"I am he as you are he as you are me:" 
 
                Animal Indentification and the Question of 
                 Android Empathy in Do Androids Dream of 
                   Electric Sheep? and Blade Runner
 
 
   In 1968 Philip K. Dick saw the publication of his latest novel,
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Two months after he died in 
1982, the Ridley Scott film adaptation of Dick's novel about the 
differences between man and machine, Blade Runner, was released. While
Blade Runner pretty much bombed at the box office, it went on to 
become a cult favorite, helping to spawn the cyberpunk fiction, a sort
of science fiction and film noir hybrid later used in William 
Gibson's Neuromancer and Johnny Mnemonic . It also helped to provide
the groundwork for the latest view of Distopia, a disorderly, 
multi-ethnic, neon-lit, smoggy, on-line Hell. In order to better tie
in with the release of Blade Runner, the publishers of Do Androids?
changed the name of the novel to Blade Runner also. In the first 
couple of pages this warning is listed about the differences and 
similarities between the two:

		   In 1968, Philip K. Dick wrote Do Androids 
                Dream of Electric Sheep?, a brilliant sf novel that 
                became the source of the motion picture Blade Runner. 
                Though the novel's characters and backgrounds differ 
                in some respects from those of the film, readers who 
                enjoy the latter will discover an added dimension on  
                encountering the original work.
                Del Rey Books is pleased to return this classic novel
                to print
               (Dick Publishers page). 
	
    As I will explain in this paper, there is very little of 
Philip K. Dick's Do Androids? in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner. The main
differences between the two that I wish to focus on deal with the 
importance of animals and the question of whether androids, despite
the fact that they are machines, empathize, i.e. do they feel the 
pain of others?

    In order to get the paper rolling I will start off with the
most important feature of life in the 21st century: the scarcity of
animals. In Do Androids? this subject, this foundation upon which
the rest of the story is based, pops up in Chapter 1. There we learn
that World War Terminus has blanketed the world in radioactive dust,
but not enough to thoroughly wipe out all humankind. Those that could
escape off-world to such places as Mars did, but those would couldn't
through lack of funds or just an emotional inability to leave their
homes stayed. However while humans still lived, almost all animal 
species fell into extinction. As a result, people are not only 
instructed, but required by law and religion, to protect animals at
all costs. In this world, even something as nasty as a coach roach
is deserving not only of protection but constant care and 
semi-reverence.

   The first mention we have of animals is of Rick Deckard, the
bounty hunter protagonist of both the novel and the movie, walking
the stairs to the roof of his building to the artificial "grazing"
field he has constructed on his there for his electric sheep, 
"whereon it, sophisticated piece of hardware that it was, chomped away
in simulated contentment, bamboozling the other tenants of the 
building" (Dick 5). It also possessed "an oat-tropic circuit" which
"at the sight of such cereals[oats and grain] it would scramble up
convincingly and amble over" to eat from Deckard's hand (6). 

   However, it is taboo in this society for anyone to "accuse"
someone else of having an electronic animal despite the fact that 
nearly everyone does. Deckard views this rule of society this way: 
"Nothing could be more impolite. To say, "Is your sheep genuine?" 
would be a worse breach of manners than to inquire whether a citizen's
teeth, hair, or internal organs would test out authentic" (5).

    Furthermore, when discussing with his neighbor, Barbour, about
the prospect of him, Rick, buying one of the colts yet to be born 
from Barbour's "pregnant?" horse, Rick confesses and shows his 
neighbor the control panel on his electric sheep. Rick then goes on to
explain that he once had a sheep named Groucho, but it got scratched
by a rusty wire and died of tetanus. Thinking that Deckard has been
slack in caring for his animal as society dictates, Barbour replies:
 
    "But they'll look down on you. Not all of them, but
some. You know how people are about not taking care of an animal;
they consider it immoral and anti-empathic. I mean, technically, it's
not a crime like it was right after W.W.T but the feeling's still 
there." ( 10)

   Offended, Deckard replies, "Your horse could die, like Groucho
died, without warning. When you get home from work this evening you
could find her laid out on her back, her feet in the air, like a bug,
"as he opens the door to his hovercar, having "nothing further to say
to his neighbor; his mind was on his work, on the day ahead" (11).

