Home > Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Summary & Study Guide > Essays and Criticism > Humanity, Personhood and the Ideological Problems Technology Creates in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? | Humanity, Personhood and the Ideological Problems Technology Creates in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Marilyn Gwaltney outlines the issues of humanity, personhood, and the ideological problems technology creates in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Both the movie Blade Runner and the book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? are centrally concerned about the definition of humanness in the context of modern technology. The irony present in both works is that through its technology, humanity has diminished its own capacity to survive, necessitating the invention and mass production of a new life form (the android) which is capable of challenging humanity. This situation gives rise to the central dilemma of both movie and book—if the creature is virtually identical in kind to the creator, should not the...

[The entire page is 3188 words long]

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:

eNotes Pass

Summary and Analysis – Themes – Characters – And much more...