Philip K. Dick

Simone Bondesan & Andrea Vittori

5D

Life & Works

Philip K. Dick 1928 Chicago

possessive and neurotic mother

contradictory personality

conflicting and

suspicious attitudes

towards the female sex

science fiction 1940bought by mistake a copy of "Stirring

Science Fiction" instead of "Popular

Science"

major interest

writing and literature

and music

clerk in a record store

oversaw a program

of classical musicSt. Matthew

end of high school Jeanet Marlin six months

Study at Berkeley

courses of german and philosophy

second wife, Kleo Apistolides

terrible student

no finish his studies

passionate political activity

he began to write sent his short stories by post to magazines

1952 sold his first story

"The Little Movement"

sale of the story he become a full-time writer

first novel "Solar Lottery" 1955 thirty years old

successive years short stories and novels:

"The disk of flame" (1955)

"Autofac" (1955)

"Martian" (1963/64)

"The hunter androids “

(original title:" Do the androids Dream of Electric

Sheeps? " 1968)

“Ubik” (1969)

60s tumultuous period style changes

inward

demand arising from

technological developments

changes the type of written works

eighteen novels

twenty short

impressive rhythm of writing

physical and psychological stress

destroying his family life and his body

another woman Kathy DeMuelle

stop the fall will not begin the ascent

70s

sterile period

paranoia and drug

1974 life changed "mystical experience"

different novels from the others

lost interest in short fiction

ambitious dream trilogy of novels with

mystical tendencies

death: 1982 heart attack

Valis trilogy

Style & Themes

stories focus on

what is "real"

personal identity surreal fantasies

new ways in the narrative centre of his plots

alienation of man

gradual withdrawal

alternate universes and simulacra

fictional worlds

common, working people

no galactic elites

one major theme "What constitutes the authentic human being?"

beings

totally human, no soul or compassion

more complicated than human characters

themes:

mental illness illness permeate his work

drug drug user 1975 interview

in Rolling Stone

books before 1970 amphetamines

"A Scanner Darkly” first novel without drug

war between ’52 and ’54 twenty stories with this theme

terrestrial

interplanetary

intergalactic

tool keep or gain political or economical power

origin of desolation

?

Plot

a day bounty hunter Rick Deckard

androids human identities

post-apocalyptic world

animals are rare

human population has largely migrated off-world

Northern California area bounty hunter Dave Holden

Deckard rarely works in it accepts the cases that Holden doesn’t

want or have time to pursue

on this day Holden has been hospitalized

android attack

during investigation escape of eight Nexus-6 androids

two were killed by Holden Deckard must kill the remaining six

accepts the assignment

to give a sense to his lifedepression

wife's malaise

social stigma able to own

an organic

animal pet

extinction of almost of the animals Deckard

robotic sheep

a real animal neighbor Bill Barbour

Deckard Rosen Industries in Seattle, Washington

administer a bounty hunter "empathy test"

detection of androids

interviews Rachael niece of Eldon Rosen

Rachael fails the test

The Rosens lacks normal empathy being raised on a spaceship

colonize Proxima

Rachael corrupt Deckard

real owl

verifies that she was Nexus-6

At first Rachael is not aware she is not human

however was a ruse

used by the corporation to

protect other androids

from bounty hunters

through sexual favors

Deckard is arrested

police station

accused of being an android

escapedfake and controlled by androids

Deckard's story story of Isidore driver for an animal repair shop

low I.Q radioactive dust

Pris Stratton model Nexus-6 enlist Isidore trap the bounty hunter

Deckard recruits Rachael help him

use her sexuality to distract him

Deckard she has slept with multiple bounty hunters

to dissuade from retiring their targets

tells her to return to Rosen Industries

confronts the androids kills them Isidore break down

Deckard returns home new genuine animal death

by Rachael Rosen

Deckard travels by car isolated sand dunes area

meditate epiphanytoadextinct

brings it home

Toad is synthetic

Themes

Robot: the perfect copy of a human being

robot

indistinguishable from a human being

emotions

pain

synthetic memories

also infinitely reproducible

life concept different from human one robot cannot identify with him

Biggest aspiration: have a real animal

world all the animals are extinct

greatest aspiration a real animal

pet high social status

rare beasts enormously expensive

many times illusory only one perfect robotic imitation

end of the novel artificial also a toad

Analogies with Frankenstein of Mary Shelley

androids danger

electronic brain better than man one Nexus-6

mistake of the human aspires to freedom

blunder as Frankenstein

creature

out of control

rebellious killing the men

Mary Shelley's novel creature rebels against its author makes him suffer

removing him affections attacking it personally

The paranoiac doubt of being an android

androids

dream to be men

no hunting

in the visions good

not in the reality no certainty

hunter protagonist

as his colleague Phil

Resch

paranoiac doubt

other is an android

uncertainty about themselves

Voigt-Kampff

Hope that the love is possible

Illusion toad another theme

Rick and his wife buy fake food

indistinguishable from original

illusion to have a real animal

beginning of the story couple were no fond

fake complicity

reconciliation

unexpected kiss

end of the novel small hope love is possible