Due to the constantly shifting and contradicting world which succeeds the presumed death of Runciter, Joe Chip is driven to question whether he is really alive (and by extension what it means to be dead), which culminates in a struggle to reconcile man’s mortality with his will to go on. Receiving mixed signals from the bathroom graffiti which reads “ALL OF YOU ARE DEAD. I AM ALIVE,” and the television ad where Runciter states “Of course, I’m dead,” Joe is left to resolve how these two opposing statements could both possibly exist (129, 135). The only hypothesis that he can propose—which seemingly comes to him by divine inspiration—is that the ad was a mistake and that “Runciter had not died:
They had died” (136). Although he does settle the paradox with this theory, he also makes a certain assumption about his environment: he still holds onto the idea that the reality around him conforms to all principles of logic, even though this does not appear to be the case when examining the actualities within the aforementioned environment. Perhaps like the absurd surroundings, Reason is regressing and losing its grip on the world.
If Joe is to accept his hypothesis as veracious, then he must also suffer its implications. In recognizing himself as dead, Joe tries to endure the pain by splitting himself into two: the body and the soul. Although he confesses that his body may be dead and withered like Wendy’s, he hopes his soul “out of the nest the bird, flown elsewhere” (139). An optimistic yet tragic appeal, while this approach does fall in line with the formerly presented novum of half-life, it still produces the harsh truth that Joe’s present world is an inauthentic ruse. Then, the question I pose is this: Why does Joe continue on if he has already accepted his death? Is it to try and escape his current situation and return back to the familiar? Is he trapped in a deceiving nightmare and forced to proceed? Or is there something else at play?
I agree with your insights on the dichotomy between mortality and death. Joe Chip, obviously finding it difficult to distinguish reality, looks to escape his current situation and return to what he considers familiar. In the passage you mentioned, Chip hopes “to be reborn again” and reconcile with all those who have previously died (139). The conception of rebirth or reincarnation was immediately introduced in the book in the form of Ella who is living in a half-life state. Because of the culture of life after death within the novel, Chip, if he is in fact dead, can in actuality still be living. I think the blurred lines between life and death are PKD’s way of unveiling what really constitutes living. The degradation that half-life causes is a way for Dick to reveal a pessimistic future wherein a person cannot escape from suffering. Moreover, I believe that PKD uses the regression to the 1930s as a means to provide some social commentary. In Chapter 11, Mr. Bliss notes not only that Hitler has some good ideas, but also says if America is going to go into the war, than it should be against the communists. In this respect, Dick cynically portrays the period as no better than the future.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I found interesting about Joe’s experiences in chapters 8-11 in the book are how easily he seems to accept the reality around him. Although he has moments of confusion, these last temporarily, and he seems to navigate the rapidly reverting and deteriorating world with ease. I think this connects with what Joe (Trostl) was saying in his blogpost: Joe (Chip) has somehow split himself into two, and his mind has been separated from his body.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with Brandon’s suggestion that Joe might be living in some sort of half-life, because his stable mental state in light of the incredible decay going on around him suggests that his reality isn’t the same as that of the world prior to the explosion on Luna. The acceptance of his situation would only seem possible if he were distant from the reality in which he were actually deceased or about to die. Given the ability of people in half-life to communicate with those currently living, Joe’s actions seem to be indicative of an attempt to return to that state. Our knowledge of the reality of half-life is very limited, which makes this seem like a plausible explanation. After his interaction with Runciter through the television, Joe says he feels “like an ineffectual moth, fluttering at the windowpane of reality, dimly seeing it from outside” (136). This description of being distant from reality but close enough to observe it perfectly describes our conception of half-life. Joe may be experiencing his own half-life since his experiences seem to fall in between reality and unreality, and we might be witnessing the presentation and clashing of completely different realities in the latter parts of the novel.
Certainly, in these revelatory chapters PKD is trying to tell us something important and not just confuse us (though with that he’s doing a good job). In our studies of the genre we’ve learned that certain elements and events are meant to demonstrate components of our humanity, and the one I found most apparent in these chapters was the ability of man to hope. As Brandon stated, it does seem PKD is attempting to convey that the future is never necessarily better than the past, or vice versa, despite all progress. Joe Chip devolves into this past, which Joe Trostl writes is a death sentence he seemingly accepts, or rather, fails to wholly deny. Chip refers to his prison as “this dying half-world – or whatever it was”, apparently refusing to fully admit this as his fate, allowing for a more hopeful outlook that the decomposition may be reversed if its source remains unclear. Even as he contemplates death by Ubik, he realizes that perhaps he has a chance to reach his colleagues in Des Moines by chartering a flight. In doing this, he can prolong his life, and perhaps even stall the decay in the case that a possibly alive Runciter may be able to somehow repair the situation. Indeed, while Chip may be intellectually recognizing the decay and his inevitable “death”, that irrational, emotionally driven aspect of him seeks to survive, and thus hope, if only to stave off nonexistence a bit longer. He may be trapped, but he is most certainly trying to make his way back to a familiar time and familiar forms, having not quite accepted any bleak fate.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Andreas and Brandon’s suggestion that Joe might be in half-life, although I wouldn’t claim that Joe is certain he is dead. There are several times throughout chapters 9-11 when Joe says that he’s dead, but there are many times when he acknowledges that perhaps Runciter is just playing cruel mind games. For example, when Chip watches Runciter’s commercial and asks if he’s dead, Runciter says, “Of course I’m dead. Didn’t you watch the telecast from Des Moines just now?” (135). This not only suggests that Joe and the others are, in fact, alive, but this completely contradicts the graffiti message on the bathroom wall. In addition, at one point in the story, Joe even thinks, “One has to pay attention to such admonitions (referring to the Ubik ad), if one expects to stay alive—or half-life” (137). Again, this shows how uncertain Joe is about the true nature of his reality.
