73 pages • 2 hours read
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
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Symbols & Motifs
Wilbur Mercer
Wilbur Mercer is more of a symbol than a character. In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the world is dying. The characters who remain on Earth live with radioactive dust, either unable or unwilling to leave Earth for an off-world colony. The religions of the world have been replaced with Mercerism, a global belief system that centers around a man named Wilbur Mercer. Characters use specially designed devices that allow them to access Mercerism called empathy boxes. These devices allow them to connect with Mercer, an old man who continuously struggles to walk up a hill. His ascent is a symbolic struggle, a metaphorical endurance test against the difficulty of existence; as the characters struggle to survive on a radioactive, alienating Earth, Mercer struggles to climb the hill. He is accosted by villains; as they throw rocks at Mercer, the people connecting to Mercer through the empathy boxes are so strongly connected to him that they feel his physical wounds. Mercer’s plight is a symbol of the struggle of humanity, but also a symbol of humanity’s desire to share their troubles with others. Mercerism is a global phenomenon because the characters feel so trapped and alone that the only way they can connect with each other is on a symbolic, artificial level.
Mercerism provides support to people like Isidore. As someone who has been poisoned by the radiation on Earth, Isidore is a marginalized figure who is not given the same privileges and opportunities as healthy people. Isidore is a so-called special, ostracized by society through no fault of his own. Isidore lives alone in an abandoned apartment building in a depopulated suburb. He is physically and emotionally isolated and alone. Through Mercer, however, he can feel connected to the world. Isidore uses his empathy box for support, as it allows him to connect with other people even if he is never permitted to be near them. As a result, Isidore is more invested in Mercerism than any other character. He recites the apparent lessons and morals of Mercerism, quoting the teachings of Wilbur Mercer with religious fervor. Isidore is so invested in Mercerism that he is surprised when other people do not take it as seriously.
Mercerism, like so much else in the novel, is a hollow facsimile of the genuine article. Isidore believes that Mercerism is the cure for his loneliness, but he ends the novel as isolated and as alone as he was at the beginning. Isidore may feel closer to other people through his connection to Mercer, but this feeling is hollow and meaningless. It has no genuine consequence, providing as much genuine spiritual relief as the electric sheep provides to Deckard. Toward the end of the novel, Buster Friendly announces that Mercerism is a fake religion designed to make the general population easier to control. The androids believe that they are exposing human empathy as vapid, performative nonsense, but Deckard and the other human characters hardly seem to care that Mercerism is not real. Instead, humans only care that Mercerism feels real. Through his symbolic martyrdom, Mercer makes horrible lives more manageable. This symbolism is the ultimate truth of Mercer, one which cannot be exposed as untrue.
Electric Animals
In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, a terrible world war caused the complete collapse of the ecological world. Most animal species of animal, or they exist in greatly diminished numbers. The result is that ownership of animals has become highly commodified. Humans own animals as a way to demonstrate their empathy, and the cost of this ownership is very high. Deckard, like most characters, has access to a guide that lists the high prices for every type of animal in existence as though they were secondhand cars. The ownership of these real animals allows humans to performatively demonstrate their empathy. However, this performative empathy does not come cheap. Since real animals are very expensive, most humans satisfy themselves by purchasing artificial animals. These electric animals are aesthetically indistinguishable from their real equivalents but they are much less socially valuable. The shame of owning an electric animal is palpable, and Deckard lives in fear that people will discover that his sheep is not real. The electric animals symbolize the complex ways that humans desperately seek to reaffirm their humanity, as well as their secret shame that they may not be as human as they had once hoped.
The relationship between electric animals and real animals is akin to the relationship between humans and androids. Like androids, electric animals are created by humans to satisfy a social need. Androids are used as slaves in the off-world colonies, where their miserable lives cause them to violently rebel against their masters. The androids are gifted to new colonists as part of a government scheme to encourage people to move off-world. They are considered property, commodified incentives that perform the dull, essential work which humans believe is beneath them. This tacit belief that the androids are only an approximation of life rather than actually alive is similar to the understanding of electric animals. Electric animals are not real; they are functional, artificial replacements for the real thing. They may look real, they may act real, and they may perform a real function in society, but they remain fundamentally artificial. The characters’ inability to regard electric animals as real symbolizes the fundamental problem faced by androids: While they may aesthetically resemble humans, humans cannot accept them as genuine.