    As you can see, there is not only this dictate of society 
demanding that you take care of animals, but that your very status in
society is determined by the animals that you own. The scene between
Deckard and Barbour is very much in the same vein as the suburban 
battle to keep up with the Joneses. Deckard has confessed that his 
animal is a fake, and that his real sheep died in some sort of 
freakish accident of fate, completely out of his control (this factor
being the most important.) However, the neighbor Barbour replies 
coldly to this confession and reminds Deckard of the social "crime" 
that he has committed, to which Deckard warns his neighbor that one 
day his own animal might die, not due to lack of owner care, but as 
a result of some stupid accident like the original mass extinction of
animals after W.W.T.

   However, not only is this a society where your worth is 
derived from the animal/animals that you possess, but the question of
whether or not you care for animals is how you are judged to be 
human or android. According to the science laws of the day, androids
cannot feel empathy. So, in a society were humans must and do so 
closely identify with the animal/animals that they own and care for 
(whether real or not it makes no difference) the ultimate test for 
whether a being is human or android is based on this human-to-animal 
identification (whether just emotionally or due to societal status) 
that Deckard and his neighbor possess. 

   This human-to-animal identification is so important and 
supposedly only an ability which humans possess that it becomes the 
basis for the Voigt-Kampff Empathy Test. When Deckard administers the
Voigt-Kampff test to a suspected android, he asks a series of 
questions based upon human-to-animal identification which the 
suspected android answers, and then he scores the suspected android
on whether his eye-muscles unconsciously respond; the verbal 
responses are meaningless. If the eye-muscles twitch during a 
particular question, then Deckard knows that the being is human. 
But, if the eye-muscles stay still, then Deckard knows that the being
tested is an android since they do not empathize with animals. A 
sample of the questions Deckard asks goes as follows:

		1.) You are given a calf-skin wallet for your birthday.
		2.) You have a little boy and he shows you his 
                butterfly collection, including his killing jar.
		3.) You're sitting watching TV and suddenly you 
                discover a wasp crawling on your wrist.
		4.) In a magazine you come across a full-page color
                picture of a nude girl lying face down on a large and
                beautiful bearskin rug. (42-43)
As you can tell, each question deals with the killing of 
animals. Humans, due to their ability to empathize, are physically 
repulsed (judging by eye-muscle movement) by any mention of animal 
brutality; androids, on the other hand, feel no such repulsion. But 
is empathetic association to such a degree natural to humans or is it
learned? Well, the book suggests both. Humans naturally love animals,
but in light of W.W.T., animals have now become precious. 
Furthermore, in the novel animals actually become symbols for the 
value of life. Due to their virtual extinction, they are precious, 
precious as life itself, and they come to symbolize this, both to the
reader and the human characters inhabiting the universe of the novel.
They also become the difference between humans and androids; humans 
value life, and androids do not.

    However, at this point I would like to focus on the movie for
a brief moment and consider what role animals play in it. I will also
discuss the differences between the Voigt-Kampff test in the movie 
and in the novel.

    In the movie animals play little if no part. They have no 
meaning other than as commodity, a precious good, like a diamond or 
gold. They are the merely an expensive item much sought after by the 
rich and the famous. The first mention we have of animals and their 
rarity is when Deckard first enters the offices of the Tyrell 
Corporation. There Deckard, accompanied by Rachel Rosen, spies an 
owl in a bubble-cage. He stares at it.

		Rachael: You like our owl?
		Deckard: It's artificial?
		Rachael: Of course not.
		Deckard: Expensive?
		Rachael: Very. (Scott 22)
	
    After learning that the owl isn't artificial, Deckard 
continues to stare at it. 
	
