The Duty of Survival

Last semester I taught The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch in a sophmore literature course at San Francisco State University. While I think most of the class preffered the other novels featured, The Maltese Falcon and Fight Club, several students were quite take by Stigmata. I am posting the following outstanding student essay because I think it zeros in on several very important recurring themes in PKD's work: the Universe's paucity of kindness, the refuge of imagination, and the uniquely human moral duty to go on surviving. I'll add only this quote from Ursula Le Guin to the introduce the essay:

"There are no heroes in Dick's books but there are heroics. One is reminded of Dickens: what counts is the honesty, constancy, kindness and patience of ordinary people."


Palmer Eldritch – Eternity is not Enough
by David Borac

Among the richness of motives that crisscross Philip K. Dick's novel The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch one of the most striking is the continued human commitment to the ultimate duty of survival. Even though they are trapped in a dystopian world in which the human condition is bearable only through the use of drugs that stimulate the imagination, Dick's characters are still able to find motivations for fighting an insidious alien invader. Their motivations, though for the most part left implicit by the author, form a fertile ground for speculation.

On an overheated Earth, human life clings to artificial support systems as the last defense in the face of a scorching climate. Richard Hnatt sees “with aversion that already it had become too hot for human endurance” (9). Humans have colonized Mars and other planets of the Solar System only to find out how uninhabitable they are. Any attempt at terraforming is an exercise in futility since the colonists look upon “their abandoned, decaying gardens,” covered in dust and populated by mutated, almost unrecognizable, vegetables and feel “the torpor, the hopelessness [claiming] them” (159). Having the status of exiles from the mother world and experiencing no glimmer of hope to light their dreary lives, the colonists are considered to be “unfortunates who, under the selective service laws of the UN, had been kicked off Earth, required to begin new, alien lives” (10). Anne Hawthorne, a one-of-a-kind missionary and agent, summarizes the extent of this paucity in a moment of despair: “Earth is ceasing to become our natural world; and certainly this never will be. We've got no world left! […] No home at all!” (141).

There are few things left to wish for on Earth: living quarters close to work, vacations in Antarctica, where the temperature is cooler, and strange surgical procedures that have the potential to speed up evolution and turn humans into 'evolved' individuals. Such advantages, however, are only for the privileged and the multitudes live hopeless lives over which the fear of being selected for exile in the colonies hangs like the Sword of Damocles. As a result, drugs that create the illusion of living in a better world become an accepted and unique way of deriving a modicum of satisfaction from being alive.

One of the paradoxes of the human condition, that our imagination can control our bodies, underlays the motif of the Can-D drug, which acts as an example of the victory of the id (our desire for immediate pleasure) over the super-ego (our desire for spiritual and moral completeness that drives our conscience). The hovelists on Mars take Can-D because it provides them with instant and effortless gratification, allowing them to imagine themselves as being richer, more beautiful, and more in control of their own existence and environment. Returning to their hovel, however, is traumatic and often makes them even more despondent than before. Protected by her belief in the doctrines of the Neo-American Christian Church, Anne Hathaway is the only one who instinctively recognizes the paradoxical nature of letting the imagination drive the body: “Isn't a miserable reality better than the most interesting illusion?” (143) she asks Mayerson while attempting to consume Can-D for the first time. Leo Bulero, on the other hand, is perfectly aware of the value of human imagination as a major piece of the human condition when he attempts to convince Pia Jurgens to try Can-D by appealing to her powers of imagination: “you look like the sort of woman who has active imagination and the reaction you get to Can-D depends […] on your imaginative-type creative powers” (23).

