Sara Hutchins

English 2600-004
Professor Brittany Stephenson
October 14, 2016
Literary Analysis:
The Minority Report
Philip K. Dick was an American novelist and short story author who specialized in the
sci-fi genre, in 1956 he wrote The Minority Report, a story set one-hundred years in the future.
In 2002 the short story would inspire the creation and release of a film titled Minority Report,
directed by Steven Spielberg. While both the short story and film are very similar in their overall
themes, the film does takes creative liberties by altering plot points to draw the audience in for its
two hour and thirty-nine minute run, the short story from beginning to end spanning only thirty
pages itself. In both mediums, the protagonist is John Anderton, a man working in a
revolutionary program known as Precrime in the year 2056. Three telepaths/mutants known in
the short story and movie as Precogs can predict future murders, and are used by the officers of
Precrime to prevent those murders from coming to fruition. Andertons personal conflict begins
when he is implicated in the future murder of someone he has never met and is ultimately forced
to go on the run, finding himself the pawn in a much bigger game. With such a fantastical almost
unfathomable plot, readers are given an in-depth look into Philip K. Dicks version of a type of
dystopian future where people are considered guilty of crimes they have not yet committed, a
system seemingly infallible and indestructible, one that puts civilization and free-will into the
hands of people who get to be judge, jury, and executioner.
In the short story, John Anderton is the aging creator of Precrime, a national phenomenon
that has prevented any murder from being committed in the past five years. The beginning scene

is opened with John Anderton having an internal conversation comparing himself with Ed
Witwer, the young man who would eventually take his place as head of Precrime when Anderton
retires. From the beginning, the audience is given insight into Andertons fear and resentment
filled disposition towards the younger man and even how John critically views himself:
Thefirst thought Anderton had when he saw the young man was:I'm
getting bald. Bald and fat and old. But he didn't say it aloud.
Instead, he pushed back his chair, got to his feet, and came resolutely
around the side of his desk, his right hand rigidly extended. Smiling
with forced amiability, he shook hands with the young man (p 294).

Witwer is described as being a blue-eyed, blond headed man who is much younger than
Anderton, a sense of jealousy and insecurity is implied through the first page and a half, being
told from John Andertons point of view. John goes on to show Witwer around Precrime and how
everything works, showing him the Precogs and the cards where the name of the would-be
murderers are printed. Anderton makes an interesting point about the programs own drawbacks:
As they walked along the busy, yellow-lit tiers of offices, Anderton
said: "You're acquainted with the theory of precrime, of course. I
presume we can take that for granted."
"I have the information publicly available," Witwer replied. "With the
aid of your precog mutants, you've boldly and successfully abolished
the post-crime punitive system of jails and fines. As we all realize,
punishment was never much of a deterrent, and could scarcely have
afforded comfort to a victim already dead."
They had come to the descent lift. As it carried them swiftly downward,
Anderton said: "You've probably grasped the basic legalistic drawback
to precrime methodology. We're taking in individualswho have broken
no law."
"But they surely will," Witwer affirmed with conviction.
"Happily theydon't -- because we get them first, before they can
commit an act of violence. So the commission of the crime itself is
absolute metaphysics. We claim they're culpable. They, on the other
hand, eternally claim they're innocent. And, in a sense, theyare
innocent."
The lift let them out, and they again paced down a yellow corridor. "In
our society we have no major crimes," Anderton went on, "but we do
have a detention camp full of would-be criminals (p 295)."

This is a subject that is interesting to analyze, how is someone supposed to be judged for a crime
they havent committed, arent they technically innocent because the murder never occurred?
One could argue that the Precrime system is taking away the free will of humanity by not
allowing people to make those choices. Something that Dick never addressed in the short story
that I have been curious about is how exactly are the sentences doled out once a person is
captured? It is during this narrative that John realizes his own name is printed on one of the
cards, implicating him of a future murder; he assumes he is being framed in the murder of his
eventual successor, Ed Witwer. He immediately decides to keep it a secret, even though he
knows others will find out sooner or later. As the head of Precrime it is interesting that Anderton
chooses to withhold the information, if it is something he wholly believes in and has dedicated
his career to upholding, why wouldnt he put his life in the hands of the Precogs, whom others
have been forced to do when theyve been accused? What makes John Anderton the exception
would-be criminal?
Anderton eventually comes clean to his wife Lisa whom also works at Precrime and is
described as being slim, attractive, and young. It appears that the author used Lisa as a way to
once again illustrate how Anderton feels about himself, a foil in the plot to illustrate the areas in
which he feels he is lacking; such as, his fat to her slender, unappealing to her attractiveness, and
old to her youthful. John tells her of his suspicions, that Witwer has framed him to get his job;
she thinks he is being irrational and should turn himself in so they can get everything figured out,
trusting wholly in the Precrime system. Anderton loses his trust in her and begins to suspect that
his wife is in cahoots with Witwer, giving the impression that his wife and Witwer must be lovers
and that she is plotting against him to help put Witwer in charge. He mentions when hes

speaking to Lisa that him being implicated in murder will end the independent agency that
Precrime has been, the Senate being a possible culprit in his supposed framing:
"It will end the check and balance system. Precrime will no longer be
an independent agency. The Senate will control the police, and after
that -- " His lips tightened. "They'll absorb the Army too. Well, it's
outwardly logical enough.Of course I feel hostility and resentment
toward Witwer --of course I have a motive (p 300).

