Representation of Men in Literature - Book Report/Review Example

A study on representation of men in "Rebecca" and "Do androids dream of electric sheep" In "Do androids dream of electric sheep" Rick Deckard , an android bounty hunter has just finished neutralizing three "andys" ( Androids) and he has to make a final charge to finish three more. These are the advanced kind of androids which are more human in nature. It also has to be done the same day because these three androids have already been warned and could soon be on the run. Finishing of three andy's in a day is a remarkable . Finishing of six would be very difficult and had rarely been done before. And Finishing of six of the advanced kind would border on the impossible. At this time he calls on Rachael Rosen who actually happens to be an android and who has actually offered her help as a favor because earlier he had let her go even after knowing that she was an android. This call was significant in another way as well. Earlier in the day Rick had found out that though he killed Androids, he actually had empathy for them and more so for female Androids. After terminating a female opera singer Luba Luft Android , he wondered how the world had benefited by him terminating her and depriving it from her quite considerable talents. In his conversations with a fellow bounty hunter Phil Resch ,who actually was working with some of his own inner conflicts, they talked about how intimate relationships with Androids though illegal was not uncommon and indeed you could have sex with an android then kill her. And that brings us back to this call Rick had made to Rachael. Indeed he did need her help to kill these other three androids but there was more to it, he actually wanted to check out the depth of his empathy towards androids. They met in a hotel room, and after some initial resistance on Rick's part ( he was married and he killed Androids for a living after all) they did have sex. The interesting part was what followed. There was no question Rick developed feelings for her. Let her alone kill her, he thought he could even develop a relationship with someone who looked just like her. Now when a man and a woman have sex , that is the closest they can be to each other and indeed once that happens there is a deep emotional bond which develops between them and clearly there are feelings for each other. But this is not supposed to happen between machines and human beings. The compartment which Rick had created broke down between Androids and Human beings broke down. In the first page of the first chapter of the book he says that he is not a murderer, he just neutralizes rogue machines. But now he is not so sure and he wants to end doing this kind of work. The remaining three Androids are neutralized, but we do get a chance to go into Rick's self discovery along with another Character in the book Mercer. Mercer is portrayed as a messiah, Though Mercer is very clear what he is And indeed he states it very clearly , he does not bring salvation. When Rick asks him whether as some people say, he is a fraud The reply is yes, but the truth of the matter is, he brings reality and being true to oneself and he asks Rick to continue to do what he does , even though it is wrong because somebody has to do it. In Rebecca, Maxim de Winter is another character you don't know whether you want to call him good or bad. As the book starts you see a person who is just suffered a tragic loss, but later it turns out that he actually killed her, but then you find out that Rebecca actually is an evil person. But again as the theme runs through both books, there is nothing in black and white. There is no person who is completely good or completely bad. Actually it is not that even various shades of gray define who they are but more the various perspectives we get of who they are. Maxim De winter was a deeply jealous person, he was jealous of his wife Rebecca's relation with Jack Crawley. Jack Favell is one character who does not seem to have much redemptive qualities about him , perhaps like Polyakov in "Android" but it is perhaps because they just were not explored that much. Even Detective Garland who was killed in "Android" was portrayed in some ways in a more humane way. When you hear the story of Garland and Luba, is it that different from story of any immigrant, they just wanted to come and fit in. They did not want special favors, they were willing to work hard and give all their talents, but they were not wanted just because of who they were (or are). No question , law had to be followed , but let there be no doubt , just like slavery was legal not a long time back, what is wrong is wrong. And as long as Human beings have a conscience, it will always show and in many ways that shows our humanity. The difference between perception and reality is also a common theme which runs through both the books. It seems that Maxim de Winter still loved his first wife , whereas he actually he hated her and actually killed her. Bounty hunters were perceived as some evil monsters who killed all androids, but that was not very near to the truth. The emotional landscape was more complex. In an episode in Rebecca Maxim confesses the truth to the second Mrs. de Winter about how the willful and adulterous Rebecca taunted him with a series of love affairs. She claimed to be pregnant by another man and threatened to burden Maxim with the responsibility of raising the child. Maxim, truly hating her, shot her and disposed of her body on her boat, which he sank at sea. The narrator, rather than being frightened by the revelation that her husband is capable of murder, is instead relieved to hear that Maxim did not love Rebecca. Indeed this perhaps tells us something profound about relationships. A man if he loves a woman , has all his sins forgiven by her. Then there is the Role of a Man taking his rightful in any realtionship. That of taking care of his woman . The Episode when John Isidore in " Android" tries to take care of Pris. It does seem a tad bit pathetic , here is a man on the borderline of human intelligence who is derogatorily called a "chickenhead" wants to take care of this woman who he somehow considers his responsibility. That again reveals something about what being a human means. And indeed what being a man meant. There are no stereotypes here. Man and Woman came into this world with very defined roles and it is not for anybody to change those roles. Indeed Interaction between Rick and Iran , his wife was another indication of an age old truth , while every man wanted to be loved by his woman , nobody ever wanted to face her wrath. Rick wisely backed away from an argument in the first chapter of " Android" it was an argument which he could not win. Phil Resch was a character in "Android" who perhaps asked the clearest questions on the ambiguity facing the bounty hunters. The difference between the hunter and the hunted , the androids and human . Surely , Phil