While reading The Father-Thing, written by Philip K. Dick, I could not help but think back to ETA Hoffman’s story, The Sandman. These two stories both deal with the theme and struggle of “what is a human being, as opposed to any other kind of being?” Or, in other words, what makes humans, humans? However, Dick digs into this theme a little deeper by including a second theme of “what is reality?” When these two themes are combined, the reader then starts to ask, “What is the reality of a human being?”
Dick brilliantly allows the reader to enter into a whole different world that seems so familiar to us yet it makes us uncomfortable. This is made possible through the familiar aspects of life as well as through his technique of building layers throughout the story while he struggles and deals with ideas and concepts that humans deal with on a daily basis. One of the concepts he tackles is the concept of individualism. He threatens this notion with the doppelganger qualities of this “father-figure.” Also as a reader, what captivated me was the fact that little Charles and the other children were all knowing of the situations that were occurring. They had a sense of belief that helps the reader start to believe there reality as well. I think this is possible because with science-fiction, it creates a dimension, or a world, with it’s own set of rules about reality. Thus, this connects sci-fi to the supernatural.
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