Study guide for philip k. dick: blade runner (1968)
Study Guide for Philip K. Dick: Blade Runner (1968)
Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17,Chapter 18, Chapter 19, Chapter 21, Chapter 22
Philip K. Dick is one of the crucial figures in modern science fiction. He wastoo prolific for his own good, churning out dozens of novels for cheap paperbackpublication, often in such haste that their conclusions tend to be their weakestpart. He was obsessive, disorganized, and in his later years paranoid. Yet hisconceptions were often brilliant, and he has come to be looked on as one of themasters, though only a small fraction of his work is in print at any one time.
His titles are often wonderfully surrealistic, as in the striking Flow MyTears, The Policeman Said; and Blade Runner was originally titled (for reasonsthat will become apparent as you read it) Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.
When Ridley Scott made his 1982 film based loosely on the novel he eliminatedthe electric sheep (along with much else), and Dick's title no longer made sense(nor would it have been very effective on a marquee). The film company bought the rights to another novel by a different author and threw away everything butthe title--Blade Runner--a term which occurs nowhere in the book. The film eventually gained great fame, and the novel was eventually retitled to match. Since thenone of his other works has been filmed ("We Can Remember It for YouWholesale" was turned into Total Recall), "Second Variety" became Screamers, and an opera has been based on Valis, all after his death shortly following the release of Blade Runner. (His non-SF novel, Confessions of a Crap Artist was also made into an obscure French film in 1992 as Confessions d'un Barjo.
)
He came out of a generation of 50s SF writers who took as their taskthe criticism of American mass society. As a result, certain themes recurfrequently in his works: the threat of nuclear war, the evil effects of rampantcapitalism and marketing, and the influence of mass entertainment media,especially television. But another theme which pervades Dick's work is morepersonal: an obsession with the blurring of reality, dreams and waking confusedtogether, mechanical replicas indistinguishable from their originals,drug-induced hallucinations more real than reality. His books are oftenstructured as a series of unexpected trap doors: you think you know where youare and who is whom, then suddenly the bottom falls out and your certainties andthrown into doubt. He loves to play games with his readers, keeping them constantly off balance. The film version, on the other hand, was shaped along the lines of a mean-streets detective novel by Raymond Chandler.
In it the pervasive confusion is a puzzle to be solved, not an exercise in mind-bending.
The film turned out to be one of the most influential pieces of SF in recentdecades. Without Blade Runner it is hard to imagine Heavy Metal comics, Max Headroom, and the whole cyberpunk phenomenon. Yet almost none of itsinfluential elements are present in the novel, which has quite differentconcerns. This is not to say that one is bad and the other is good: each is anoutstanding example of its own kind and should be judged on its own merits.
A word of warning: Dick's specialty is straight-faced satire.
If parts of thisbook strike you as absurd, they're supposed to.
Chapter 1
Why is Rick Deckard in so much better a mood than his wife? How does Dick satirize American's dependence on television? The mention of lead codpieces as a common item of apparel introduces one of the major themes of the book: widespread sterilization as a result of nuclear fallout in the wake of a war. How crowded is the city in which they live? What are the main causes of the current level of population density? "Terminus" suggests the war was an end of things; but the end is more gradual than other SF writers have imagined. In the early sixties there was widespread anxiety about the effects of fallout from nuclear bomb testing which subsided in the wake of the signing of the atmospheric test ban treaty; yet Dick continued to be concerned about the danger of nuclear war at a time when most people were ignoring it. According to Greek mythology, the Thracian Mares of Boreas were impregnated by the wind. We are introduced here to the artificial mass-media religion of Mercerism, which will play an important role later in the novel.
It is characteristic of Dick's fiction that people who live in an advanced technological culture understand little of it and resort quickly to superstition and cultism. What do you think of this view of modern civilization?
Why does Mercerism consider it a moral duty to breed and raise animals, even in the city?
Chapter 2
We learn that the setting is San Francisco. Why do you suppose the film was setin Los Angeles instead? The Rand Corp oration has been the majorgovernment-financed "think-tank" whose main job was imagining variousnuclear war scenarios in order to justify the building of more and more powerfulbombs and missiles. What effect does it have on you to learn that no one knows who started the war or why it was fought? (This is true of the overwhelmingmajority of fictional nuclear wars.) The first dead animals to be noticed wereowls. What is the traditional symbolism of the owl, and why are they significanthere? Dick here anticipates the "nuclear winter" theory in a strikingway.
What effect has the war had on the atmosphere? The term "android"was invented by science fiction writers to denote an artificial human mademostly of organic parts, in distinction to a robot, made of purely mechanicalparts (though Carl Capek, from whose work the term "robot" comes,actually depicted androids). It comes from the Greek word "andros"meaning "man" and the ending "oid," meaning "similarto." George Lucas' untraditional use of the term " android" todesignate purely mechanical robots who could be like R2D2, not at allman-shaped, has hopelessly confused the terminology ever since. What sales angleis being used in television advertising to promote the sale of androids? What isa "special?" Sloat is the name of J. R. Isidore's boss, but it's alsothe name of a major street in San Francisco.
