Philip K.

Dick's

A SCANNER
DARKLY
Reporters: Kristine Dyan M. Missiona
Angielyn V. Montibon
Cristina Jane E. Pernito
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AUTHOR'S
BACKGROUND
Philip Kindred Dick
(December 16, 1928 – March 2, 1982)
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• Often referred to by his initials PKD, he was an

American science fiction writer.

• He won the Hugo Award for the best novel in 1962

for The Man in the High Castle and the John W.
Campbell Memorial Award for best novel of the
year in 1974 for Flow My Tears, the Policeman
Said.
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• 10 of his stories have been adapted into popular films
since his death, including Blade Runner (based on his
novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep), Total
Recall, A Scanner Darkly, Minority Report, Paycheck,
Next, Screamers, and The Adjustment Bureau.

• Dick himself was a drug user for much of his life.

According to a 1975 interview in Rolling Stone, Dick
wrote all of his books published before 1970 while on
amphetamines.
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A Scanner Darkly is a
fictionalized account of real
events, based on Dick's
experiences in the 1970s drug
culture. Dick said in an interview,
"Everything in A Scanner Darkly
I actually saw."
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Character Web
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Character Analysis
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Bob Arctor
• Bob Arctor - Robert ("Bob") Arctor
is an undercover narcotics agent
posing as a drug addict in a house he
shares with a few other men.

• Throughout the novel, he wears a

shape-obscuring suit that allows him
to have anonymity when dealing
with his government employers.
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Donna Hawthorne
• She is a dealer, a sly operator who
deals Substance D to the addicts for
a profit.

• Charismatic yet emotionally

untouchable, she is more or less
Arctor's girlfriend, although his true
feelings are unrequited.
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Jim Barris
• Barris is one of Arctor's housemates.

• He is a strange, inscrutable man with

confusing habits and an almost
inhuman psychology. He’s doing
some experimentation in their house.
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Charles Freck
• Another one of Arctor's addict
friends, Freck is a casually
interesting man with more humanity
than most of the other characters put
together.

• He is an ex-veteran. He hallucinates
more often.
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Ernie Luckman
• Another one of Arctor's addict
friends, Freck is a casually
interesting man with more humanity
than most of the other characters put
together.

• He is an ex-veteran. He hallucinates
more often.
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Hank
• Fred’s superior/the police chief in
charge of Fred.

• Hank, for professional reasons,

purposefully played down the usual
warmth, the usual arousal in all
directions; no anger, no love, no
strong emotions of any sort would
help either of them.
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Jerry Fabin
• He was addict at the beginning of
the book who sees (and feels) aphids
everywhere before he gets sent to a
Federal Clinic.

• When the paranoia intensifies, he is

taken to a New-Path rehabilitation
clinic.
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Other Characters
• Connie - the prostitute that Bob took home

• Donald Abrahams - the Executive Director of New-

Path Foundation

• Michael Westaway - a member of the staff in New-

Path Foundation who is also an undercover agent
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Plot
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1
• The novel begins with an account of one addict's strange
belief that he is infected with biting bugs which he called
"aphids". Jerry Fabin's delusion soon spreads to his friends,
who are also druggies.

• When another druggie, Charles Freck, visits Fabin, Freck

ends up collecting bugs in jars with his delusional friend
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1
• Freck runs into Donna Hawthorne, a drug dealer, at the mall.
He recognizes Donna and arranges to buy some Substance D
from her.

• Charles Freck invited Donna to go with him to see Jerry

Fabin but she resisted.

• Another fantasy rolled suddenly on his head. He saw, first, a

big paked Pontiac with a bumper jack on the back of it was a
thirteen year-old kid named Ratass.
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2
• Special Agent Fred, who is also Bob Arctor, gets called to
speak before the Anaheim Lions Club. Fred is an undercover
narcotics agent in the Orange County Sheriff's Department.

