From Science Fiction To Postmodernism In Three Novels Of American Writer Philip K. Dick's: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, The Man In The High Castle, Valis

Submitted to: Proff. Asl� Tekinay in Bogazici University (Istanbul/Turkiye), 2003
MA Thesis in American Studies

Abstract: In this paper, the main concern is the new frontiers in popular fiction that have been opened up by the American science fiction writers like Philip K. Dick. My thesis paves the way for an insightful exploration and analysis of science fiction and its ambivalent position in literary circles and pop culture. Once being written generally as mere 'utopianism', 'escape' and 'wish-fulfillment', after the fifties the popular SF genre gained a different tincture. The intertextual combination of the popular and the literary in the postmodern age resulted in the culmination of a new kind of science fiction that altered the focus of the novels from the text to the minds of readers and writers. By the novels of Dick we became aware of all kind of narratives, devices and techniques of SF genre, which were formerly disguised to make the reader indulge in the authors' great imagination. Thus, the one-dimensionality of these former examples has given way to constant transformation, tension and play in the works of Dick. One will witness the metamorphoses in literature, in its quest for more texts ranging from the vast topoi of science fiction to other popular genres, as well as Dick's successful quest for finding a place in literature.

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