Since there is nothing left for anyone to live for, the whole fabric of human society should crumble in the face of an attack, much like a weakened immune system. Such an attack occurs when Palmer Eldritch, a reputable pillar of society, returns from an interstellar trip, no longer entirely human and inhabited by a viral entity that seeks to reproduce by propagating its consciousness inside people's selves. To begin infecting people, Eldritch has to gain access to their bodies through a new drug, Chew-Z, that substitutes the real world with a world controlled by the virus. Instead of transporting a person's consciousness into a more pleasant environment, Chew-Z injects its own environment into a person's consciousness, robbing the user of their last hold on the human condition (that of living through their imagination) and forcing them to enter a world where they are at the mercy of an alien creature. So why do people start to resist the invasion as soon as they try Chew-Z for the first time? What have they left to lose? When Mayerson, contemplating Chew-Z on Mars, feels the need for a “way in which [he] can be freed” (187), what type of freedom is he talking about? Chew-Z brings about the final and most extreme dehumanization, taking away the only one thing that people had not yet lost: the privacy of their own minds. Even as Perky Pat and Walt Essex, the miserable hovelists still continue to control their own thoughts; they bicker and gossip and fight over the scenario while in complete control over their very own selves. As an old German song says “Die Gedanken sind frei, wer kann Sie erraten?” (Thoughts are free, for who can guess at them?). One's own freedom of mind is the only freedom that cannot be physically alienated and, for this last island of freedom, some are willing to fight an almost invincible alien invader.

Mayerson likens the condition of a Chew-Z addict to that of a slave: “Once you've taken Chew-Z you're delivered over. […] But what we are missing here is a way by which we can be freed” (187). Leo Bulero, a seasoned executive with an aggressive personality, hopes to rally some sort of a movement of resistance against Chew-Z: “We'll be a guild of Protectors. Saving the rest” (229) Bulero has a down-to-earth fear of anything that corrupts the mind, rendering it incapable of initiative and creativity: “...if this blight had reached Terra, yet. […] And suppose it reaches our minds? Not just the anatomy of the thing but the mentality as well... what would happen to our plans to kill the thing?” (227). Although they recognize the danger that Palmer Eldritch represents, Hawthorne and Mayerson's defenses are weak and they are ambivalent about using any practical means to combat it. Leo Bulero, however, is able to summon more confidence in his ability to repel the invader. Leo's main mental support is his belief that his evolved mind is strong and reflects a power that is God's design: he feels he has “powers implanted in me from the start which I can draw on and beat him with.[...] My evolved mind tells me all these things.” (229) Bulero represents perhaps the last part of consciousness, the self-reflective intelligence, a miracle of life, putting up the last resistance against mental disease. Alert and enterprising, Bulero fights to stay in control even as other structures of the brain, such as memory and recognition, fade into the mire of mental confusion. But at times Leo involuntarily identifies himself with Eldritch and asks Felix Blau: “'Leo'? How come you keep calling me 'Leo'?” (230). Frightened by Leo's mental fog, Blau implores him to think in order to keep his sanity. Leo's promise to stay alert is marred by the evidence of deterioration: “Oh yeah. […] Sorry. I know what you're afraid of. […] I'll keep thinking, like you say. I won't forget again” (230). His proud confidence is now dented by his readiness to accept support from Blau.

An allegory of a single human's battle to remain in control of his own mind, the story of Palmer Eldritch shows that there is no loss more traumatic for a human than the loss of the thought process and that there is no fight more desperate and more hopeless than the one against insanity.

Deckard and Meursault

Here's a surprisingly good student essay about the similarities between Deckard and Meursault, Camus' protagonist in The Stranger. Enjoy!

Deckard and Meursault
by Andrew Rosebrock

One generally doesn’t associate 1960s American science fiction with 1940s French existentialism, but then again one generally doesn’t associate Jimi Hendrix with Robert Johnson either and anyone who knows anything about music knows the former might never have existed without the latter. At the heart of every existentialist novel there exists an uncertainty about what constitutes humanity, and at the heart of Philip K. Dick’s masterpiece Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? uncertainty reigns supreme. Rick Deckard spends the vast majority of his time in the novel in an almost trancelike state, unaware of anything but what appears to him to be the path of least resistance: retire the andys, collect the bounties, spend the money, repeat. But his attitude is not unique among literary characters; Rick Deckard is almost a brother to the protagonist of Albert Camus’ The Stranger, Meursault. In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Rick Deckard follows a path of existential self-realization along the same lines as Meursault, in that both characters exist at a disconnect with the rest of their respective worlds, but through harrowing experience become empathetic to their surroundings.