• The Lions Club host remarks that Fred looks like a vague
blur in his scramble suit. The host explains that the scramble
suit is necessary to protect police officers from the forces of
dope.
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2
• In the middle of Arctor's speech, he forgot his lines and he
begins to depart from the prepared text. His handler tells him
to get on with his “prepared text,” but Bob stumbles over the
words: “D,” he says, “stands for dumbness and despair and
desertion… D is finally death, slow death.”

• He called Donna to purchase a substance D. While on phone,

she mentioned about a wolf book by Konrad Lorenz.
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2
• Arctor is not paying attention, not until Donna told him that
his " cephalochromoscope" was broken because of Ernie
and Barris' experiment.
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3
• Charles Freck thinks that he should go to New-Path for
detoxification. He is eating in a diner with Jim Barris. Barris
explains in scientific terms how Substance D affects a user's
mind and body.

• Charles tells him that he has a new source for drugs, Donna.
Barris says that Donna has not had sex with Bob Arctor, but
that she would have sex with someone who could give her
cocaine.
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3
• Charles and Barris go to the 7-11 and purchase a can of
Solarcaine, which is the brand name of a sunburn spray.
Barris says that the Solarcaine contains cocaine mixed with
oil.

• Barris became suspicious of Arctor's job or what specific

actual organization he had.

• Bob Arctor was assigned by Hank to check out the New-Path

residence centers to locate major drug dealers.
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4
• The agent known as Fred (Bob Arctor) meets the agent
known as Hank to share information about drug users and
dealers. Both agents wear scramble suits, so they don't know
each other's identity.

• They discuss the case of a teenage girl who has become

hooked on drugs after being raped by her drug-dealing
brothers.
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4
• According to Hank, an anonymous caller has identified
Arctor as a suspicious character. Arctor's suspicious
activities include leaving the house frequently and having
more money that he can possibly earn at the Blue Chip
Stamp job.

• Hank assigned Fred to observe Arctor's house and car

through holomographic system
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4
• On the other side, Barris, together with Charles Freck made a
silencer and prepared to fire it in Arctor's backyard.

• While Arctor was awakened from his dream, Barris suddenly

entered his room and he left a puzzled idea about who really
destroyed the cephscope.
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5
• Bob Arctor obligingly takes his two roommates away from
the house one day so that the police can bug it.

• After leaving with Barris and Luckman to look at a loaner

cephalochromoscpoe, Arctor calls from a pay phone to report
that the house will be clear for several hours.
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5
• Arctor pays a visit to Kimberly Hawkins, a prostitute and
crystal addict who lives in a low-income high-rise. Kimberly
tells Arctor that she has had a big fight with her boyfriend,
Dan Mancher, who is a drug dealer.

• Arctor wanted to help Kimberly but she resisted. She even

asked Arctor to go away and just leave her alone.
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5
• On the way home, Arctor's car goes out of control. It appears
to have been sabotaged. When he has a bad reaction to some
drugs that Barris supplies, Artor starts to feel that Barris is
out to get him.
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Bob Arctor
6
• They had the car fixed in a nearby mechanic. He thinks about
what narcotics agents fears

• Barris told them that he left a surprise in the house - cassette

tape recorder which will start recording once the door is open.

• When they arrived home, they noticed a still-hot cigarette

butt, and they fretted, thinking that someone might planted a
dope in the house to set them up.
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6
Bob Arctor

• Suddenly, Donna appeared, who just woken up, saying that

it was her who smoked the cigarette.

• Arctor wishes to know how much of the insanity - his

insanity had been real.
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Fred 7

• In his scramble suit, Fred meets with Hank. Hank explains

that surveillance equipment has been placed in Bob Arctor's
house.

• Fred will have to service the scanners in Arctor's house on

occasion, and after he does so, he will need to edit himself
out of the tapes so that his identity remains unknown.

• Arctor gets summoned to Room 203 -a psychology-testing

lab, at the police headquarters.
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7
Fred

• Two medical officers explain to him that his consumption of

Substance D is causing a possible bilateral dysfunction.

