Shattered Realities: a Baudrillardian Reading of Philip K. Dick's Ubik

Shattered Realities: A Baudrillardian Reading of Philip K. Dick‟s Ubik [PP: 107-116] Hoda Shabrang Department of English Language and Literature, Khatam University Tehran, Iran Yasamin Hemmat (Corresponding Author) Department of English Language and Literature, Khatam University Tehran, Iran ABSTRACT Ubik by Philip K. Dick shows a hyperreal society in which everything is simulated and virtual and even the demarcation between life and death is indistinct. Therefore, the world of Ubik depicts the violation of the ontological boundary. Characters in this novel live in a simulated and virtual life of the half-life which is the symbol of the ordinary situation of people in the actual life since media and proliferation of signs and information construct a new media reality which is even more real than real or “hyperreal”. Although characters are in search of reality and a transcendental signified in order to maintain their identity, they are unable to achieve what they are searching for and they do not know whether they are undergoing the real or a simulation. Thus, they crave to fix the reality and their identities through the marketplace. Consequently, they purchase a product named Ubik which is a reality support, but the effect of this product is very transient; therefore, they have to keep buying it. The philosophical guide for the purpose of looking into Dick‟s novel is Jean Baudrillard‟s concepts of simulation, simulacra and hyperreality. The objective of this paper is to examine the commodified and simulated world of Ubik based on Baudrillard‟s theories to show that in the techno-capitalist world there is no objective truth since everything is reduced to signs and images and subject is dominated by the object; therefore, subjectivity is disappearing. Hence, in Ubik, it would be demonstrated that technology, proliferation of information and capitalism lead to disruption of all boundaries and generate the society of simulated realities. Keywords: Simulation, Hyperreality, Consumerism, Technology, Transcendental signified ARTICLE The paper received on Reviewed on Accepted after revisions on INFO 16/05/2019 25/06/2019 07/07/2019 Suggested citation: Shabrang, H. & Hemmat, Y. (2019). Shattered Realities: A Baudrillardian Reading of Philip K. Dick‟s Ubik. International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies. 7(2). 107-116.

1. Introduction way to confirm whether it is truly there. This Philip Kindred Dick (1928-1982) is an question from his early studies persisted as a American novelist, short story writer and theme in many of his novels such as Ubik. essayist whose published works are entirely One of the reasons for choosing in the science fiction genre. Dick explores Dick‟s novels is that they are open to sociological, political and metaphysical different interpretations. Accordingly, themes in his novels dominated by Dick‟s works have been scrutinized from authoritarian governments. In his later different viewpoints, for example, in Politics works, Dick's thematic focus strongly and Metaphysics in Three Novels of Philip reflected his personal interest in metaphysics Dick by Eugênia Barthelmess examines and theology. He often draws upon his own Ubik through metaphysical perspective. This life experiences in addressing the nature of work also investigates existential anguish drug abuse, paranoia, schizophrenia, and and economic satire as a method of transcendental experiences. Through his representation of the complex contingencies studies in philosophy, Dick believes that of the human situation. Additionally, Worlds existence is based on internal human and selves falling apart by Mag Markus perception, which does not necessarily Widmer discusses the science fictions of correspond to external reality. After reading Philip K. Dick Such as Ubik against the the works of Plato and pondering the background of postmodernism. She possibilities of metaphysical realms, Dick examines the ontological experiments and comes to conclusion that, in a certain sense, compares them to the reality of postmodern the world is not entirely real and there is no culture. In addition, Christopher Palmer in

