(Im)possibility of identity formation: Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and William Gibson's Neuromancer

With the evolving technology, our daily lives are changing extremely fast; the economy, knowledge, human connection and even emotions. As this technological era proceeds humans are straying away from humanity and turning into puppets of this said technology. William Gibson's Neuromancer and Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep both depict a dystopian world in which the technology is extremely advanced but instead of benefiting the society, this advancements turn into control tools for the government over the society. Both of these novels are a perfect criticism of how the present and future day technological advancements swallow the society, and how this is abused by the government in order to gain power over society. Initially Katherine Hayles's and Donna Haraway's cyborg and posthuman theories were used to analyze the (im)possibility of identity formation. This thesis claims that by portraying post-apocalyptic worlds, both novels address the collective fear of losing the ability of feeling in the face of rapid technological advancement and show that without emotions one cannot possess an identity. Since emotions define human beings, they play an important role in the identity formation process. In this respect, this thesis explores these novels by focusing on the protagonists' struggle with the technology used as a state power and control, and their strategies to form a liminal identity that can adapt to technological developments while preserving their human traits. They also offer ways to survive in a dystopian world by using technology in a beneficial rather than a harmful way. In other words, combining technological elements with human traits such as feeling, thinking and the ability to act ethically, both novels show that the humanity can only survive through adopting this liminal identity. Both novels through their ideas and their way of applying the elements of dystopia and posthuman; support the idea of a necessity combination of both posthuman and human identities in order for a chance of survival in the future.