    Now, in this scene the viewer somewhat gets the point that animals
are important and rare, but their importance doesn't go beyond 
anything more than money. They are just a valuable to be admired. In
this case,the owl might as well be a Picasso original hung-up in the
office lobby, and Deckard, being just a poor cop, is spell-bound in
front ofsuch a rarity. However, this is just a single scene. There is
always hope for more.

   In the next scene involving animals, we find out that the 
fish scale that Deckard discovered at one of the android's apartment,
a possible clue to this android's where-abouts, is in actuality the
scale of an artificial snake. Through Deckard's interrogation of the
electric snake maker, we get just a glimpse of the expertise 
involved in artificial animal making, and how it is a highly 
profitable trade too, but still there is no other importance attached
to animals other than monetary value. This equation of animal to 
monetary value is best typified in the next scene when Deckard 
confronts the android owner of the snake, an exotic dancer who just
happens to use the snake in her act. When Deckard asks, "Is that 
mother [the snake] for real?," the android stripper replies, "Of 
course he's not real. You think I'd be working here if I could afford
a real snake?"(64).

    Still, there's still hope yet. After all, the Voigt-Kampff
test plays an important role in the movie beginning with the opening
scene of the movie. In this particular scene, the Blade Runner 
Holden is testing the android Leon, although we're not sure that 
Leon is an android; we think he is human. He's sweating. He's nervous.
He's confused, just as anybody would be when they're being 
administered a strange test. This is how the scene unfolds:
		
                Holden: You're in a desert, walking along in the 
                sand when....
		Leon: Is this the test now?
		Holden: Yes. You're in a desert, walking along in the
                sand when all of a sudden you look down and see a....
		Leon: What one?
		Holden: What?
		Leon: What desert?
		Holden: Doesn't make any difference what desert...it's
                completely hypothetical.
		Leon: But how come I'd be there?
		Holden: Maybe you're fed up, maybe you want to by 
                yourself...who knows. So you look down and see a
                tortoise.It's crawling towards you....
		Leon: A tortoise. What's that?
		Holden: Know what a turtle is?
		Leon: Same thing....
		Holden: You reach down and flip the tortoise over on
                its back, Leon.
		Keeping an eye on his subject, Holden notes the dials
                in the Voigt-Kampff. One of the needles quivers
                slightly.
		Leon: You make these questions, Mr. Holden, or they
                write 'em down for you?
		Holden: The tortoise lays on its back, its belly 
                baking in the hot sun,beating its legs trying to turn
                itself over.But it can't. Not without your help. But
                you're not helping.
		Leon: Whatya mean, I'm not helping?
		Holden: I mean, you're not helping! Why is that, Leon?
		Holden looks hard at Leon. Leon is flushed with anger,
                breathing hard. It's a bad moment, he might erupt.
                Suddenly, Holden grins disarmingly.
		Holden: They're just questions, Leon. In answer to 
                your query, they're written down for me. It's a test,
                designed to provoke and emotional response.
		Leon is glaring now, the blush subsides, his anger 
                slightly defused. Holden smiles cheerfully, very
                smooth.
		Holden: Describe in single words. Only the good things
                that come into your mind about mother.
                Leon: My....
                Leon looks shocked, surprised. But the needles in the
                computer barely move. Holden goes for the inside of 
                his coat.But Leon is faster. His laser burns a hole 
                the sizeof a nickel through Holden's stomach. (2-4)

    In this scene the Voigt-Kampff appears to be somewhat on the money.
However, the question asked about the tortoise is more about animal
cruelty or maybe even cruelty in general than about the android's 
inability to empathize with animals. This would be more of a question
that a contemporary psychologist might ask a patient because it is 
quite clear that this notion of caring for animals mentioned in 
Holden's question is our present-day standard (very Captain Planet, 
Save the Whales) and not some imaginary standard which exists in a 
world where animals are virtually extinct, where they are symbols for
the preciousness of life itself. Furthermore, Leon's questions and 
his own nervousness more than give it away that he's a machine. I mean
, he can't function abstractly. He must know why he's in the desert 
and what particular desert he's in. More importantly thought, it's 
that Freudian question about inquiring about Leon's mother that causes 
Holden to realize (with the help of the Voigt-Kampff test of course) 
that Leon is in deed an android. With this final question, Holden 
discovers that Leon is an android because he has no feelings towards
his mother since he has no mother at all; he's just a machine.