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Philip K. Dick: Exhilaration and Terror of overwhelmed by commodities which are the Postmodern, studies the fictions of Philip even more alive than human beings. K. Dick and their relationship to Baudrillard (2009) proclaims “the postmodernism. In this context it scrutinizes disappearance of the subject is the mirror several tensions in Dick's work; especially image of disappearance of the real. And in those between novelistic realism and Dick's fact the subject_ the subject as agency of desire towards fantasy and between the will, of freedom, of representation; the isolated individual and the social or subject of power, of knowledge, of history_ transcend entities that dominate Dick's is disappearing, but it leaves its ghost fictional worlds, between the political and behind” (p. 26-27). Therefore, this novel the theological inferences of Dick's science shows a postmodern society where in the fictions, and, above all, between Dick's world of the objects, the subject is humanist and ethical desires and the disappearing. posthumanist conditions in his novels that In Ubik, characters are searching for unavoidably threaten them. Furthermore, in objective reality but they are unable to find a How We Became Posthuman, N. Katherine definite answer to what reality is since in a Hayles separates hype from fact, world where the lines between nature, investigating the outcome of embodiment in technology, life and death are blurred, it is an information age. Hayles relates three impossible for one to ascertain the intertwined stories: how information lost its difference between reality and illusion. body, that is, how it came to be Christopher Palmer (2003) declares that conceptualized as an entity separate from the “Dick makes fictions of the disintegrations material forms that carry it; the cultural and of the real in contemporary society: the technological construction of the cyborg; action of perpetual change both on what and the dismantling of the liberal humanist previously existed, and on what is existing "subject" in cybernetic discourse, along with now but has no stable reality because it is the emergence of the "posthuman." already marked by its inevitable dissolution” Moreover, Mark Poster in Information (p. 32). This indicates that even in the world Please: Culture and Politics in the Age of we live in, reality can be questioned. Digital Machines, theorizing the social and Ubik also shows that in capitalist cultural effects of electronically mediated world, everything becomes commodified. information. In his book, Poster shows a “Ubik”, a spray can, becomes the symbol of new relation of humans to information all commodities on the market. Most machines, a relation that avoids privileging important thing in the novel is the endless either the human or the machine but instead bombardment of advertisement through the focuses on the structures of their television and radio. Throughout the novel, interactions. One of the chapters of this book each chapter is started by an advertisement is allotted to Ubik which is shown the for a multiplicity of products all called Ubik, dominance of broadcast media in consumer an instant coffee, a brand of beer, an culture. Brian Aldis (1979) in This World antiperspirant and other numerous product. and Nearer Ones asserts that, Dickian Therefore, it becomes the sign of all characters find themselves trapped in merchandises on the market. As stated by hallucinations or fake worlds, often without Baudrillard (1994), “today what we are knowing it or, if knowing it, without being experiencing is the absorption of all virtual able to do anything about it. And it is not modes of expression into that of advertising” only worlds that are fake, but also objects, (p. 87). Thus, this novel shows how subjects animals, people may also be unreal in are dominated by the system of objects; “the various ways. As Warrick (1983) states, for subject faces a world of objects which Philip K. Dick, “the clear line between attract, fascinate and sometimes control his hallucination and reality has itself become a or her perception, thought and behavior” kind of hallucination” (p. 205). Ubik by (Kellner, 1989, p. 8). Philip Dick is such a novel that concerns Ubik describes a condition where with the idea of reality against illusion. psionic powers - such as precognition and Throughout the novel, question about what prognostication - invade privacy. Glen is real and what is illusion engrosses the Runciter runs a company consists of characters. Like so many of Dick‟s novels, “inertials"_ individuals who can counteract Ubik focuses on the reality problem. Neither psionic powers. He takes a group of ten the characters nor the audiences are able to inertials to Luna; there, he is drastically find out any final comprehensive meaning. injured in an explosion. After the explosion, The world of Ubik is completely they find out they have been entered a world

Cite this article as: Shabrang, H. & Hemmat, Y. (2019). Shattered Realities: A Baudrillardian Reading of Philip K. Dick‟s Ubik. International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies. 7(2). 107-116. Page | 108

Shattered Realities: A Baudrillardian Reading of Philip K. Dick‟s Ubik … Hoda Shabrang & Yasamin Hemmat

which is being regressed. The surviving representation but also carries the sense of a inertials experience a series of strange counterfeit, sham or fake. Simulacrum events: things such as food and cigarettes go seems to have referents (real phenomena stale, and machines transform into earlier they refer to), but they are merely pretend models. Some of the inertials die and their representations that mark the absence, not bodies quickly decay. The regression of their the existence, of the objects they purport to environment from 1992 to 1939 is the fault represent” (p. 1730). Baudrillard has of Jory, a teenage boy who feeds on the life established theory of media effects and of the others, causing them to decay. So in culture around his own notion of the this paper, we want to correlate the simulacrum. He argues that “in a Baudrillard‟s ideas to the work of Ubik by postmodern culture dominated by TV, films, Philip K. Dick to indicate the slippery nature news media, and the internet, the whole idea of the reality in the world of the novel. of a true or a false copy of something has 2. Approach and Methodology been destroyed: all we have now are In this research, Ubik by Philip Dick simulations of reality, which aren't any more is to scrutinize under the light of Jean or less "real" than the reality they simulate” Baudrillard‟s perspective. Baudrillard‟s (Baudrillard, 1994, p. 22). Baudrillard‟s philosophy focusing on the two concepts of posits that the media images do not merely hyperreality and simulation. These concepts represent reality; they are reality, because refer to the unreal nature of the their meaning generates from their position contemporary society in the era of mass within a system of signs, not from some communication and mass consumption. It is referents in a real world outside that system. demonstrated that how characters affect by According to Baudrillard, there are hyperreal world in their everyday lives. three levels of simulation: “the first one is Baudrillard is a postmodern the copy of reality. The second one is a copy philosopher who has written philosophical so good that it blurs the boundaries between treaties called Simulacra and Simulation, reality and representation. The third is one which is the best known for discussion of which produces a reality of its own without images and sings. Baudrillard (1994) claims being based upon any particular bit of the that “society has replaced all realities and real world. The best example is virtual meanings with symbols and signs” (p. 3). reality” (Lane, 2008, p. 30). It may be Human experience is more a simulation of relevant to associate this to the levels of the reality than the reality itself. He believes simulation established by Jean Baudrillard that society has become dependent on (1994), in his book, Simulacra and simulation, and it has lost its contact with Simulation, relates the postmodern era with the real world” (p. 6). Simulacra have been the third order of simulacrum where the replaced by original and the distinction simulation precedes the original, breaking between reality and representation of reality down the distinction between representation has broken down. Baudrillard names this and reality (p. 8). Simulation never situation hyperrelity in which the distinction represents its reality but only the codes, between copies and original is impossible signs and images (p. 25). Baudrillard (1994) and everything in society appears as a copy. claims that the present age of simulation is He argues that postmodern culture has characterized by the “liquidation of all become a culture of hyperreality, where refrentials” and the substitution of “signs of “real” has been replaced with the the real for the real” itself. He conjectures “hyperreal”. The hyperreal world is that the sign and the real are “equivalent”. dominated by the object, and “instead of the So the sign can be “exchanged” for human subject being in the world, it is now meaning. the object that is in the world, while the Baudrillard also discusses the idea of human subject has become an idle spectator” God‟s representation as the simulation and, (Lane, 2008, p. 35). Hence, we encounter at the same time, he declares that if God had with the “commodity fetishism” and all been represented in pictures, portraits, “fetishistic activity is based upon fascination paintings, etc. as a simulacrum, it meant that of signs” (p. 38). he had never existed as real in real time and Another term to take into space; “that ultimately there has never been consideration is the term "simulacrum" any God; that only simulacra exist” (p. 169). which goes back to Plato, who applies it to So he believes in the “death of the divine refer to a false copy of something. Leitch referential”. (2001) stated that “Baudrillard chooses the 3. Discussion term simulacrum, a word that denotes

