“Most androids I’ve known have more vitality and desire to live than my wife.” (Dick 88)
In this sentence, Decker compares the condition of the androids he hunts to the condition his wife is in at home. This comparison highlights one of the main ideas of the novel, that the human experience has degraded at the hands of technological advancement. Within this sentence exists the dichotomy between the human and the android. The term “android” comes from the Greek andros, meaning “man,” and the suffix -oid, which denotes that what is being described is only an image, a lesser copy, of something else. In this case, an “android” is a lesser image of man. This then ties into just how degraded human life has become in the novel’s 2021, as machines designated to be lesser forms of man end up living in a more human way than the actual humans do. The androids are said to have more “vitality” and “desire to live” than Decker’s wife, who spends her days indoors dialing in artificial emotions just to feel something. While humans in the novel have had their lives made simpler by technology in many ways, many aspects of “natural” life have been ceded to the androids. Humans live in mostly artificial environments, with electronic animals and emotions, while androids seem to live in a way more in tune with classic ideas on nature, running on pure self preservation and survival instincts. The androids struggle to maintain vitality in a dangerous world, which gives them a greater idea of worth in their lives. The android Polokov fights honorably to the death to preserve its life, showing greater value of existence than the various humans shown throughout the novel. In this world, technology itself experiences life more passionately than the humans who have created it. The world of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is one where the world and life itself is becoming fit solely for man’s machines rather than man.