• He was told that he will be summoned again for further

tests. He left the testing room little down and a little
bewildered.
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8 Freck
Charles

• Freck arrives at Bob Arctor's house and sees Arctor and Barris
working on Arctor's car.

• Barris and Luckman argue over the car’s mechanical issues.

Freck feels surprised that the mood at Arctor's house feels
stressful rather than mellow, so he leaves.

Fred
• Seated before the hologram cube of Monitor Two, Fred in his
scramble suit watched impassively as the hologram changed
continually before his eyes.
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8
• With horrified eyes, Fred saw how Luckman is choking to
death while Barris is not bothered.

Arctor
• Arctor goes to Donna's apartment, where the two smoke hash
and make plans to see a movie at a drive-in theater. He tell her
that he loves her.
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9
Bob Arctor

• Arctor and Donna are stoned. He asks whether he can hold

her. Donna tells him no, and that she thinks he is ugly.

• Arctor heads out on foot. Donna follows Arctor to apologize.

Reconciled, they walked back to her apartment.

• Donna says that someday she hopes to get married and live in
Oregon, but Arctor isn't the man she wants to marry.
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9
Bob Arctor

• Donna briefly squeezes his hand, and this touch will linger in
his heart forever.

• Later that night, Arctor brings home a little needle-freak

named Connie for sex. In the darkness, he imagines that she
transforms into Donna.
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Fred

• Fred sat before a battery of whirling hole-playbacks, watching Jim

Barris in Bob Arctor's living room reading a book on mushrooms.

• Barris calls several people and attempts to sell them drugs made of
potent mushrooms.

• He thinks about the day he saw dog excrement after Barris gave
him a pill, and he thinks that Barris might have given him poison
mushrooms. He thinks that he should kill Barris to save the lives
of everyone.
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Fred

• The holo-scans also reveal that Barris is setting Arctor up for

nonpayment of a bounced check. Barris pretends to be Arctor
when a creditor calls and refuses to pay the money owed.

• As Fred continues to watch, he sees the tape of Connie

sleeping and sees her face appear to morph into Donna's. He
begins to thinking whether he is losing his mind.
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Bob Arctor

• The next morning, Arctor takes a Yellow Cab to Englesohn

Locksmith. He pays the proprietor, an amiable lady, the
twenty dollars owed. At this point in the novel, ArctorArctor
begins reciting German poetry unawarely.

• From a payphone, after he left, he calls Carl at the shop to

find out the address where the key was copied.

• Then, Arctor remembers that he himself actually wrote the

check, for a copied key during a night of heavy partying.
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Fred
• Two days later, Fred monitored Bob Arctor and developed
speculations that Bob might have been just playing head
games with them as he figured out he is being monitored. He
thinks Bob is nuts.

• Luckman and Arctor talked about how to smuggle dope

accross the border while Fred is sending tape fast forward.

• Fred received a call from the psychologist deputy saying Fred

needs to come back to have a full standard battery of percept
tests plus other testings: Room 203.
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Fred
• Fred underwent the following tests, such as psych testers, and
gave a sample of his blood.

• While waiting for the results, Fred went to Hank's office and
there, James Barris told them about Bob Arctor. He said
Arctor is part of a large secret covert organization, an addict
(Substance D) and he is experiencing brain damage,
deteriotation, as well as in the corpus callosum.
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Fred
• Pscyhologists explained to Fred the effects of Substance D --
two signals that interefere with each other by carrring
conflicting information.

• Fred's mind is buzzed with confusion and despair.

• Fred said that Barris's evidence seemed genuine.

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Fred

• Based on the tests, Hank learned that Fred willingly took an

addictive drug. Hank learned and told Fred that he is Bob
Actor. Fred could not believe it. It made no sense to him. "I'm
who?" "I'm Bob Arctor?".

• Donna drives Fred on the way to New Path. Bob lays against
the ground because of pain and a cop came towards them,
seeing her ID, the cop said she's undercover for the federal
people.
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• At New Path, before having dinner, they had their Concept

Time. Several concepts were written on the board and everyone
can give their opinions regarding the concept.