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3.1 Technology and Media pac technology. Hence, on account of Ubik is narrated from the viewpoint technology, characters face the state of of Joe Chip. He works for Glen Runciter hyperreality. Baudrillard uses the term who owns an anti-psi organization. Psi hyperreal to refer to the procedure through powers are kinds of powers that are which the image or simulation and reality employed to read the future. Runciter breakdown and become the same. Association employs „„inertials‟‟, Hyperreality is a postmodern condition, a individuals who, for example, make it virtual world that offers experiences more impossible for those who see the future to real and involving than everyday life and in decide which future is to happen. So Ubik this condition the boundary between real and demonstrates the collapse of privacy that unreal is blurred. Moreover, in this story, the today is attained through technology. No one boundary between life and death is no longer is safe from the intrusive minds of the psis. recognizable. The existence of this According to Mark Poster (2005), “the psis perplexing condition results in the confusion substitute easily for computerized databases and uncertainty of characters, as a result hooked into networks, listening devices, they find themselves wondering whether global positioning systems, satellite they are alive or dead or rather in half-life, photography, and the rest, culminating in a and whether they are undergoing the “real” society where nothing can be hidden or or only a simulacrum. Half-life is the first secret” (p. 29). Moreover, as Baudrillard model of natural life which is interchanged maintains, in hyperreal society “everything with the technology and in this kind of life, is public, transparent and hyperreal in the people can have their mental functions object world” (Kellner, 1989, p. 159). maintained by technology though their body Hence, in hyperreal world of the novel, there is dead. Thus, everything has been is no such a thing as privacy and the overwhelmed by technology; everything is boundary between public and private has simulated and has been dominated by the been blurred. virtual. According to Baudrillard, in Glen Runciter is encountering with hyperreal world even in death, the virtual the problem of a missing psi, Melipone who interferes. Baudrillard (2000) asserts, “it‟s is one of Ray Holis‟ people, the man in common to speak of the struggle of life charge of a group of psis who have a against death, but there is an inverse peril. tendency to use their powers for malevolent And we must struggle against the possibility purposes, but Melipone cannot be found that we will not die” (p. 5). Therefore, in the anywhere. And because of this reason, postmodern society, physical immortality Runciter decides to take counsel from his seems feasible. wife, Ella, who has been in half-life for In addition to the half-life condition, years. Half-life is an existence between life another thing which is disturbed reality is and death in which the body of the dead Pat Conley‟s negative talent. She is able to person is packed in cold-pac, and mental destroy the present and replace a new one functions are maintained through for it. This ability is destructive since it technological innovation. thwarts another psychic ability, that of When he is speaking to his wife, foreseeing the future. “The anti-precog Runciter is interrupted by Jory, a 15 years makes all futures seem equally real to the old boy in half-life beside his wife. Jory is precog” (Dick, 1991, p. 28). Pat Conley “can displeased with his existence in half-life and cancel out the precog‟s decision after he‟s he desires to live in the “real” world. Whilst made it” (p. 30). Moreover, she can “change Runciter is talking to his wife, Jory the past”. She can create a different present substitutes by Ella and talks to Runciter in the way that other characters are hardly instead of her. The half-lifers are well- aware that there is something wrong with the maintained for communication with living in “present” they are experiencing. As Scott institutions named moratoriums and the Bukatman (1993) points out, “Pat‟s ability to holder of the half-life moratorium explains manipulate the past implies the existence of that “after prolonged proximity ... there is myriad presents, none finally more than any occasionally a mutual osmosis, a suffusion other” (p. 94). Therefore, Pat‟s talent between the mentalities of half-lifers" (Dick, indicates the possibility of existence of 1991, p. 17). This cold-pac technology multiple presents. Hence, in a world where causes a tension between reality and multiple presents are possible, it is simulation. In this novel, the violation of the impossible to determine what is reality and boundary between reality and illusion is what is illusory. achieved through the invention of the cold-