ReplyDeleteOn a completely different note, I was very interested during the scenes of some of the decay. It is noted that when Joe returns to his apartment, just about everything (expect for that stubborn front door) decays into its old counterpart. What’s interesting about this is that they seem to be improvements because they don’t require a payment for use. Likewise, Joe has much satisfaction when driving the ’39 LaSalle—in his eyes, another improvement. Even his wallet improves through decay, for it transforms from plastic to cowhide leather. Perhaps PKD is presenting us with these ‘improvements’ through regression as a criticism of the belief that the latest is the greatest. Perhaps he’s suggesting that sometimes, the old-fashion way is better than its newer counterpart.
I think the one scene that I found the most interesting in these chapters, and am glad that Joe brings attention to is Joe Chip's struggle with coming to terms with his own death by trying to make sense of the theory of the soul. Joe Chip comes to realize what it means to grow old, as he sees it as because of the fact that there is no further form for him to grow into, these stages get replaced by "degeneration and senility" (139). He feels for the first time the condition of slowly aging to one's own death, but at much faster rate in his case. I find his discussion about the separation of soul and body to be an interesting issue within this novel. One aspect that I do not think we ever discussed was whether the soul is what is kept within the dead bodies of the people in the half-life state. We can see that Joe does hope that the existence of the soul is true so that when he does die he can live forever with all his friends that are also passing away after the explosion on Luna. To me things brings into question of whether it is fair for people to be placed in half-life if it means their souls are forced to remain within their bodies instead of escaping into the land "where a boy and his bear will always be playing" (139)?
ReplyDeleteAs I mentioned in a previous comment, I really like the absurd notion of time that PKD plays with. As the story has developed in chapters 9-11, it now seems that time is moving in at least 2 or 3 different directions. In some instances, time is moving forward very rapidly. Al and Wendy both report feeling inexplicably old, prior to dying from severe decay. When Joe Chip describes their deaths to the others in Des Moines, he even says that they “wore out.” In other instances, much more notably in the last chapter or two, time moves backwards. In seconds, everything around Joe Chip reverts back to its form from twenty years in the past. This happens repeatedly, taking the group all the way back to the equivalent of the early 1900s. Lastly, we can even say that time seems to be moving sideways as well, if that makes any sense. There are two parallel scenarios introduced to the reader. The first is that the members of the group are all dead, and Runciter is alive, trying to contact them in their half-life states. The other is that Runciter is really dead, and all the chaos happening around them originated with the explosion of the bomb for some unknown reason. While only one of these can be true, we are not sure which one it is, so PKD makes the reader question everything that happens after the Luna mission. Either way, there are two separate worlds at play: that of Runciter and that of his associates.
ReplyDeleteWe talked about how, in PKD's writing, we experience moments during which the author "pulls the rug out from under us". In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, there were times when Deckard was unsure of himself and the role he played. He questioned his humanity, and was definitely surprised to find the alternate police department that claimed to know nothing of the Deckard’s own department. In Ubik, Joe Chip is suddenly unsure of whether or not he is dead or alive, or half-alive. "Runciter had not died: They had died, as the graffiti on the men's-room wall had said, and Runciter still lived.” (136). Chip starts to form different conclusions based on the strange clues he’s been given. The idea that perhaps the team of inertials, and not, as expected, Runciter had been killed in the bomb blast is a complete overturn of what we’ve come to believe is reality in this novel. There are, of course, several other possibilities that Chip begins to consider, but each one is as strange as the next. It’s interesting to see how Chip responds to his changing surroundings. As the environment around him and the machines he uses revert into older versions of themselves, Chip has to get creative in order to make it to Des Moines. He believes that once there he will be able to stave off the reversion process. We have yet to see how successful that will be, but Chip’s determination, perhaps best seen in the way he fights to survive despite the peculiarity of this new reality, must be noted.
ReplyDeleteI thought that I could add a little insight to this conversation about half-life now that we have finished the book. I very much like this final part of the book because it slowly builds up an understanding of the situation Joe Chip is in, something that was entirely lost in the last reading, only to try and pull the rug out from under us again. This is mostly done in chapter 17. First of all the epigraph here shows Ubik as something more than just a product. The repetition of ‘I am’ as well as the phrase ‘I am the word’ feel like strong religious allusions. In this way, Ubik’s power is on the scope that it cannot be comprehended by mortal men. I think that Joe Chip’s line in chapter 16, “To say negative ions is redundant. All ions are negative.” (pg. 795) possibly alludes to the fact that the people who ‘invented’ Ubik don’t actually understand how it works.
