![]() ![]() Likewise, the androids of the novel are also caught up in Buster's propaganda, sure that his expose on Mercer's false religion will destroy the already shaken faith of humanity and will allow androids to live as humans. Characters such as John Isidore have become so caught up in the world that Buster Friendly spins that they often have a hard time reconciling his views on something like Mercer with the feelings and emotions that they have towards Mercer. Buster's mind control comes from his ability to create a sub-reality through the use of mass media. ![]() This is most clearly seen in the character of Buster Friendly. Throughout the novel, the authorities of government and civic duty have a way of steering people's minds towards creating binary oppositions in the world: what is real vs. The government of Rick's decaying world has also decayed to the point where they have started to lose control and are encouraging people to move to Mars where a new American colony has been started. Mind Control is alluded to throughout Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. The distinctions between the real world and Mercer's world have been completely torn down and Rick is able to finish the novel with a spark of empathy that was not possible for him when the novel began. He becomes the real Mercer and the real Mercer becomes Rick. In the novel's closing chapters Rick even fuses completely with Mercer. Towards the end of the novel, Mercer begins to make real world appearances to Rick, even after his whole religion has been proved false by Buster Friendly. Yet, the reader slowly discovers that the world of the empathy box has very real consequences for the other world as well and that maybe the world of Mercer is just as real as the world that Rick Deckard lives and walks around in. The reader at first experiences Mercerism as something that one can only experience through entering into a state of fusion with Mercer, mediated through the sights and sounds that one experiences while hooked into an empathy box. un-life, the idea of what is real and what is unreal is a blurred distinction in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? This dichotomy is best expressed through the world of the empathy box and Mercerism. UnrealĬlosely tied to the theme of life vs. This is demonstrated through the character of Phil Resch who, Rick finds, enjoys killing simply for killing's sake. Humans, also, are capable of a loss of empathy. Androids find their empathetic abilities with each other just as humans find the ability to be empathetic in a collective group. Suddenly, Rick finds that the lines between what one can call living or what one can call not-living are blurred. Yet, Rick soon learns that androids may be capable of empathy and humans may be able to be devoid of empathy this in turn causes a extreme shift in Rick's understanding of himself. Rick notes early on that herbivores or omnivores are the only creatures with the empathetic impulse and that empathy is what allows humanity to survive. This feeling allows Rick to perform his work as a bounty hunter because he believes that androids, like his sheep, are incapable of true human emotion and therefore not worthy of life in a society in which life is the highest ideal. ![]() Rick hates his electric sheep precisely because he believes it cannot feel any love for him, even though he cares for it. Each character in the novel must deal with what it means to be empathetic and whether that allows someone to be valued as a living thing. Empathy is the main theme of the novel and is the crux on which Dick's metaphysical reflection on the meaning of life hangs. ![]()
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