Amanda 11B English Literature G11/12 Ms.Lelia 2014.10.23 Comparison and Contrast of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and Blade Runner Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is a masterpiece of Philip K. Dick, one of the greatest writers of genre fiction in the 20th century. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep was the first science fiction piece to be anthologized in a Library of America volume. Blade Runner is a ground-breaking adaption movie of Philip K. Dick’s book and was directed by the famous movie director, Ridley Scott. There are some major differences between the book and the film, while some important settings and characters remained unchanged. Both the book and the film deal with what is humanity and what makes a life real or unreal, …show more content…
He even endeavors to save an artificial creature’s life, which again shows his empathy. He feels for everything around him, including tiny things that are ignored by most normal people. He is probably the only character in the book who shows interests and emotions towards his fellow humans. Similarly, in Ridley Scott’s film, there is a main character named J.F. Sebastian who has almost the same traits as John Isidore. Sebastian is an intelligent but abnormal genetic designer. He is also nice, genuine and willing to help others. He is created by the movie director to present humanity and empathy of human beings. In general, John Isidore and J.F. Sebastian are designed to express empathy for all living things, even artificial creatures, because Philip K. Dick and Ridley Scott want to use John Isidore and J.F. Sebastian as symbols of empathy in the book and in the film. They symbolize the positive perspectives of humanity and innate altruism and they have sensations and feelings to other living creatures. Meanwhile, no empathy at all is the society paying back to them. As fewer and fewer humans and animals exist, the society is putting much more emphasis on those living creatures, empathy is being put more emphasis on; in this way, it is quite ironic since J.F. Sebastian and John …show more content…
One of the most significant differences is the setting of the religion. In Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Mercerism is set as a religion which allows people to connect with each other and be infused with Mercer to share their experiences, happiness, and grievances by the uses of the empathy boxas character in the novel explains, “It’s an extension of your body; it’s the way you touch other humans, it’s the way you stop being alone.” The reason why Philip K. Dick established this religion in his novel is that he wanted to build up a common belief which encourages people to have hope and be united together with other people all over the universe. Also, the author states “As in the fusion with Mercer, everyone ascended together or, the cycle had come to an end, fell together into the trough of the tomb world……As long as some creature experienced joy, then the condition for all other creatures included a fragment of joy. However, if any living being suffered, then for all the rest the shadow could not be entirely cast off.” in the book, which lets us realize he attempted to use Mercerism as a way to illustrate the concept and the true value of empathy. Once a person has the capability to share and recognize emotions experienced by others, he has empathy. In this way, everyone who believes in Mercerism shows empathy. So actually Mercerism