Empathy is when you understand and are sensitive to someone else’s emotions without

necessarily having to be told what they’re feeling. In ​Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep​,

written by Philip K. Dick, a major theme is that nothing can be truly alive without empathy. The

characters in the book think they can tell who is good and who is bad based on the assumption

that all androids are lacking empathy and all humans have it, when in actuality, both humans and

androids are capable of showing empathy ​and ​insensitivity.

Androids and humans both have the capability of creating good relationships. Roy and

Irmgard Baty, two androids, had a marriage that literally lasted to Mars and back. They ran a

drugstore toge​ther there, and migrated to Mars and back to Earth together. They seemed to show

loyalty not just to their allies, but to each other. At the end of the book, Rick Deckard, whose job

was to find and kill androids, killed Irmgard. “Roy Baty, in the other room, let out a cry of

anguish”(Dick, 210). This shows that Roy did love his wife, and it hurt him when she died. Even

though they were androids, they demonstrated empathy and love for each other, which they

should not have been able to do. Rick Deckard and his wife also demonstrated a great

relationship towards the end of the novel. They originally start out not understanding each

others’ positions at all. Iran didn’t understand Rick’s job and Rick didn’t understand her

emotions. Rick wasn’t even trying to understand, while Iran would rather have just been

indifferent. This all changed at the end, when Rick came home from his adventures emotionally

drained. He initially went out into a wasteland just to be alone, which is where he found a toad.

After everything he went through, growing in his own empathy, he got extremely attached to this

toad(which turns out to be electric). The text says, “Now all the weight had left him, the

monumental and oppressive fatigue.” When he brought it home, Iran called an electric animal
specialist, saying, “I want it to work perfectly. My husband is devoted to it”(Dick, 230). Rick

had changed from an unempathetic human to someone who is devoted to an electric toad, while

Iran had changed from an indifferent person to someone who advocates for her husband and

cares about him. Roy and Irmgard Baty were androids and were able to form a strong, loyal

relationship between them, something they weren’t supposed to be able to do. Rick and Iran

Deckard should have easily had a similarly strong marriage since they were human, but they

struggled and had to gain empathy to have such a marriage. These two couples each defy the

empathy-related stereotype through their relationships.

Androids and humans have both demonstrated a deep uneasiness at being alone. In the

beginning of the novel, Iran tells Rick that she is going to use her mood organ, a device for

giving people the emotion they want, to feel six hours of self-accusatory depression. When Rick

asks her why, she says that she has started hearing the building they live in - how quiet it is. She

says, “​‘I realized how unhealthy it was, sensing the absence of life, not just in this building but

everywhere, and not reacting’”(Dick, 3). For Iran, this justified twelve hours a month of

depression aimed at herself. The absence of anyone else in her apartment building disturbed her

that much. Not only that, but Rick can see where she’s coming from. “‘Sometimes he heard [the

empty apartments] at night when he was supposed to be asleep…Out in what had been before the

war suburbs, one could find buildings entirely empty...or so he had heard. He had let the

information remain secondhand; like most people he did not care to experience it directly”(Dick,

3). Empty buildings are not that uncommon in their society, and yet people still avoid them. John

Isidore, who at that point had never spoken with either Rick or Iran, also felt disturbed at the

feeling of being alone. He imagined the aloneness as a greedy living being. He didn’t even have
an electric animal to break the endless silence. “Silence...It managed in fact to emerge from

every object within his range of vision, as if it - the silence - meant to supplant all things

tangible. Hence it assailed not only his ears but his eyes...in its own way, alive...He reached for

the doorknob that opened the way out into the unlit hall, then shrank back as he glimpsed the

vacuity of the rest of the building. It lay in wait for him, out here, the force which he had felt

busily penetrating his specific apartment. He was not ready for the trip up those clanging stairs to

the empty roof where he had no animal. The echo of himself ascending; the echo of

nothing”(Dick, 17). This is to be expected. The humans, who are supposed to be exhibiting

empathy, are uncomfortable when faced with solitude. But they aren’t the only ones. When Pris

Stratton, an android, moves in close to Isidore, she tells him that she used to live on Mars. (In

this book, humanity has advanced enough to colonize the planet.) She hints that she had to resort

to drugs to cope with how awful a place Mars is. Pris tells Isidore, “This is nothing. You think

I’m suffering because I’m lonely. Hell, all Mars is lonely. Much worse than this”(Dick, 142). In

this book, both humans and androids suffer when they are alone. If androids don’t have empathy,

they should not suffer when they don’t have enough people to empathize with, but they do. This

shows that androids do have empathy.

Androids and humans both have the potential to either kill animals or show compassion

for them. John Isidore’s job is at a company that repairs broken electric animals. It disguises

itself as a vet service so that its customers don’t have to be embarrassed that they have an electric

animal as opposed to a real one. One customer had Isidore bring in a cat, thinking it was a real

veterinarian, and they found out too late that the cat was real. It died of whatever illness it had

before it even made it to the shop. When Isidore called the woman who owned the cat, she said,
“I just don’t want my husband to know; I don’t think he could live through it...When [the cat] got

sick - with pneumonitis, as you tell me - Ed got panic stricken and just wouldn’t face it”(Dick,

77). The human husband, Ed, was so attached to that cat that he wouldn’t have been able to

survive its death, which shows empathy. The woman showed empathy not just by being sad the

cat died, but also by trying to spare her husband’s feelings. She knew he was going to be

miserable if he found out. She eventually decided to go so far as to have an electric copy of the

cat made, so that her husband would never know the difference. In the society of this novel, all

animals that have not gone extinct yet are very important to the society. During a conversation

between a few of the characters, the novel says, “‘Even animals - even eels and gophers and

snakes and spiders - are sacred...‘Animals are protected by law. All life’”(Dick, 152). This

society expects every person to have an animal, forcing people who can’t get one to use electric

animals. Even Rick and Iran Deckard have an electric sheep and dream of being able to have an

expensive living animal. This shows that some humans are lacking the empathy to tell the

difference between a real animal and an electric one. This also shows that Philip K. Dick’s

fictional society is at least somewhat empathetic, putting so much value on these animals that the

real life society today does not. However, it is not always like this. At Isidore’s apartment,

towards the end of the novel, Irmgard wants to see how many legs a spider can live without, so

Pris takes a real spider and starts cutting its legs off. This demonstrates a lack of empathy

because she doesn’t stop even when it’s clear Isidore’s disturbed by this and the spider is in pain.

“‘It probably won’t be able to run as fast...but there’s nothing for it to catch around here anyhow.

It’ll die anyway’”(Dick, 194). Both humans and androids have shown whether or not they have

empathy through their treatment of animals.

 In ​Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep​, humans and androids are each capable of

showing empathy and insensitivity. These abilities manifest themselves through the relationships

they have with one another, their reactions to being alone, their tendency to kill things

unnecessarily, and their religion. The book demonstrates that there is no surefire way to tell if a

character has empathy or not. In the end, the reader must decide on whether a character is good

or bad based on the capability the character chooses to act upon.

Works Cited

Dick, Philip K. ​Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? ​. Del Rey, 2017.