Shattered Realities: A Baudrillardian Reading of Philip K. Dick‟s Ubik … Hoda Shabrang & Yasamin Hemmat

Pat and a team of Runciter‟s anti-psis Runciter” (p. 106 & 109). However, nothing go on a trip to Luna for business. When they is certain in the reality experienced by Joe arrive, they become aware that something is Chip and other characters. Baudrillard not right about the operation, and when a conjectures that “an immense uncertainty bomb explodes, they know that Hollis is remains from the sophist action of networks behind the operation and employs Runciter‟s of communication and information- the team of inertials in order to kill them. But undecidability of knowing whether there is nobody is fatally injured in the explosion real knowledge in there or not” (Clarke, except Runciter, who is quickly brought into 2009, p. 9). Hence, thanks to the cold-pac in hopes of maintaining in half-life proliferation of information in postmodern because he is dying. Therefore, the blast era, nothing is certain. Here, in this story, apparently killed Glen Runciter, whilst his although the news of Runciter‟s death is agents, including Joe Chip and Pat Conley, announced on the television, and the stay alive. But how can they be certain that broadcast displays his body in the funeral in they are alive and Runciter is deceased? The Des Moines, which seems to confirm the inertials ask Pat to use her ability to alter the Runciter‟s death, Runciter then appears to past so Runciter was not killed, but she them on TV, as a commercial salesman for claims that she has lost her talent since the the product called “Ubik”: blast. “… One invisible puff-puff whisk of Almost instantly after the blast, Joe economically priced Ubik banishes Chip starts to notice that the commodities compulsive obsessive fears that the entire around him are no longer fresh but decayed world is turning into clotted milk, worn-out and ruined: moldy coffees, stale cigarettes, tape recorders and obsolete iron-cage outdated coins, tape recorders, and elevators, plus other, further, as-yet- antiquated elevators. Stale and outdated unglimpsed manifestations of decay” things are the indication of regression. The (Dick,1991, p. 114). speed of decay rapidly increases, and What is important here is that eventually, the characters experience the Ranciter mentions the decaying objects United States of 1939. However, as Joe Chip permeating Joe Chip‟s world. He explains notices, “we haven‟t gone anywhere, we‟re all these signs as “world deterioration” where we‟ve always been. But for some which is a “normal experience of half- reasons […] reality has receded; it‟s lost its lifers”: “A sort of lingering universe is underlying support and it‟s ebbed to back to retained as a residual charge, a pseudo- previous forms” (Dick, 1991, p. 137). This environment, highly unstable” (p. 114-115). explosion can be related to what Baudrillard So Runciter seems to answer Joe Chip‟s believes as “implosion”; since “postmodern question but soon this one also turns out as society is the site of an implosion of all an illusion: “Of course, I‟m dead! Didn‟t boundaries, regions and distinctions between you watch the telecast from Des Moines?” appearance and reality, and just about every (p. 115). As can be observed, characters live other binary opposition maintained by in a high-tech society where media largely traditional philosophy and social theory” shapes what they see. What they know to be (Kellner, 1989, p. 68). Hence, as has been true, authentic, or real is informed by their seen, after the explosion, all binary perceptions portrayed in mediated form. The appositions are undermined, even the media is now performing without having to characters do not know if they are alive or make any necessary reference to reality. dead. Thus, Joe Chip now encounters with a After all these incidents, Joe Chip situation where there is no relation to any faces with Runciter‟s manifestations and reality. Baudrillard interprets the media a messages in various ways, for example “key simulation machines which reproduce through the proliferation of his images in images, signs and codes which in turn come advertisements or strange graffiti scribbled to constitute an autonomous realm of on the bathroom wall. But if Runciter hyperreality” (Lane, 2008, p. 68). attempts to communicate with them, then he Baudrillard (1994) also of the opinion that must be alive, and if he is alive, this means when we are watching TV, TV is actually that they are dead: “Jump in the urinal and watching us “TV alienates us, manipulates stand on your head. I‟m the one that alive. us, TV informs us […] a perspectival You‟re all dead” “So now we know the information with the horizon of the real and truth.” Joe said, “But we are not dead. of meaning as the vanishing point” (p. 53). Except for Wendy. We are in half-life, after So here, TV generates the manipulative truth the explosion that killed us. Killed us not which is that of the hyperreal.