His wife Lisa is the one who brings it to his attention that it is not Ed Witwers name
listed on the victim line of the card Anderton is supposedly going to murder, but a man named
Leopold Kaplan. This is a plot twist because up until now John Anderton and the reader believes
that it is Ed Witwer whom he is going to kill, and to him, that had made sense. He is insecure and
feels threatened by Witwer; the man is younger, handsome, and enthusiastic about the Precrime
system. When the different name is revealed to John, it shifts the story, how is it that he is going
to murder someone he has never met? How could that possibly be?
Anderton attempts to run, and we are given a sense of the futuristic spirit of the short
story when he talks about getting off of Earth and going as far as the Centaurian-colony
planets. John attempts to leave the planet but is kidnapped and taken as a prisoner to Leopold
Kaplan, a retired army general whom questions John about the murder he is going to commit,
Kaplan being the victim the Precogs prophesize about. Kaplan claims that he intends to turn him
over to the authorities so that Anderton cannot murder him. John explains that he believes he is
being framed by Witwer and his own wife, this admission kind of leads the audience to believe
that the Precrime system may not be foolproof and could possibly be corrupted, further
disintegrating its validity and usefulness in society. At this point, I believe that the reader is kind
of urging or rather hoping that John will figure out how to clear his name and do so. There is a

level of frustration that builds towards him when he chooses to keep running, a plot point the
author undoubtedly added to build suspension and to influence our attitude toward him.
On their way to turn John into the proper authority, he is freed by a man named Fleming
who is described as being this kind of mysterious person working for an unknown agency that
supposedly is the secretive checks-and-balances group that monitors Precrime. The man believes
John is innocent and points the finger at his wife, feeding Johns belief further that his wife is
behind everything. Fleming gives John a packet with money new identification, giving him
instructions to hide for seven days until he contacts him with a way to get off of the planet.
Fleming is an interesting character because the author has introduced him to us as someone who
wants to help John, but his presence and intention only send the reader into the strengthening
belief that Precrime can be tampered with, and that there is a possibility that this has been done
to others as well.
John chooses to run once again, the audience now more familiarized with him can see
that he is not interested in proving his innocence, only in getting to safety somewhere far, far
away. There seems to be a twist and turn for John Anderton as each page progresses and within
the packet of money as a simple note which says:
The existence of a majority logically implies a
corresponding minority
(p 307).

This passage has incredible significance as it is corresponds directly with the title of the short
story. To me, it hints that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, and in this
particular case I think the author was trying to convey that the people running Precrime and the
Precogs themselves believe that the safety of the many outweigh the risks of the few that could
possibly be innocent within the Precrime system.

Anderton takes a bus and goes to a motel in a slum and listens to a news report about
himself. They talk about how he has used his position in Precrime to put himself above the law in
order to commit murder without repercussions. It is not until Witwer comes over the radio to
explain the dealings with Precrime and the inner-workings that John has an epiphany about what
the Precogs have seen:
"... the system of three precogs finds its genesis in the computers of the
middle decades of this century. How are the results of an electronic
computer checked? By feeding the data to a second computer of
identical design. But two computers are not sufficient. If each computer
arrived at a different answer it is impossible to tella priori which is
correct. The solution, based on a careful study of statistical method, is
to utilize a third computer to check the results of the first two. In this
manner, a so-called majority report is obtained. It can be assumed with
fair probability that the agreement of two out of three computers
indicates which of the alternative results is accurate. It would not be
likely that two computers would arrive at identically incorrect solutions
-- "
Anderton dropped the towel he was clutching and raced into the other
room. Trembling, he bent to catch the blaring words of the radio.
"... unanimity of all three precogs is a hoped-for but seldom-achieved
phenomenon, acting-Commissioner Witwer explains. It is much more
common to obtain a collaborative majority report of two precogs, plus a
minority report of some slight variation, usually with reference to time
and place, from the third mutant. This is explained by the theory
ofmultiple-futures. If only one time-path existed, precognitive
information would be of no importance, since no possibility would
exist, in possessing this information, of altering the future. In the
Precrime Agency's work we must first of all assume -- "
Frantically, Anderton paced around the tiny room. Majority report -only two of the Precogs had concurred on the material underlying the
card. That was the meaning of the message enclosed with the packet.
The report of the third precog, the minority report, was somehow of
importance (p 308).