"Mors certa, vitaincerta" is Latin for "Death is certain, life uncertain." Whydoes the silence have such an impact on Isidore? "Kipple" is definedin Chapter 6. Mercerism is based on the same principle as the kind ofCatholicism illustrated by the Stabat Mater: emotional identification withthe suffering of a martyr. What effects might such a religion be expected tohave on its followers? Why does Mercerism incorporate the belief thatresurrection has been outlawed?
Chapter 3
How are escaped androids distinguished from humans? The book makes clear thepurpose of the weird questions that are used in the test at the beginning of thefilm. Why has Mercer's law that "You shall kill only the killers" notled to a more humane world?
Chapter 4
"Flattening of affect" (pronounced "AFF-ect") means lack of emotion. What is the significance of the possibility that some humans experience extreme flattening of affect?
Chapter 5
What kinds of responses are considered normal on the Voigt-Kampff test? If only a bone-marrow test can distinguish an android from a human, there can be little difference between the two.
This underlines a major theme of the novel. Why is it in the interest of the Rosen Corporation to prove that the Voigt-Kampff test is invalid?
Chapter 6
"Buster Friendly" is a sort of non-stop television show that provides an alternative reality for many people. Dick repeatedly treated this theme in other stories and novels like The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. What ominous qualities does Pris have? Why does she tell Isidore at first that she is Rachael Rosen?
Chapter 7
Milt Borogrove's name comes from the opening of Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky":
Twas brillig, and the slithey toves
did gyre and gimbel in the wabe;
all mimsey were the borogroves,
and the momraths outgrabe.
" "Mitteleuropäische" is German for "central European."
Chapter 8
How does Dick begin to multiply the confusion in this chapter? What typically Hollywood change was made in Luba Luft's occupation in the movie?
Chapter 9
Pamina's song means "If every brave man could find such little bells, his enemies would be made to vanish without any trouble.
" Entropy is the principle in physics which says that on the largest scale, over time, order tends to disintegrate into disorder. "Derain Associates" are named after the French artist André Derain, who painted human figures composed of machine-like forms. How does Luba Luft turn Deckard's logic against him when he tells her what defines an android? This chapter is classic Dick. What characteristic discussed in the introduction to these notes is illustrated here?
Chapter 10
The first sentence speaks of "baroque, ornamented spires; complicated and m odern." At the time the novel was written, the "international style" of rigid geometrical shapes shorn of all decoration was triumphant. Clearly Dick anticipated a reaction, though so-called "postmodern" architecture has not gone so far toward a neobaroque style as this suggests.
But here is the source for the film's memorable architectural style. Dick continues to play with the reader here, but more is going on than mere obfuscation. Think about what Rachael, Luba Luft, and these policemen have said about Deckard. Even if he is not an android, what evidence is there that could cause him to be mistaken for one?
Chapter 11
What argument does Phil Resch offer at the end of the chapter to try to convince Deckard that he is human?
Chapter 12
The painting hanging in the opera house is Edvard Munch's famous "The Scream" (1893). Note how Resch's example continues to blur the lines between androids and humans. Besides creating suspense, what is Dick trying to accomplish by increasing the confusion? Munch's "Puberty" is a typically harrowing adolescent nude.
How does Resch seem to show Luba that she is right about him? What signs are there that Deckard is beginning to have doubts about his profession? How does the outcome of Resch's test further blur the lines?
Chapter 13
What slip does J. R. Isidore make that makes Pris think he is like an android? What is the function of science fiction in this period? What kind of comment is Dick making on SF?
Chapter 15
What is ironic about Deckard's using his new money to buy an animal? How has he changed? What lesson about life does Mercer try to teach him?
Chapter 16
Note the line "Do androids dream?" which was reflected in the original title of the novel. Why do you think Dick put his title into the form of a question? How does Rachael say she feels about Pris? Why is this significant? How about her feelings for Deckard?
Chapter 17
What important and tragic fact about androids do we learn only at this point? Why has Dick postponed giving us this information? What is Rachael's real motivation for getting involved with Deckard?
Chapter 18
What effect does the revelation about Mercer have on the novel? How does it fit with the novel's themes? "Al Jarry" is a tribute to the wild French writer Alfred Jarry, much admired by the Dadaists, author of Père Ubu and other plays.
Why does Pris look so much like Rachael? Why is Roy Baty's reaction to the death of his wife significant? Has he proven Rachael wrong about him by carrying out the "retirements?" What else has he proven?
Chapter 19
How does Rachael take vengeance on Deckard?
Chapter 21
Why is it appropriate for Deckard to fuse with Mercer now?
Chapter 22
Does this story have a happy ending? Explain.
Notes by Paul Brians, Department of English,Washington State University, Pullman 99164-5020.
Copyright Paul Brians 1995
Version dated January 26, 1997.
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