   In the movie, however, just because Leon has failed the Voigt-
Kampff test doesn't mean that he is incapable of feeling, incapable
of empathy, since the movie argues, quite effectively, that androids
do care for one another and for other forms of "life" and they also
possess feelings. This idea that androids do possess feelings is 
most effectively presented through the character of Rachael Rosen, 
an android possessing the memories of a dead sixteen year old girl, 
the niece of the CEO for the Tyrell Corporation, which is the company
responsible for the manufacture of some of the best androids 
including the ones which Deckard is hunting. Having been denied 
access to the Tyrell Corporation after Deckard tests her to be an
android, she ends up at Deckard's apartment still claiming she's 
human. The scene unfolds as follows:

		Rachael: You think I'm a replicant, don't you?
		She holds a picture in her hand. Deckard looks at it.
                It's an old snapshot, a little girl with a mother and
                father.
		Rachael: It's me with my parent.
		Deckard hands it back to her slowly.
		Deckard: You remember when you were about six and you
                and your brother snuck into an empty building through
                the basement window?
		Rachael: What? Y-yes....
		Deckard: You were going to play Doctor. He showed you
                his, then you chickened and ran out.
		Rachael: But....
		Deckard: Remember the bush outside your window with
                the spider in it?
		Rachael looks up at him.
		Deckard: Green body, orange legs. You watched her
                build a web all summer.
		Rachael: Yes.
		Her voice is getting small.
		Deckard: One day there was an egg in the web.
		Rachael nods faintly.
		Rachael: After a while the egg hatched and hundreds
                of baby spiders came out and ate her. That made quite
                an impression
                on me, Mr. Deckard.
		Deckard: You still don't get it?
		Rachael: No... I... I...don't.
		Deckard is now nasty, downright bitter.
		Deckard: Implants. They are not your memories. They
                belong to Tyrell's sixteen year old niece.
		Rachael doesn't say anything. She can't
		Deckard: He's very proud of them. He ran them on a
                scanner for me.
		Rachael just stares at him, stunned and barely holding
                on.
		Deckard: Still don't believe me?
		Rachael: I...I....
		Deckard: Right. I made it all up. You're not a 
                replicant. It was a nasty joke. Go home.
		Rachael is biting her lip or something, holding it
                back.
		Deckard: Go on. Beat it. Sorry. Bad joke.
		Deckard sees he's gotten through... maybe too far.
		Deckard: Wanna drink?
		She's completely destroyed silent.
		Deckard: I'll getcha one. (41-43)

   As evident in this scene, Rachael has emotions. She is at first 
disbelieving, stuck in denial. Then she is curious that
Deckard knows these things about her. And then she is absolutely 
horrified, sad ("biting her lip...holding it back,") and, finally, 
"completely destroyed." In this scene Scott shows that Rachael, 
through her emotional reactions, is just as "human" as Deckard and 
the rest of humanity. It is also intended for us to view these 
emotional reactions as being honest ones and not programmed ones.
 
  Rachael's "humanity" is further declared in the scene when she saves
Deckard from death. While Deckard is about to die at the hands of a
vengeful Leon, Rachael shoots her fellow android in the back, killing
him and saving Deckard. Rachael, "stunned and shaken" at what she has
done, drops the gun in horror (Scott 76). Once again, the film 
clearly wants us to believe that Rachael, despite her android status,
is a being capable of empathy. 

   Later on in the film, another instance arises in which an android
saves Deckard. However, this time it is the android Roy, the leader
of the machines that Deckard has been hunting. Roy is the most 
vicious and cold-hearted of the bunch, but despite the fact that 
Deckard has just killed all of his fellow androids, including his 
concubine, Pris, Roy saves Deckard because he, Roy, is dying of 
cellular breakdown and mechanical failure, so he knows the 
preciousness of life. In the movie this is a big inspirational moment;
this is when we, the viewers, are finally told once and for all that
androids have feelings and that, yes, androids can empathize. Why? 
Because the villain of the movie just saved the hero's life after 
realizing the preciousness of life in-light of his on-coming demise.