With this new information the reader gauges along with John Anderton that one of the Precogs
has disagreed that John is going to murder Leopold Kaplan, and with this epiphany the reader
also realizes that this is the fatal flaw in the Precrime system. This indicates that there is a chance
that other people who have been wrongly imprisoned for a would-be crime, have had their

minority report thrown out, when that was the actual timeline that was going to progress into
fruition.
Anderton now believes he can clear his name by using the existence of the minority
report to cast reasonable doubt against the majority report that has deemed him guilty. He
decides to break into the Precrime building to access the feed of the Precog who created his
minority report. Once he does, he finds out that the fact that he was informed that he was going
to commit murder canceled out the fact that he was going to. This is another realization for the
reader that the author has set up, how many people would have changed their minds had they
been informed that someone was watching them?
Johns wife finds him and wants to turn him in, but he convinces her not to when he
explains that the minority report proves his innocence. She helps him escape, but as they are
talking she realizes that if he doesnt turn himself in, that the Precrime system is in jeopardy
because of the false positive he report gave. She even turns a gun on him to get him to turn the
ship around. It is interesting for the reader to see how Lisas viewpoint changes, she still has this
nave trust in the system, but she recognizes the flaws that it has and the potential unlawfulness it
may have perpetrated.
Fleming suddenly shows back up in the ship and takes the gun away from Lisa,
demanding John give him the reel of tape that proves his innocence, now insisting that Kaplan
and Witwer are actually working together and that Lisa was following Witwers orders to pretend
to fly John to safety when she was really trying to get him away from Fleming and the
organization he works for. Fleming tries to murder Lisa and John stops him, not believing the
story he has told John.

Anderton realizes along with the reader that Fleming is actually working for Kaplan and
that the retired general has plans to unravel the Precrime system so that the military can take
control of it. His wife and Witwer were innocent of what John Anderton had been so sure was a
rouse against him. This is such an eye-opening moment for the reader and for our protagonist as
well, hes been a pawn, but not for the people he had originally thought. And in this moment of
startling comprehension, John knows that he has to come forward to stop Kaplan, he has to stop
running.
The idea is that Kaplan is going to use the minority report that proves John is not going to
kill him so that he can prove that system is faulty and that everything should return to what is
was before Precrime was initiated:
"He'll be alive, yes," Anderton conceded. "But he can prove he'd be just
as alive if I were walking the streets. He has the information that proves
the majority report obsolete. He can break the Precrime system." He
finished, "Heads or tails, he wins -- and we lose. The Army discredits
us; their strategy paid off."
"But why are they risking so much? What exactly do they want?"
"After the Anglo-Chinese War, the Army lost out. It isn't what it was in
the good old AFWA days. They ran the complete show, both military
and domestic. And they did their own police work."
"Like Fleming," Lisa said faintly.
"After the war, the Westbloc was demilitarized. Officers like Kaplan
were retired and discarded. Nobody likes that." Anderton grimaced. "I
can sympathize with him. He's not the only one. But we couldn't keep
on running things that way. We had to divide up the authority (p 317)."

As readers we are now grasping just how intricate the plot line has become, and how the
information we were led to believe was true, was now completely and utterly false. We were led
down a rabbit hole, and down the hole we went until the author pulled on the string that
redirected the plot and point us towards a resolution.

The greatest twist of this short story however comes when John Anderton realizes that the
only way he can save Precrime is to actually murder Leopold Kaplan, to prove the original report
correct. And that is exactly what he does, publicly, and saves Precrime despite his own
knowledge that a minority report could happen again and that someone could be falsely accused
of a murder they are not in fact, going to commit.
As I mentioned earlier, Minority Report the film had some large plot alterations such as
John Anderton being younger and an officer of Precrime rather than the head of it, and Precrime
only being operational in D.C., the plot revolved around the program trying to gain national
ground. The Precogs had a more comprehensive role, in that John had found out about a murder
that occurred during the very beginning stages of the program and this is what caused him to be
framed and implicated of a future murder.
It turns out that the head of Precrime, Director Lamar Burgess had murdered a woman
named Anne Lively and was able to cover it up by tricking the Precogs, but as it turns out, Anne
Lively was one of the Precogs mother. She had wanted to pull her daughter from the program,
but Burgess wouldnt have it, so he murdered her to keep Precrime intact. John had been a pawn
to continue the cover-up, but he was able to unravel everything and prove the Burgess was
behind everything. In the film, the Precrime division is actually shut-down and dismantled, the
Precogs sent away to have normal lives without having to live the existence of seeing other
peoples murders.
I think that Philip K. Dick intended the resolution to be a little unsatisfying with how
Precrime wasnt dissolved to show us that not everything ends cleanly and justly all of the time.
Perhaps Dick is hinting at his own beliefs that the safety of the many outweighs the rights of the
few, and the Precrime system, despite its obvious flaws is a system that still prevents murder and

can keep people safe. The whole idea is an interesting paradox that we have been presented with,
one designed to make us analyze our own perceptions of free will. And in the case of John
Anderton, he didnt question the system until his own free will was in jeopardy, but unlike any of
the others, he was afforded the opportunity to change his fate.

Works Cited
Dick. Philip K. The Philip K. Dick Reader: The Minority Report. 1956: Fantastic
Universe. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html.
(Pages: 294, 295, 300, 307, 308, 317).
Minority Report. Dir. Steven Spielberg. Perf. Tom Cruise and Colin Farrell. Twentieth
Century Fox and DreamWorks, 2002. DVD.