Class and Humanity in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

In the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick, he uses many classic tropes of science fiction and turns them around to comment on class and humanity to tell his story of loose androids, called “andys” and the cop hunting them, Rick Deckard. Dick cleverly uses two perspectives to tell his story of a post-apocalyptic San Francisco and the class divisions it entails. In the novel, since World War Terminus has rendered most animal species extinct, having one shows a sort of upper-class style, even if the animal is not real and is electric. This is shown in a scene from most of chapter one, where Rick discusses his electric sheep he owns with his neighbor Barbour, who owns a real horse. “He wished to god he had a horse, in fact any animal. Own and maintaining a fraud had a way of gradually demoralizing one.” (Dick, 7). Dick is showing us in this how owning a real animal is a sign of status in this world, showing how above one could be. Then, in the next chapter, he shows us the low class, being John Isidore, a man who is determined “special,” someone “classed as biologically unacceptable” (Dick, 14). John is someone with almost no social skills, who has the menial job of fixing the electric animals that people such as Deckard own. He’s put in a “special” job because people like him are not allowed to leave the Earth. In this law, Dick is showing us how humanity has become in the future, not even allowing people to leave if they’re deemed “unfit” to live in the human colonies on planets such as Mars. I believe that this, combined with the way Deckard feels about androids, comparing them to the electric animals he owns on page 40, as they “had no ability to appreciate the existence of another.” Specials, and androids in this world, as “human” as one can consider them, are just thrown to the bottom of all classes, not being allowed to do what they want and being restricted by so called “better” or “more human” people, which itself is an injustice in my eyes. Specials are still human, and should be treated as such, and if androids can develop humanity, why put them down? The class both are put into may as well be slavery (well, the androids are technically slaves) and it isn’t fair to beings who still have some semblance of a conscience.

Dick, Philip K. Blade Runner. New York: Del Rey, 2007. Print

The Triumph of the Sharers of Shora and Nausicca of the Valley of the Wind

Both the novel A Door into Ocean by Joan Slonczewski, as well as the animated film Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind directed by Hayao Miayzaki portray worlds in which strong female characters go against the work of man to help save the environment and its contributing factors to their world. The thing I find interesting is how both the Sharers in “Ocean” and Princess Nausicaa in the film both know of certain creatures that are dangerous to humans in their respective properties but, unlike everyone else, they understand the necessity of these creatures and what they do for the world. Nausicaa realizes the importance of the giant “Ohmu” creatures and the insects in the Sea of Decay, which is they absorb the toxins from the world in an attempt to cleanse it, and Merwen discusses the importance of even fleshborers having their “place in the web” (Slonczewski, 124). Other characters, such as Realgar in “Ocean” or Princess Kushana of the Tolmekians in “Nausicaa” do not understand the importance of the environment and seek to destroy what is not theirs and they simply do not get how everything is on the earth and plays an important role for a reason. Realgar attempts to use a virus strain to wipe out the Seaswallowers but the Sharers of Shora attempt to keep them alive because it “had its place in the web” (123). At one point in “Nausicaa” the Ohmu are described as “the fury of the Earth herself.” All of these creatures have a certain niche they must occupy, and this comes up frequently in most science fiction novels about the environment. The one’s who understand the importance of the web of life and know what must be done in order to keep that web spinning are the one’s who win out in the end. With all of his military power at his side, Realgar could not overtake Shora and make the Sharer’s comply to the standards of the Patriarch, and Kushana could not use “The Giant Warrior”, a bio-engineered war creature, to wipe of the Ohmu and the rest of the insects because Nausicaa protected them. She, like Merwen and Spinel and the rest of the Sharers, all understand the web of life and the place every creature has inside of it.

Slonczewksi, Joan. A Door Into Ocean. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, LLC, 1986. Print.

Takahata, Isao. Miayzaki, Hayao. 1984. Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. Japan: Top Craft. 

Advancement and Ecological Relationships within A Door into Ocean

An interesting theme I find in science fiction is that, when it ventures to a more “fantastical” side, those who are in touch with the environment seem to be more advanced and smarter than those who are not. This is explored in novels such as Dune, as well as Joan Slonczewski’s A Door into Ocean. The novel tells of a young man named Spinel from the planet Valedon who ventures as a sort of recruit to the all female planet Shora as a way to learn from the “Sharers” who live there, under the protection of the one he lives with, Merwen, and her family. On page 33, Slonczewski writes that “ Their ‘lifeshaping’ skills in particular were advanced, she believed, the incomprehensible to Valan doctors.” I found this particularly interesting because on a planet of nude, all female fish-like people, they are much smarter and have access to more advance technology than regular human doctors. This is even brought up when a sharer almost gets devoured by creatures called “fleshborers” and they use a lifeshaping chamber to recreate her limbs. “She had barely a head and chest left after we fished her from the fleshborers. But she’s growing back, now.” (152). These creatures have technology that can help a person regrow limbs, and it’s all from their relationship with the environment. With Shora being an all ocean planet, the Sharers have to live on rafts that constantly regrow and change and the Sharers have learned to adapt better than most people anywhere. With their “learnsharing” language, as well as having a keen touch within the environment, they also get along better as a people, with them living in peace for at least ten thousand years.” (33). As a result of their ability to “learnshare” from each other and adapt to their ever-changing environment, it seems this had made the Sharers of Shora an extremely advanced people. While the Sharers are not perfect, and will often argue with each other over certain things, their abilities to listen to each other and interact have kept them advancing more than any other civilization out in this novel’s universe, it seems.

Slonczewksi, Joan. A Door Into Ocean. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, LLC, 1986. Print.