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threatens to sue him. As can be seen, in this It seems that characters in this novel novel objects are alive. Kathrine Hayles encounters with alternative worlds: One in (1999) postulates that, “one of the most which Joe Chip and the other agents Dick‟s deep-seated fears is that as things survived the bomb explosion, and Runciter became animate, people tend towards the is dead and in the other world, Runciter‟s inanimate” (p. 62). The objects in Joe‟s agents are dead and they are in half-life and apartment possess a willpower of their own Runciter is alive. These two possible worlds and act against him. Freedman argues that are equally true. Nevertheless, at the end of the argumentative door, coin-operated the book, it is revealed that the inertials are, coffeepot and stubborn cleaning robots do in fact, in half-life and Runciter is alive. not act as commodities with an exchange- Jory, the boy who interfered with Runciter‟s value, but they act as participants in communication is killing the inertials to gain economic system, offering services and their strength. Thereby, the things fade away labor in exchange for money. As because Jory cannot sustain them, and it is aforementioned, after the blast a process of Jory who is killing Joe‟s companions. He is destabilization begins and at first, mostly eating them, absorbing what remains of their objects are affected. Commodities lives to feed his own, and he can do this originating from their stable world which because of having died young, he has more now all of a sudden demonstrate signs of old vitality and thus power. Furthermore, age and decay and soon, characters are everything is the projection of Jory‟s mind affected as well. The inertial Wendy Wright, and even half-life is the product of his mind. another of Runciter‟s employees, at first Thus, the whole world they find themselves feels old; nonetheless, shortly after that not in is not an objective reality, but the only dies, but also becomes a "huddled heap, projection of a fifteen years old boy‟s mind: dehydrated, almost mummified" (Dick, “Dr. Francis is a product of my mind! Like 1991, p. 99). Dick describes her from Joe every other fixture in this pseudo-world” Chip‟s view point like an object: (Dick, 1991, p. 174). He admits that he has … Her eyes, those green and tumbled constructed the “phantasmagoric stones, looked impassively at everything; he counterpart”, the simulacrum, of the world had never seen fear in them, or aversion, or of his own time and this explains the contempt. What she saw she accepted. regression and decay that characters have Generally, she seemed calm. But more than been experiencing. Henceforth, Jory can be that she struck him as being durable, interpreted as the evil power of capitalism untroubled and cool, not subject to wear, or that creates a hyperreal world in which to fatigue, or to physical illness and decline. everything is a projection of the constructed […] she would never look older. She had too realities of capitalism. much control over herself and outside reality 3.2 Animate Objects and Inanimate Humans for that (p. 59). Money is very pivotal in this novel; So she does not display any emotion, it even makes the objects have dominance she does not seem “subject to wear”, a over human beings. Even when Joe is stuck sentence which would apply for object in half-life and the objects are regressing instead of a person, and she has control over into earlier states, one of the first things to herself not to look old, whereas the human regress is money and at the same time, circumstance is usually different since we do Runciter‟s face appears on their money. not have any control over what happens to In Ubik we find commodification our bodies; therefore, she becomes object- and objectification as one of the major like. “Baudrillard argues that just as young issues. Objects and technology which are boy who grows up among wolves becomes designed to make life easier for human wolf-like, people in postmodern society, beings, become harsh towards them. Joe growing up in a world of objects- become finds things around him become adverse. more object-like” (Powell, 1998, p. 45). His apartment is grubby and messy, and will Another point is that these “half- not be cleaned until he pays what he owes to lifers” are kept in moratoriums and, although apartment‟s cleaning robots. He even cannot in some sense they are still alive, they kept pay for his shower, and cannot manage to as objects. When the owner of the Beloved pay the door to let him out. When he argues Brethren Moratorium in Zürich is asked by with the door, the door becomes irritated and Glen Runciter‟s, to find his dead wife Ella, asks Joe to read the apartment purchase he “made his way back to the cold-pac bins contract, but Joe starts to loosen the door‟s to search out number 3054039-B (Dick, hinges with a knife; consequently, the door 1991, p. 5)”. Consequently, human beings

Shattered Realities: A Baudrillardian Reading of Philip K. Dick‟s Ubik … Hoda Shabrang & Yasamin Hemmat