In order to understand the similarities between Deckard and Meursault, we must first take a look at the role empathy plays in the two novels as a central and irreplaceable theme. Deckard quantifies empathy in the form of the Voight-Kampff Test and uses it to carry out his duties as a bounty hunter (Dick, 26) and as such it is a constant presence within the novel. For the majority of the novel, however, Deckard only exercises empathy in order to do his job; empathy constitutes a trait lacking in Deckard’s personal character. The protagonist of DADOES is dismissive toward his wife, complacent towards his surroundings, and completely willing to take the life of a living being after only a modicum of threadbare rationalization. Deckard is a man without empathy killing men and women who seem to be no more, but who are certainly no less, capable than he is. The role of empathy in DADOES is central in defining the conflict between the protagonist and the antagonists. Similarly in The Stranger Meursault is defined by his lack of empathy. Meursault is so lacking, in fact, he kills a man for no particular reason other than that it was hot. At the end of both novels, empathy is used as a yardstick measuring the change of both protagonists. After surviving and successfully retiring the androids, Deckard encounters a toad and feels joy at the simple existence of a living creature, whereas Meursault is finally shaken from his complacency by impending death and realizes he wants to share in the hatred people have for him as he walks to his own death at the guillotine. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and The Stranger are two novels of a kind, chronicling the journey of two characters on a subtly similar trajectory.

The parallels between Deckard and Meursault are readily apparent at the beginning of both novels, in how the two characters treat their family. Deckard’s story begins with a wretched squabble with his wife Iran (Dick, 2), the only solution to which he can come up with is to use the Penfield Mood Organ. It isn’t hard to extrapolate that Deckard has no great interest in his wife other than convenience in not having to drastically change his established patterns. The use of the Mood Organ is a particularly lazy compromise and demonstrates that at the beginning of the novel Deckard has an eye primarily toward what seems to be the path of least resistance. Deckard is comfortable in his rut and would just as soon stay there if he could. To Deckard’s dubious credit, however, Meursault is worse; his reaction to the news of his mother’s death being simply “Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know.” (Camus, 1.) Regardless both characters are shown from the very beginning of their respective novels to exist in an empathetic void, cut off from those that should be closest to them.

The two protagonists are not only cut off from their loved ones, but also from those they kill. Meursault’s murder is a senseless act on a scale few can even comprehend; he kills a man simply because it’s hot, and he feels like it (Camus, 59). Deckard, meanwhile, kills because he is told to and because killing is his job. This is more sensible from a pragmatic standpoint, but at the base of things Deckard and Meursault are still tied together: both kill because they lack the willpower not to kill, and they lack the willpower not to kill because they have no empathy. The only way in which Deckard differs significantly for Meursault is that he makes a cursory attempt at rationalizing his actions through the Mercerist principle of “kill only the killers” (Dick, 27). Within a few paragraphs of internal monologue, however, Deckard betrays that he is hardly confident in his faith. Deckard is ultimately no more moral or justified in his work than Meursault is in his discretion; neither man really gives a damn.

Ultimately Meursault and Deckard are similar in their redemption as they were in their sin, though they come about it from different directions. Meursault and Deckard are both confronted by a religious figure, Meursault by the Catholic priest and Deckard by Wilbur Mercer. Though they react in different ways, Meursault with anger towards the priest (Camus, 120), and Deckard with resignation that he can complete his task (Dick, 196). Deckard goes on to retire – or murder, depending on your perspective, the last two andys, but the encounter with Mercer allows Deckard to finally make an empathic connection with another living creature (though it isn’t actually living), becoming Mercer himself (Dick, 210). Similarly Meursault’s encounter with the priest allows him to appreciate the anger of the crowd that will watch him die. Both characters have come to the end of their journey: from existing at odd with their surroundings they finally show empathy and move beyond what they were. Finally both characters have affirmed their humanity.

The story of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is ultimately the story of Rick Deckard’s existentialist journey – from a man barely living to a man who understands the value of life. In my opinion Rick Deckard is a direct descendent of Meursault, and though Philip K. Dick and Albert Camus come from drastically different backgrounds there is an unmistakable similarity in their work. Though Dick was a “lowly” science fiction author, he was no less able to communicate grand themes in his novels and stories, and the question of human existence is a theme he deftly handled in this novel.