Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Motivation and Emotion in Dr. Bloodmoney
Although science fiction, historically, has tended to gloss over character depth in favor of other issues, we do get a glimpse of many characters' inner thoughts in a novel such as Dr. Bloodmoney. Who is motivated by fear? Disgust? Anger? Which characters did you find to be psychologically interesting thanks to the account the novel gives of their emotional states? Or did they all seem pretty flat and thinly sketched-out?
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4 comments:
I definitely do not think the characters are thinly sketched, but instead I found many of them, such as Hoppy, Mr. Gill, Walt, Mr. Tree, and Stuart to be very interesting people. Hoppy seemed to be motivated by fear after the disaster. He did not mind killing those who he saw threatening to his establishment or life, such as Mr. Tree, when his identity was revealed. He showed this side of fear too when Stuart comes to West Marin, as he remembers his past and questions why Stuart is in the area.
But I am confused as to why Hoppy changes from happy-go-lucky to vindictive. I went from liking his character to despising it, and really wished someone had killed him before Bill did.
I agree with anna's comment. In the beginning of the book I like Hoppy's character, for once it as good to see someone giving a "Phoce" a chance. But towards the middle of the book he starts to become mean and as anna say vindictive. I feel as though Hoppy believes that the world owes him something.
I think that Hoppy is a bit more understandable than one who is simply acting out of fear. His ability to quote the relevant laws concerning what the government owes him due to his condition indicates that he has an intense interest in some form of social justice. He has been completely defined by his stigma. Even the government has made allowances for his condition and that seems to be his primary focus. Then he is placed in the morally ambiguous position of all society being violently ripped from its moral anchorage. He develops a plan that maximizes his own skills, albeit at the expense of others, especially the guy in the satellite. I think that PKD is warning us that if we back somebody into a corner by only focusing on one aspect of their character we must expect them to act appropriately. This is also perhaps illustrated by Bluthgeld's characterization only by the one mistake he made. Most people don't want to look beyond that first mistake in '72 and so we get a man who defines himself in reference to that one thing and ends up having a psychotic break because of it. The results of his psychotic break are arguable, but I would say there is room to argue that he is solely responsible for the nuclear war, and certainly almost responsible for another.
I can't say that the characters in the novel are fully developed. I think that the pressure that Dick must have felt to get the novel written shows up in the lack of depth and/or complexity of the characters. As a reader, I found my self asking why the characters do what they do. It seems that to a large degree, Dick relies on common negative stereotypical perceptions of character. I mean, are there any likable human characters in the book? Further, it seems that he has characters do things to attempt to make the story interesting in a novel way rather than because of their personality. However, I can say that having the novel twists in the plot and characters was a plus in reading. I found myself interested by the unique/creative scenes and scenarios that characters encounter. Like I mentioned in class, reading the novel is like watching oil spread across water. It’s interesting to watch the ripples as they spread and distort in captivating ways but the awareness that there is great deal of depth not examined is always apparent.
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