are decreased to codes. Even, when half- 3.3 Consumerism and Ubiquity of Objects lifers die, they are “expired” instead of The only way to stop the world from simply dead (p. 7). This is a very palpable regressing is the Ubik spray that Joe has blurring of the borders between human and bought from a drug store in Jory‟s simulated thing. According to Hayles (1999), as things world. The word Ubik appears to be become more animate, people become more attributed to a mass produced commodity inanimate. Consequently, as things become like razor-blades, instant coffee and pop- more animate in the capitalist society, Joe tarts, etc. Carl Freedman (1984) describes finds himself forced into the more inanimate Ubik as “the ultimate and universal role (Kellner,1989, p. 18). Henceforth, in commodity and the symbol of the ubiquity this society, objects dominate subjects. As a of the commodity structure (p. 21)”. So Ubik result, “human beings become dominated by illustrates a consumer society and in this things and themselves become more thing society, to live means to consume. like, come to dominate social life” (p. 19). Everything is prepared for consumption and Hence, “the subject becomes transformed life is arranged around commodities. In into an object as part of a nexus of Baudrillard‟s view, effect of consumption information and communication network” has increased through all aspects of life, (p. 71). Another example is about Runciter from culture to human relations. Baudrillard mentioning that when he chuckles, “it had (1998) writes: an abstract quality; he always smiled and he There is all around us today a kind of always chuckled, his voice always boomed, fantastic conspicuousness of consumption but inside he did not notice anyone, did not and abundance, constituted by the care; it was his body which smiled, nodded multiplication of objects, services and and shook hands” (Dick, 1991, p. 7). material goods, and this represents Examples like these are various, and through something of a fundamental mutation in the them it is inferred that in this world there is ecology of the human species. Strictly a tendency to consider humans not solely speaking, the humans of the age of affluence human. As Dick (1995) himself proposes in are surrounded not so much by other human an essay: beings, as they were in all previous ages, but What we are seeing is a gradual by objects (p. 25). merging of the general nature of human As long as Chip has Ubik, he will be activity and function into the activity and safe from Jory; however, he must keep function of what we humans have built and buying it because its effect diminishes after surrounded ourselves with... As the external a few hours. Ubik establishes reality for world becomes more animate, we may find Chip as the same way as commodities that we -the so-called humans - are establish reality for consumers. According to becoming, and may to a great extent always Bukatman (1993), “Ubik appears again and have been, inanimate in the sense that we are again throughout book, usually through the led, directed by built-in tropisms, rather than medium of advertising. Advertising leading (p. 183-187). generates anxieties and makes the subject Hence, if humans are like machines, aware of lacks (perhaps in self-image or then machines are like humans. Therefore, personal appearance). In becoming a the boundary between human and machine consumer and acquiring a commodity, the is undermined. In the world of Ubik, subject fixes the lack, repairs appearance, household appliances, doors, nearly becomes an image (p. 114). Joe has a lack in everything requires money to be functioned; the appearance of reality as consumers have moreover, they are able to talk. From all lacks in their identities or personal these cases it is apparent that machines show appearances. characteristics which only exclusive to The ads use Ubik to replace goods humans and for this reason these that are commonplace and ubiquities, characteristics generate even more vitality. indicate that advertising is a ubiquitous Baudrillard argues that these postmodern feature of capitalist society. Thus, Ubik processes produce the disappearance of the functions as a commodity since it creates a subject. Accordingly, subject is disappearing transitory pseudo-satisfaction. As Bukatman in postmodern culture. What is left is a states, “[commodity] confirms one‟s relation mediated person, fragmented and de- to and position in the world, but only by centered selves and identities. Thus, in Ubik, constructing a temporary state of pseudo- characters turn into an objects so the subject satisfaction which lasts only until the can is is disappeared. empty or the next commercial is viewed” (p.97). Also Baudrillard (1994), believes

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International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies (www.eltsjournal.org) ISSN:2308-5460 Volume: 07 Issue: 02 April-June, 2019 that “what we consume is not so much consequence, Philip Dick calls this product objects, but signs. In order to become object Ubik to illustrates the ubiquity of the of consumption, the object must become advertisement in society. As Mark Poster sign” (Kellner, 1989, p. 25). In this (2005) argues, Ubik is not supposed to situation, consumption does not satisfy our signify God, but the God-like qualities of the needs. The needs are, indeed, not real; they commodity advertisement. It would apparent are constructed by simulations: that, in the world which is made by Dick, In consumer society, natural needs or people no longer pursuit for divine desires have been buried under desires validation through God, but through the simulated by cultural discourses marketplace. As Baudrillard (1994) claims, (advertising, media, and the rest), which tell “God never existed, that only the us what we want. We are so precoded, so simulacrum ever existed, even that God filled from the very start with the images of himself was never anything but his own what we desire, that we process our relation simulacrum” (p. 3). Hence, Baudrillard to the world completely through those announces “the end of transcendence” (p. 3). images. Furthermore, capitalist production Thence, people in this Godless world are in in our time proceeds by first creating a search of something to replace God; demand through marketing and then therefore, they find this transcendental producing the product to meet that demand. signified in the marketplace. Moreover, There are no longer natural needs that Poster postulates that, “the half-lifers are human work strives to satisfy. Rather, there understood to represent the general are culturally produced “hyperreal” needs population of consumer culture, living in the that are generated to provide work and hyperreal world of mediated information, profits. The world is remade in the image of their identities persist through that culture” desire (Leitch, 2001, p. 1730). (p. 32). Thus, here we can associate the Hence, in consumer society the commodity with God, and hence read Ubik consumers have to buy more to satisfy their as a condemnation of "commodity needs but their needs are that of the fetishism" (Bukatman, 1993, p. 97). So hyperreal and instead of buying products, Ubik, becomes the work of commodity they are buying signs and images to gain fetishism, presenting a product whose identity. Baudrillard also postulates that purpose is only to uphold the illusion of people are commodified, because everything unity and a transcendental signified, has become accessible to everyone, and On the other hand, one could because of mass production, today‟s emphasize the element of logos, and read generation is desperately in search of Ubik as a metaphor of the transcendental identity. As a consequence, in this novel signified, the notion of a world of fixed Ubik epitomizes the commodity marketplace ideas following Plato. In a thoroughly which fixes Joe Chip‟s environment and his commodified world, the human desire for identity; however, it is a short-lived product stability must be realized as a commodity and he must buy more when it is finished. […] commodities are an expression of the Therefore, products are never able to satisfy human desire for a transcendental signified the needs of consumers. (Widmer, 2000, p. 7). 3.4 Ubik as an Illusion of a Transcendental So the characters crave for a Signified transcendental signified in order to be able Ubik is a product which is seen as a to maintain their sense of reality and God-like entity. This image is demonstrated immutability and they can only achieve by the epigraph to the final chapter, which is them thorough consuming commodities. The not an advertisement for Ubik, but it makes important thing to take into consideration is Ubik analogous to God: that although Ubik is seen as a God-like I am Ubik. Before the universe was, I am. entity, it is created by the man. Therefore, I made the suns. I made the worlds. I created the the identity of the creator and created lives and the places they inhabit. I move them combined into a single entity; likewise, the here. I put them there. They go as I say, they do boundary between creator and created is as I tell them. I am the word and my name is subverted. So Ubik in this novel is the never spoken, the name which no one knows. I emblem of all objects that establish the am called Ubik, but that is not my name. I am. I shall always be (Dick, 1991, p. 207). utmost assurance of pleasure and satisfaction The ad for Ubik now sounds much of any desire in the capitalist culture. like the voice of God in the opening of 3.5 Shattered Realities Genesis (Poster, 2005, p. 30). As a The last chapter of Ubik shows Runciter in the world of the living, in the

