Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

by

Philip K. Dick

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on Androids Dream makes teaching easy.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Symbols

The Mood Organ

In Dick’s vision of the future, people rely on a “mood organ” to feel emotions of any kind. The mood organ can be placed on various “settings,” each one of which corresponds to a different…

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The Empathy Box

The empathy box is a cornerstone of the religion of Mercerism, which, in the world of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, has millions of followers. Mercerists join together with each other by touching…

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The Toad

At the end of the novel, Rick Deckard discovers a toad crawling through the desert. Although Rick believes that the toad is alive, and therefore highly valuable, he discovers that it’s actually just a machine…

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World War Terminus

Long before the plot of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? begins, humanity launched a horrible world war with itself, during which much of the planet was destroyed, presumably by some kind of nuclear holocaust…

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The Voigt-Kampff Test

One of Dick’s most famous ideas in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is the Voigt-Kampff test, designed to root out closeted androids by testing their innate sense of empathy. The test presupposes that all…

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