The Simulacra World In Philip Dick’s Novels

As a representative of New Wave science fiction,Philip Dick’s works,abundant in philosophical thinking and humanistic concern,are highly forward-looking,directly inspiring the creation of later cyberpunk genre novels.This thesis selects three mature works of Dick’s,consisting of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Flow My Tears,the Policeman Said,and Ubik.All three novels depict the simulacra world with great uncertainty and hidden control,in which the boundary between the real and the unreal is broken,and the protagonists,experiencing ups and downs in hyperreality,encounter a crisis of subjectivity.Based on Jean Baudrillard’s simulacra theory,this thesis,combining with his technical philosophy,media culture theory,and consumer society theory,uses the method of close text reading to analyze the simulacra world in the novels from three perspectives:technology,media,and signs,so as to explore the proposition of “what does it mean to be human” in the postmodern context.Chapter two,chapter three,and chapter four are the main body of this thesis,which correspond to the above three perspectives respectively.The detailed analysis is as follows.Chapter two explores technology and simulacra in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? This chapter examines the encroachment on human subjectivity by the simulacra of bodies and spaces created by technology.The electric animals which are the simulacra of bodies,complete the simulation of human desires,while androids,as simulated bodies,initiate “the crystal revenge”,directly threatening the status of human subjects.Moreover,the hyperreal spaces created by technological products implement “the fatal strategy”,enslaving humans to technology.Chapter three focuses on media and simulacra in Flow My Tears,the Policeman Said.This chapter discusses the insidious control of the media,the simulated machine,on people.On the one hand,the media,through “the implosion of meaning” in the arts and“the implosion of the social in the masses”,lead to the loss of specificity of artworks and change the way the masses perceive reality,thereby erasing the real.On the other hand,the media bring about “the implosion of the real and the hyperreal” by generating the hyperreal image and event,completing the construction of hyperreality.Chapter four analyzes signs and simulacra in Ubik.This chapter discusses the enslavement of the sign Ubik in the hyperreal consumer society and the half-life world.Seduced by the illusory “sign value” of the commodity Ubik,the protagonist in the hyperreal consumer society loses himself in the pursuit of Ubik.In addition,Ubik,the code,constructs the hyperreal half-life world by reflecting,denaturing,masking,and recreating reality.To sum up,in the current context of the technological upheaval,the alternation of the media,and the accumulation of signs,this thesis analyzes Philip Dick’s representative science fiction works from different perspectives by using the highly critical simulacra theory.In this way,the thesis completes an in-depth exploration of the crisis of subjectivity in the simulacra world,expanding the boundaries of the study of science fiction works,and helping human beings to examine themselves and society better.