reasoned , androids could not love animals, he loved animals so he could not be an android. But interestingly enough , it was his resignation to death which seemed Android like. Android's did not seem so attached to life. When Rick said that he wanted to kill Rachael , after a very brief amount of pleading , she only asked him to make it as painless as possible. As it turns out Phil was not an android and as it turns out further that Rick actually has more questions to worry about than Phil. Though curiously one wonders , if Phil was not an Android , why did he not credit for the Garland and Luba Kills. Of Course "Android" presents a lot more profound issues to even cater to such nitpicking In Rebecca , there seems to be an attempt to justify Maxim's murder of Rebecca .It is revealed that she had an appointment shortly before her death, presumably with a doctor to confirm her pregnancy. When the doctor is found he reveals instead that Rebecca had been suffering from cancer and would have died within a few months. Moreover she could never have become pregnant. The implication is that, knowing she was going to die, Rebecca lied to Maxim that she had been impregnated by another man, because she wanted Maxim to kill her thus her death could indeed be considered a form of suicide.1 As a reader of both the books , one is left with a sense that such justification is unacceptable. Rebecca's murder was as unacceptable even if she was going to die in a few months as Luba's because she had two years to live anyway. The description of the main characters in both the books merits some attention. In the narrator's words ( The new Mrs. Winter) His face was arresting, sensitive, medieval in some strange inexplicable way... Could one but rob him of his English tweeds, and put him in black, with lace at his throat and wrists, he would stare down at us in our new world from a long distant past--a past where men walked cloaked at night, and stood in the shadow of old doorways, a past of narrow stairways and dim dungeons, a past of whispers in the dark, of shimmering rapier blades, of silent, exquisite courtesy2. There was nothing remotely that foreboding about Rick. After getting yelled at by his wife in the Morning , he tries to make a deal to buy his neighbor's colt's impending offspring on monthly installments. When Maxim De Winters get's his new bride home , there is a new set of dynamics which come into play. While preparing to view home movies of their honeymoon together, a boorish Mr. de Winter asks why his wife has changed both her dress and hair style. His wife's sense of identity is built upon pleasing others, and she attempts to dress in the sophisticated English style of the previous Mrs. de Winter. When Fritz the butler disturbs their conversation, he announces that Mrs. Danvers has accused one of the staff of stealing a china ornament. Mrs. de Winter takes the blame and admits, to her embarrassment, that she carelessly broke the expensive china cupid in the morning room, but was so fearful of the consequences with the servants that she hid the broken pieces in the back of a desk drawer. Maxim is too preoccupied or insensitive to realize that his wife is painfully lonely, insecure and sincerely fearful. Always feeling uneasy and intimidated with her new life, she tries to make him understand, how inadequate she feels with everyone. She is always feeling dominated and compared to the overwhelming presence of the memory of Rebecca, and forever suffering hostile indignities from Mrs. Danvers. Maxim suddenly feels selfish for marrying her at such a young age. There is an amount of self discovery which happens in both Rick in Android and in Maxim in Rebecca. The issues they were facing were not external but within themselves to a large extent. There are other male characters in both the books like Frank Crawley who was a loyal overseer and was a friend to the new Mrs. Winter. Ben , a slightly retarded person who lives on the beaches . It would perhaps be intuitive to contrast him to John Isidore of "Android . And indeed both of them despite their disabilities do play a role of importance. There is one more character who plays a small role in " Android" and that is that of Bill Barbour , who is the neighbor in the Deckards' apartment building who is wealthy enough to own a real live horse. Deckard and Barbour's interaction is mainly one of competition and provides an interesting commentary on interpersonal relations in their society. When Barbour reveals his horse is pregnant, Deckard asks if he can buy the colt from him on installments. Barbour refuses, Then Deckard's desperation leads him to reveal that his sheep is a fake. Barbour can afford to feel sorry for Deckard. It is interesting the relationship between haves and have nots does not change. It could be dollars and it could be live animals which are the rare resource during that period. Roy Baty is one of the interesting characters in "Android" and there are many reasons for that. One of the Androids refers to him as their spiritual leader , which might seem peculiar. How does a pharmacist Android , become a leader , let alone a spiritual leader. There were a lot of preconceptions about Androids. They were not supposed to take care of their own, but here Roy found out where Pris stayed and came to help her. Also Roy disapproved of lot of Pris's immature behavior like how she treated John or cutting of the Spider legs. This also was essential in pointing out that Androids were not one monolithic type of creatures . They were as different from each other as people were. Roy was the leader of this group and just like a leader he took responsibility of them. Both of these books presented a rich variety of characters. And they bought these novels to life in many ways. But what stood out for a reader who read both these novels the was that while there on the surface seemed nothing in common between a novel which was from the past and dark and gothic in nature and a novel which was about the future apart from the fact that both had somewhat a dark plotline was that both were books which caused you to think , it was impossible to both of these books away without analyzing the complexities of human relationships and emotions but even while going through the books one has to ask oneself a lot of questions . Especially in " Android" it was not possible to put the book aside without questioning oneself , as to where we put ourselves. I think the concepts of good , evil , hate and love would need some re thinking in the reader's minds. But let there be no doubt these are not abstract concepts, and they are not at all relative. There is something which is bad , something which is wrong and will remain so , regardless of what the law or the society at that time says. Same is true for what is good. I think the words of Philip K Dick. " Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, does not go away" , will hold true now and always. Read More