Electric animals symbolize diminished wealth and status. Rich, successful people own authentic animals, whereas poorer people purchase electric animals instead. The thought of not owning an animal is inconceivable; to not own an animal means not being able to publicly perform empathy. The public performance of empathy distinguishes a person as human since this is the last remaining difference between artificial and authentic life. The ownership of an electric animal allows a character to perform their empathy but in a hollow, vapid fashion. Deckard cares for his electric sheep so that his neighbor will see him caring for his sheep. He wants others to believe that he is rich and successful; the secret artificiality of his sheep is a deep, terrible shame that he asks Bill Barbour to keep hidden. The electric animals symbolize the complex interplay between financial wealth and the performance of empathy. When characters cannot afford genuine animals, they must pretend to care for electric animals instead. This represents the crushing way commodification and the performance of wealth dehumanize and alienate people.
The Voigt-Kampff Test
The Voigt-Kampff test is used by bounty hunters to determine whether a target is a human or an android. The test measures certain physical responses to a pre-determined set of questions, allowing the tester to gauge whether or not the recipient of the test is demonstrating the requisite level of empathy. Since androids are incapable of empathy, they are not able to pass the test and they will be retired. The Voigt-Kampff test symbolizes the desire to understand the humanity of others. Deckard is required by law to test his subjects, but a fundamental curiosity and alienation cause the same desire within him to pass the test. Like every other character in the novel, Deckard is searching for an outlet for his humanity and his empathy. The Voigt-Kampff test is a formalized version of this search for empathy, codifying a fundamental human desire into a set of questions and responses that can qualify someone as human or inhuman. This question is a pernicious one in the universe of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? With artificial life so prevalent but so unsatisfying, the need to understand whether a person is capable of expressing human empathy is innate to understanding the world. With this, the Voigt-Kampff test symbolizes the search for empathy, not only regarding interactions between humans and androids but also between humans themselves.
Early in the novel, the validity of the Voigt-Kampff test is called into question. The test is a recent development and was developed in response to the advanced technology of android manufacturers. On the surface, androids are indistinguishable from humans. Their aesthetic qualities mean that even a bounty hunter like Deckard cannot be certain that a person is an android or human simply through observation. Despite its newness, the test is already potentially outdated thanks to accelerating android technology. Bryant worries that a false reading will cause one of his bounty hunters to accidentally kill a human; once planted in Deckard’s mind, this potential threat makes him pay extra attention to the test’s results. He uses the test on Rachael and, at first, the results are inconclusive. Deckard cannot determine Rachael’s humanity and, as a result, Deckard begins to question the nature of humanity itself. The Voigt-Kampff test—through its unreliability and its failure—symbolizes the fine line between artificial and authentic life. If the only reliable measure of authentic existence can fail or be called into question, the characters have no reliable means by which they can measure their own reality.
The Voigt-Kampff test is a formal procedure, but it also exists as an abstract idea. The test is designed to measure empathy by forcing the recipient to consider a series of theoretical scenarios. Through their answers, the administrator of the test will be able to determine whether they are human. In effect, Deckard’s story is a broader, abstract version of the Voigt-Kampff test. Throughout the story, he encounters a series of theoretical questions: Iran accuses him of being a murderer of androids, Bryant worries that a bounty hunter might retire a human by mistake, the Rosens offer Deckard a bribe in exchange for his silence, and he wonders whether he can kill an android who looks like Rachael. These situations are prompts used to measure Deckard’s empathy and morality. His responses and actions do not necessarily make him question his own humanity, but they make him question the nature of humanity itself. The Voigt-Kampff test functions as a symbol of the constant search for humanity and meaning in the world.
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