Simulation and Hyperreality in a Scanner Darkly

Abstract

Philip K. Dick’s novels focus on question of reality and the construction of personal identity. In one of his novels, A Scanner Darkly, Dick creates the world which is saturated with information and technology and this world, people seek for reality through information and technology, whereas the distinction between reality and fake has been disappeared and the personal identity is disintegrated. In this novel, the main focus is on how the characters experience the hyperreal world, as well as the effect of hyperreal conditions on the development of their identities. The philosophical guide for the purpose of this research is Baudrillard who argues that hyperreal world offers fake as real. It also affects us all in a way that we become increasingly lost in its mesh of simulations. Hence, this paper demonstrates how identity is challenged in techno-consumer society in A Scanner Darkly.