Rick Deckard, a policeman and bounty hunter, is assigned to find androids that have come to earth as runaways after his superior was shot by an escapee android. While Deckard’s wife, Iran, seems to be against his job she unknowingly encourages him to maintain this job because of concern with what others think. Owning animals is a sign of status that really concerns Iran and forces Rick to get a fake animal after their real sheep died.
I’ve always thought of owning animals as a sign of status because of the difficulties involved in maintaining them but in this reading it’s thought of as highly important due to the extinction of several animals after a big war that is a vague and distant memory to everyone. It’s a little sad but I believe realistic that people wouldn’t really show concern about taking care of animals until the extinction of most animals. While the fake animal fulfills Iran’s needs and tricks the neighbors about the Deckard’s family status it really doesn’t seem to have a positive effect on Rick. “Owning and maintaining a fraud had a way of gradually demoralizing one. And yet from a social standpoint it had to be done, given the absence of the real article. He had therefore no choice except to continue. Even were he not to care himself, there remained his wife, and Iran did care. Very much” (403). Rick longs to have a real animal but it doesn’t seem to be because he loves animals its mainly that it makes him feel superior to those around him and that he will stop making him feel bad about lying to others and to himself.
In this futuristic world earth is thought of as a place of outsiders by those who have moved to colonies and though androids are thought at the same level they are still not wanted on earth and thought of as lower by those on earth. The androids are discovered because of their lack of empathy which seems to be the main difference between humans and androids. Androids had “evolved beyond a major – but inferior- segment of mankind” (413) but the Voigt Empathy Test developed by the Pavlov institute measured “capillary dilation in the facial area” (420) that showed a “‘shame’ or ‘blushing’ reaction to a morally shocking stimulus” (420) the distinguished the two.
The lack of empathy in androids has put an ease in Rick’s mind. “Empathy, he once decided, must be limited to herbivores or anyhow omnivores who could depart from a meat diet. Because, ultimately, the empathic gift blurred the boundaries between hunter and victim, between the successful and the defeated” (413). The use of empathy as an excuse for why it is ok to kill androids is ironic since to empathize is to understand your own feelings and those of others.
However, the recent findings on schizophrenics having low empathy have caused several questions to arise about the tests effectiveness. Rick and other bounty hunters feel that they have adequate training to be able to distinguish the differences. It is this that causes Rick to go through a test in which he must determine if Ms. Rosen, is an android. When he ‘fails,’ the Rosen organization offers him what he believes to be a real owl. The temptation of owning this beautiful extinct bird pushes him towards accepting the offer, however he finds out that he really hasn’t failed the test and is allowed to continue on his hunt for the androids. After fulfilling half of his assignment he buys an animal and shares with Iran that he feels bad about retiring the androids. After meeting a bounty hunter who killed androids for fun he began to empathize with the human robots. He saw that what he did was really only a benefit to himself and began to explore his feelings on the subject. He soon realized that “feelings are typically indispensible for rational decisions; they point us in the proper direction” (456) and decided that maybe he should listen to Iran and transfer to another job even if it meant not being able to afford the animal he had just bought. It’s sad to see that it isn’t until the end that he realizes that while different, androids still have the right to live.
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