Comparing Empathy in Blade Runner and Slaughterhouse-Five...

Empathy in Blade Runner (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep)and Slaughterhouse-Five What does it mean to be human? This is a question that is often asked in literary works. Is it our intelligence that separates us from being like any other animal on this planet or is it something else? Perhaps it is our ability to feel empathy for other humans and other forms of life. If this is so, then how is it that we also have violence and wars where humans hurt and kill other humans? How is it that humans can hurt animals without a second thought, if its our ability to feel empathy that separates us from them? Both Philip K. Dick and Kurt Vonnegut explore these questions in their novels Blade Runner (Do Androids Dream†¦show more content†¦Everyone is a follower of Mercerism, which encourages people to feel empathy for others and for animals. In this manner, everyone on Earth survives without feeling that he or she is alone. The main character of Blade Runner is Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter for the Los Angeles police department. Several androids had killed their owners on Mars and had escaped to Earth. The first bounty hunter that went after them managed to retire two before being put in the hospital himself. It was up to Deckard to destroy the remaining six. Unfortunately, the androids who escaped were the new Nexus-6 types, which looked and acted exactly like real humans. They were even more intelligent than most humans. The only way to tell them apart from real humans is by measuring the amount of empathy they can feel, which isnt as great as humans. While hunting these rouge androids, Deckards whole perception of what it is to be human gets questioned and he begins to wonder if there is that much difference between a human and an android. Slaughterhouse-Five, is based on the authors real life experiences in World War II. In fact, chapter one of the book is all about how Vonnegut is going about writing this novel. The main character of this book, though, is a civilian named Billy Pilgrim, who through unfortunate circumstances ends up on the enemy side of the line during the war. He