• Bruce was invited by Mike to the lounge and they had some
talks about life experiences.

• Mike made a phone call and met Donna to discuss about Bruce
and New Path.
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• Bruce has told Thelma a story of the black-and-white wolf.

• While searching the vacuum cleaner, Bruce end up entering a

room where an old woman named Donna kept on juggling
balls.
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• Mike did not agree with Bruce to work with animals in one of
their farms.

• Mike said that if your mind comes back, it'll have to come back
naturally.

• They watched the old woman, Donna, dropping the balls and
picking them back up.
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• Bruce raised his head to peer at the old woman; tears of a sort
stood in the woman's eyes as she gazed back at him.

• He didn't believe it was Donna because it is said she came

here six months ago, yet she just drove Bruce back here in her
MG.
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• Bruce was reminded of Jerry Fabin when he found a small

bone fragment, which also made him remember his life
before.

• He was listening to a conversation that made him interested.

• Bruce had deliberately explained the way of life inside the

New Path.
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• Bruce made a sort of tagline that became popular later on,

"Well, I guess I'll come back on Thursday," which meant
something to them all.

• They credited him for bringing humor and the positive effect
of it remained with him inside his heart.
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• In August of that year, two months after he entered New-Path,

he was transferred to a farm facility in the Napa Valley.

• The Game had failed to help him. It had, in fact, made him
more deteriorated.

• Bruce talked about the time when he broke the violence rule.
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• The Executive Director, Donald Abrahams, was the one who

gave him a tour to the farm and gave instructions.

• Bruce keeps on repeating what Donald says, and he said he

saw Substance D growing when he was looking at stubbled
blue plants. He picked one from it believing it to be a present
for his friends to Thanksgiving.
 Styles of the Author
• POINT OF VIEW

The novel is told from a semi-omniscient third-person point of view. The

narrator is at all times aware of what the protagonist, Fred-Bob Arctor-
Bruce is thinking and feeling. At times the thoughts of the novel's two other
undercover agents, Donna Hawthorne and Michael Westaway, are also
conveyed through narration. The narrator also presents Charles Freck's
thoughts, which are typically jumbled in a humorous manner.
 Styles of the Author
Allusion
The story alludes to the drug subculture that Dick
experienced himself in the 1970s.
Foreshadowing
Bob's addiction to Substance D foreshadows his
mental breakdown.
 Styles of the Author
Imagery
As most of the characters in A Scanner Darkly are
users of Substance D, they experience highs and
hallucinations that are in keeping with the nature of the
drug.
 Styles of the Author

Understatement
Substance D is described as slow death which is an
understatement in that it kills the person that the addict
used to be mentally long before it actually kills them
physically
 Styles of the Author
Paradox
Bob is largely written off as useless as an agent by
the end of the novel, but it is he who discovers the
source of New Path's funding and the source of the
Substance D whilst working at the New Path commune.
 Styles of the Author
Parallelism
There is a parallel between Bob's life of
lies and deceit as an agent and the life that
Donna is living as an undercover agent
masquerading as a small-time drug dealer.
 Styles of the Author
CONFLICT
MAN VS. HIMSELF
Bob Vs. Fred
Fred was narc agent spying to himself Bob, a drug dealer.
Due to the effect of Substance D the cognitive breakdown
that results in the two hemispheres of the brain competing
with each other, that happened to Bob that result of him
having split personality.
 Styles of the Author
CONFLICT

MAN VS. SOCIETY

Fred became one of the narcotic agents who want to fight
drugs for the future of the children and country they live in.
 Styles of the Author
CONFLICT
MAN VS. MAN
Bob Vs. Police officer
When the police officer who pick him (Bob) up as
they suggest to him that he is Bob Arctor but he will
not believe them.
 Styles of the Author
CONFLICT

SOCIETY VS. SOCIETY

Narcotics agents Vs. Drug addicts
Fred became one of the narcotics agents who wanted to fight
drugs for the future of the children and country they lived in.
 Cultural Implication
Drug Culture
The war on drugs has been raging for decades. There is no sign of
victory.