Shattered Realities: A Baudrillardian Reading of Philip K. Dick‟s Ubik … Hoda Shabrang & Yasamin Hemmat

Swiss moratorium, who encounters with Joe ending of the Ubik is the false ending, which Chip in the simulated world. But Runciter‟s is also explicitly a beginning, reveals the reality becomes inverted this time. When he plot as only another appearance, again takes some coins out of his pocket to give to producing an infinite regression with which an attendant at the moratorium, he notices the reader must be satisfied (Bukatman, something odd about the money: it has Joe 1993, p. 112). Therefore, the ending of this Chip‟s face on it, reflecting the event when novel is very subjective. According to Peter Joe Chip found money with Runciter‟s face Fitting (1975) Ubik “refuses any final, on it: “…I wonder what this means, he asked definitive interpretation” (p. 51). In doing himself. Strangest thing I‟ve ever seen. Most so, it prevents reading Ubik as “opening things in life eventually can be explained. onto a transcendental meaning,” and Ubik‟s But- Joe Chip on a fifty-cent piece? It was extremely subjective ending generates the the first Joe Chip money he had ever seen. insight that “the position of the observer is […] this was just the beginning” (Dick, an extremely subjective perspective from 1991, p. 191). Thus, Runciter‟s seeing which to deduce universal laws; that Chip's face on a coin outside the half-life „reality‟ is a mental construct which may be world, reflects Chip's early discovery that undermined at any time”. Fitting also claims reality is disrupted. Appearance and reality “for Dick there can be no single, final are not the identical thing in this novel, and reality” (p. 52). Hence, we can reach to yet one cannot determine which reality is conclusion that the world of the novel is real, or which reality is just appearance. So hyperreal and simulated world in which the the boundary between real and unreal line between illusion and reality is broken becomes blurred. Henceforth, characters down, as Baudrillard argues, postmodern experience something called "the death of culture has become a culture of hyperreality, the real". According to Baudrillard, we live where real has been replaced with the our lives in the realm of hyperreality, hyperreal. involving more and more profoundly to 4. Conclusion things like television or virtual reality games Ubik demonstrates the breakdown of and shows which are purely simulate reality. reality. In this story the boundaries between He argues that: self and other, living and dead, public and In a postmodern culture dominated by private, creator and created and reality and TV, films, news media, and the Internet, the illusion are disrupted. Ubik shows the whole idea of a true or a false copy of impossibility of differentiating the authentic something has been destroyed: all we have from the fake and reality from illusory. The now are simulations of reality, which aren't events in the novel are divided into two any more or less "real" than the reality they phases. First, the events that lead to an simulate. We have entered an era where explosion, and second, the events that third-•order simulacra dominate our lives, succeed the explosion. This explosion is where the image has lost any connection to external aspect of what Baudrillard believes real things (Mann, 2019, p. 3). as implosion which means that due to the Accordingly, the world of the novel proliferation of signs and information in the due to the technology and media is the media all distinction and boundaries simulated world. Christopher Palmer (2003) between reality and illusory and every other of the opinion that “by analogy to the binary opposition are obliterated. After the previous proliferation of Runciter‟s images blast, characters experience process of in the hyperreality generated by Jory, Chip‟s regression. They begin to regress into the portraits on the coins are the sign of his year of 1939. They discover objects and acquiring the power to manifest himself in people around them in the process of the external reality, penetrating the regression. Gradually, Joe Chip understands boundaries of the simulated world of the that it is he who is actually dead and he lies cold-pac condition” (p. 26). Thence, we can in cold-pac. It is revealed that the survival of conclude that the division between these two the half-lifers is endangered by a boy named worlds are illusory and the real outside Jory who is the symbol of evil power of world of Runciter and the simulated world capitalism. So characters are trapped in a of Joe Chip are both simulations. Ruciter techno-consumerist society which is that of and Joe Chip live in their separate simulated the simulation and hyperreality. Their world worlds and both are detached from reality. is dominated by the objects which are even Thus, Dick wants to show that there can be more vital than the human beings and no certain truth in this story. Even there is characters are given an Inanimate role since no certainty in the ending of the novel; “the as maintained by Baudrillard in the world of