    However, Philip K. Dick in Do Androids? comes to a much different 
conclusion. Like in the movie, Blade Runner, the author doesn't 
present his conclusion until the end, thereby allowing us readers to
ponder the question of whether androids are "human" or not for 
almost the entire length of the novel. But we are finally given an 
answer to our question in a most startling scene.
 
   J.R. Isidore, a major character in the novel not found in the movie, 
befriends the androids, taking them into his home despite the fact 
that they are outlaws who are being hunted by the cops, spies. While
 rearranging his apartment for his new roommates, J.R. spies 
something stirring in the dust. Then, he immediately stops what he 
was doing, and he whips out "a plastic medicine bottle, which, like
everyone else, he carried for just this" (Dick 181). What he finds
is "a spider, indistinguishable but alive" which he promptly pushes
into the medicine bottle which already has a perforated cap (181).
 
    At this point, the reader, knowing what he knows about the value 
of animals, of their preciousness, their symbolic meaning, practically
feels as over-come with joy as J.R. Isidore. We know that what has
just happen is phenomenal. However, when J.R. excitedly informs his
new android friends that he has found a spider this is what happens:

                "I've never seen a spider," Pris said. She cupped the
                medicine bottlein her palms, surveying the creature
                within. "All those legs. Whys's it need so many legs,
                J.R.?"
               "That's the way spiders are," Isidore said, his heart
               pounding....
               Rising to her feet, Pris said, "You know what I think,
               J.R.? I don't think it doesn't need all those legs."
               "Eight?" Irmgard Baty said. "Why couldn't it get by on
               four? Cut four off and see." Impulsively opening her
               purse, she produced a pair of clean,sharp cuticle 
               scissors, which she passed to Pris. (185)

    After Pris cuts off four of the spider's legs, much to the dismay
of J.R.. Then she notices that it won't move even though it still 
has four other legs--"It won't try to walk," as Irmgard says (185).
To solve this problem, Roy Baty comes over. "I can make it walk,"
he says, striking a match and sticking it "near the spider, closer
and closer, until at last it crept feebly away" (185).
 
    Once the spider stops, however, Pris cuts another leg off the spider
until "all at once John Isidore pushed her away and lifted up the 
mutilated creature. He carried it to the sink and there he drowned it.
In him, his mind, his hopes drowned too as swiftly as the spider"
(186). And still the androids don't understand why he's so upset,
and why is that? Well, in Do Androids? Philip K. Dick comes to the
conclusion that androids don't empathize; they are soulless. They do
not possess the herd instinct. They do not understand the 
preciousness of animals and of life itself. They are strictly
machines unlike their "humanized" counterparts in Ridley Scott's
Blade Runner.

    Furthermore, it was only through the removal of the true importance
of animals as symbols for the preciousness of life that Ridley 
Scott could make the androids themselves precious life. In the novel
androids are expendable because they are cold-blooded killers who
cannot empathize with animals, the symbolic focus of empathy for the
citizens in Dick's future. Likewise, the animals are our empathic 
focal point as well. In the movie, however, since we naturally 
empathize with the protagonist, Deckard, the animals as the focal 
point of viewer empathy must be stripped of their very importance so
that the viewer can now empathize with androids. This is a much 
different case than with C3PO and R2D2 (possibly even HAL) because
we naturally empathize with them since we never once consider them
as anything other than "human beings." But if we are to empathize 
with the androids, despite our intentions not to (in this movie at 
least, we are asked at times to hate them,) then animals, Dick's 
symbols for the preciousness of life, must now be stripped of their
symbolic status once we make our way to Blade Runner since androids
have now become the symbols for the preciousness of life. Animals 
must lose their value if we are to understand Ridley Scott's message:
Androids are people too. After all, what else would you expect from
a man who plies his trade in the land of silicon implants and 
collagen injections?
	
 

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