently discussed throughout the novel. Dick uses this quality to be
the distinguishing factor between humans and androids; “Empathy…exist[s] only
within the human condition” (Dick 30, italics added). In this vein, the reader comes
upon the “empathy box”—a piece of technology that allows a human to enter into
the sacred experience of “fusing” with Mercer, along with countless others, and in
doing so practicing “empathy” to the utmost degree. However, both irony and
foreshadowing resonate in the technology’s name of “empathy box.” Empathy, the
ability to step outside the boundaries of self and into the experience of another, is
confined within the strict constraints of a box; indeed, the reader sees little to no
actual empathy being expressed between the humans of Androids. Moreover, the
religion of Mercerism is ultimately proven to be a sham—the religion’s leader,
Wilbur Mercer, is merely a second-rate actor; the environment in which “fusion”
takes place is an array of cheaply-made sets. No matter how novel the idea of a
technologically driven religion, the true novelty lies in the power the empathy box
has to convince countless humans of the verity of a completely fraudulent

4. experience. If Mercerism is false, the entire experience is self-manufactured from
the psyches of its participants; therefore, in Androids, technology proves itself to be
influential enough to force humans to draw inward—the opposite of acting
empathetically—and “fuse” with the artificial in pursuit of a manufactured and
ultimately meaningless experience. Empathy is no longer a real human
characteristic, but an ineffectual and inhuman object—a box.
Here lies the significance of Dick’s novel: through Androids, we see a human
race that has become so invested in making the artificial appear real that the
practice has turned in on itself; the real becomes artificial; the human becomes
inhuman. In such a poignant display of a world in which differences between
humans and robots boil down to nearly undetectable trivialities, Dick challenges the
reader to ask: Is there is any characteristic at all that can be exclusively human?

5. Works Cited
Dick, Philip K. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? 1968. New York: Del Rey, 1996.
Print.
Suvin, Darko. Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On the Poetics and History of a
Literary Genre. New Haven: Yale UP, 1979. Print.