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International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies (www.eltsjournal.org) ISSN:2308-5460 Volume: 07 Issue: 02 April-June, 2019 the objects, subjectivity is disappearing. Dick, P. K. (1995). The Android and the Though they are still in search of a Human. In L. Sutin (Ed.), The Shifting transcendental signified to give meaning to Realities of Philip K. Dick: Selected their life and sustain their identity and their Literary and Philosophical Writings reality; however, since in hyperreal world (pp. 183-210). New York: Vintage. the God is himself a simulacrum and he is Dick, P. K. (1991). Ubik. New York: not real, they replace him with Ubik which Vintage. is the emblem of commodity fetishism. Fitting, P. (1975). Ubik: The Deconstruction Hence, someone like Joe Chip has to keep of Bourgeois SF. Science Fiction buying it in order to fix his identity and not Studies, 2(3), 47-54. to be vanished. Thus, Joe Chip is seeking https://www.jstor.org/stable/4238910 Ubik to sustain the state of world, self and Freedman, C. (1984). Towards a Theory of identity. Paranoia: The Science Fiction of Accordingly, in this novel, the Philip K. Dick. Science Fiction technological innovation of half-life, as well Studies, 15-24. as constant advertisement of the market, Hayles, N. K. (1999). How We Became make it impossible for the characters in the Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in novel to determine where objective reality Cybernetics, Literature, and exists. Characters are inundated in the Informatics. Chicago: Chicago UP. culture of advertising. They are able to Kellner, D. (1989). Jean Baudrillard from maintain their sense of reality only by Marxism to Postmodernism and imbibing commodity culture. As a result, Beyond. Stanford, California: Stanford Dick repudiates that consumption is what University Press. identifies the subject rather it threatens the Lane, R. (2008). Jean Baudrillard identity of the subject. In the end, it is (Routledge Critical Thinkers). cleared that both the worlds of Runciter and London: Routledge. Joe chip are simulated and they are living in Leitch, B. V. (2001). The Norton Anthology a world in which the divine referential is of Theory and Criticism. Norton and dead. So there is no escape from this Company, Inc. consumerist hyperreal society where Mann, D. (2019). Jean Baudrillard. A Very commodities are ubiquitous and the scared is Short Introduction. Retrieved from a simulacrum itself. https://www.academia.edu/3677209/Je References: an_Baudrillard_A_Very_Short_Introd Aldiss, B. W. (1979). This World and uction. Nearer Ones: Essays Exploring the Palmer, C. (2003). Philip K. Dick: Familiar. London: Weidenfeld and Exhilaration and Terror of the Nicholson. Postmodern. Liverpool: Liverpool Barthelmess, E. (1987). Politics and University Press. Metaphysics in Three Novels of Philip Poster, M. (2005). Future Advertising: Dick. http://hdl.handle.net/1884/24340 Dick's Ubik and the Digital Ad. In Baudrillard, J. (1998). The Consumer Sande Cohen & R.L. Rutsky (Eds.), Society: Myths and Structures. SAGE Trans. Array Consumption in the Age Publication Ltd. of Information (pp. 21-40). New York: Baudrillard, J. (1994). Simulacra and Oxford International Publishers Ltd. Simulation. Trans. Sheila Glaser. Ann Powell, J. (2007). Postmodernism for Arbor: Michigan University Press. Beginners. Writers and Readers. Baudrillard, J. (2000). The Vital Illusion. Warrick, P. S. (1983). The Labyrinthian New York: Columbia University Process of the Artificial: Philip K. Press. Dick's Androids and Mechanical Baudrillard, J. (2009). Why Hasn’t Constructs. In M. H. Greenberg & J. Everything Already Disappeared. D. Olander (Eds.), Philip K. Dick: Trans. Chris Turner. Seagull Books. Criticism and Interpretation (pp. 189- Bukatman, S. (1993). Terminal Identity: The 214). New York: Taplinger. Virtual Subject in Postmodern Science Widmer, M. M. (2000). Worlds and Selves Fiction. London: Duke University Falling Apart - The Science Fiction of Press. Philip K. Dick. Swiss Diploma Thesis. Clarke, D. B, Doel, M., Merrin, W. & Smitt, Munich. R. (2009). Jean Baudrillard: Fatal Theories. London: Routledge.