ReplyDeleteAt the same time, Glen Runciter’s circumstances at the end of the novel seem to indicate that he is in half-life as well. We find out that the moratorium owner has disappeared and that Joe Chip’s face has ended up on three of Runciter’s coins. To put it another way, it’s apparent Glen Runciter’s reality is being influenced by Joe Chip. While we were inititally led to believe that this ability was the sole priviledge of Runciter, the fact that Joe Chip can also do it implies that the ability is a result of them both being in half-life. Even though the final lines of the book are “This was just the beginning,” (pg. 798) it feels like it is really the middle of a loop whose beginning and end are uncertain. What is half-life? Can we assume that the world at the beginning of the story is real, or is it that half-life as well? Why do we distinguish between half-life and real-life when it feels so real at times we ‘mistake’ it for reality?
Even if he is dead, Joe is clearly conscious. We could just as well all be dead right now--I'm sure that's probably come up in some PKD story--and we would have no way of knowing. Joe exists in some regard, and that is why he continues on. Besides, he does not know whether his hypothesis is valid, and he feels that the decay is threatening whatever existence he currently has. My guess is that he is in half life because we see later that Jorie is able to infiltrate their minds as we see later in the novel. If this is half-life, then half-life is a frightening experience. I wonder whether it is preferable to death. In this half-life, one simply runs away, terrified. Life is not embraced, it is threatened.
ReplyDeleteThe other thought which I had was whether they all may have been in half-life from the beginning. The two pieces of evidence which I feel support are: 1. at the beginning, all the inertials claim to have had a dream about two psi called Matt and Bill; at the end of the novel, Jorie calls himself Matt and Bill. Perhaps Jorie caused these dreams and was able to do so because the characters were in half life all along. 2. It seems odd that no one had ever heard of an inertial with the talent which Pat has before. If the characters were in half life, then it would be possible that Pat was not actually real.
I love how so many comments are addressing reality since I think this is what Science Fiction articulates so well. We never get a solid answer to what the reality of Ubik is in the end. Yet, we are, in a way, told something real about humanity through the lack of objective reality in the novel.
ReplyDeletePKD faces us with the reality of the human subjective experience; we constantly question what we perceive, even if we know it to be "true." We perceive this world as real. Yet, before you wake up from a dream, it often seems real. How could we distinguish this? I absolutely agree that the differentiation between half-life and real-life may not be so valid. They are both real; the characters have just as real an experience in one as they do in the other. The simulation has become real.
I can't help but think about The Matrix when discussing reality, and I think that the entire trilogy provides an excellent commentary on how humans perceive what is real and the value that we can gain from what is technically "not real." What is "not real" can have just as much importance as what is "real." In this sense, they are both real. Human experience defines our reality; there is no completely objective reality, only our subjective perception of it.
It's been an awesome trimester, and I will be happy to debate the validity of the Matrix sequels to any non-believers out there.
I would have to say that after finishing Ubik, it is interesting to consider how 'alive' the people in half-life really are. In the beginning, we had assumed that the lives the people who were living in half-life was one in which their mind was left wandering in an empty void. However, we can see that, after seeing half-life through the eyes of Joe Chip, living in half-life is more than spending time in a empty void. We saw that what happened to Joe in his half-life state was as real to him as the actual life he had when he was alive. This brings into question of what defines a real life, because from the way Ubik presents it, both the lives of the people who are alive is just as real as the ones lives by the people in half-life.
ReplyDeleteOne scene that really spoke to me was in Chapter 11, when Joe Chip was being driven to the funeral by Mr. Bliss. As he comes to grips with his jumps in time, he wonders whether he could live at this time period. His outlook is, at first, cautiously positive: he notes the relatively low price of cars and "That LaSalle I had...was a considerable piece of machinery; I felt real satisfaction driving it." (157) But soon, he realizes the issues of this time period. The fields of medicine and dentistry were severely lacking at the time, and easily cured diseases in the future could be lethal now. But most of all was the mindset: when Chip mentions World War II as well as Germany and Russia, Mr. Bliss goes off on a horribly anti-Semitic tirade. His closing statement is most indicative of the underlying xenophobia of the time: "We have a similar problem here in the United States, both with Jews and with the niggers. Eventually we're going to have to do something about both." (157) Clearly, Philip K. Dick uses Joe Chip to show how people's nostalgic view of the past is colored by confirmation bias, the mental phenomenon where people remember only what reinforces their ideas. By critically thinking about the past, Joe Chip comes to realize that maybe the past was not as simple as he thought it was. Dick encourages the readers to do the same and realize that maybe the present is not too bad either.
ReplyDeleteAlso, John, fight me. The Matrix sequels were poorly written, poorly executed films. How are they valid?
ReplyDelete