Drug Abuse
Drug misuse is not a disease, it is a decision, like the decision to
step out in front of a moving car.
They do it because they were curious, and because they were
trying to get past the banal tedium of so much conscious
existence.
 Cultural Implication
War on Drugs

The circulation of Substance D represents the epitome of a corrupt

system

In 1972, the commission unanimously recommended

decriminalizing the possession and distribution of marijuana for
personal use. Nixon ignored the report and rejected its
recommendations.
 Cultural Implication
DRUG CULTURE IN AMERICA
In the 1960s, as drugs became symbols of youthful
rebellion, social upheaval, and political dissent.

In June 1971, President Nixon declared a “war on

drugs.”
However,in according to his top aide, John Ehrlichman,
later admit, that the Nixon campaign in 1968, and the
Nixon White House, had two enemies: the antiwar left
and black people."
 Cultural Implication
In 1972, the commission unanimously recommended
decriminalizing the possession and distribution of marijuana for
personal use. Nixon ignored the report and rejected its
recommendations.

Between 1973 and 1977, eleven states decriminalized marijuana

possession. January 1977, President Jimmy Carter was
inaugurated on a campaign platform that included marijuana
decriminalization. In October 1977, the Senate Judiciary
Committee voted to decriminalize possession of up to an ounce
of marijuana for personal use.
 Symbols
Substance D
Metonymic symbol for all other kinds of mind-altering
drugs

The Scramble Suit

Arctor's internal condition: he hides his own true identity
from himself, and the drugs have so blurred his mind that
he can no longer identify himself
 Symbols
German Poetry
Represents Arctor's fragmented mind, a terrible side effect
of Substance D that blurs his reasoning faculties to begin
to erase the distinction between past and present.

Connie
Symbol of Donna as Arctor desires her - under his thumb
and doing as he asks - while also being a symbol of
Arctor's degenerating mental condition.
 Symbols
Aphids
The effects of hallucinogenic drugs; while they might
seem harmless, they are easily spread and have long-
lasting detrimental effects on a person's psychology

Mirror
Characters’ fractured perception of the world
Themes
The Uncertain Nature of Reality
The main character, Bob Arctor, undergoes a psychotic
breakdown as a result of an addiction to Substance D.
Arctor's brain has been completely split in two, resulting in
two separate personalities, Bob and Fred, who both see only
half of reality.
Themes
Rejection of family and values
Prior to his life as a Substance D addict or as an
undercover officer Fred, was Bob Actor’s life as a
family man. The portrayal of Bob’s past life
corresponds with many of typical nuances of an ideal
family life.
Themes
Substance Abuse
The novel warn the readers about the darkness of
drug culture and the terrible effects it can have on
one's brain. This substance abuse is at the heart of the
novel, and Substance D is clearly an ambiguous
stand-in for any number of real-world drugs that have
a similar detrimental effect.
Themes
Paranoia

The characters in A Scanner Darkly are profoundly

paranoid. The entire book is paranoid, characterized
by extreme suspicion and mistrust even of itself.
None of the characters fully trust each other, never
quite sure if what they're seeing is real, a visual
illusion caused by hallucinogens
 Implication of the Title
The title comes from a passage in which Arctor is
pondering the camera’s/scanners that are monitoring his
house, “What does a scanner see? he asked himself. I mean,
really see? Into the head? Down into the heart? Does a …
scanner, see into me—into us—clearly or darkly? I hope it
does, he thought, see clearly, because I can’t any longer
these days see into myself.
 Implication of the Title

"A Scanner Darkly" is about the fragility of our lives and the
obscure horror of insanity. It explores what lies behind our
fear of madness, and perhaps it's there becomes true art. But
in A Scanner Darkly, PKD drives us down into our deepest
fears and leaves us there, in the darkness.
Thank You!