A Study Guide for Philip K. Dick's "Martian Time-Slip"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for Philip K. Dick's "Martian Time-Slip," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Novels for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Novels for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Jun 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781535828260

Book preview

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Martian Time-Slip

Philip K. Dick

1964

Introduction

Written in 1962 and titled Goodmember Arnie Kott of Mars then serialized in Worlds of Tomorrow as All We Marsmen in 1963, Martian Time-Slip was finally published as a paperback book in 1964. Although not initially a commercial success, it came to be considered one of the best books of Philip Dick's peak period in the 1960s when the author wrote sixteen novels. Martian Time-Slip was reprinted several times as Dick's reputation grew and as hit movies were made from his stories, such as Blade Runner (1982), Total Recall (1990), and Minority Report (2002).

Set on the deserts of Mars in 1994, the story is a satire of the business world and suburban life on Earth. In addition, Dick was fascinated with schizophrenia, and in this novel, he explored the nature of reality as a central theme. In Martian Time-Slip, Dick shows how what is real is determined by how it is perceived; the same scene is repeated from the points of view of three characters. Union leader Arnie Kott calls upon a repairman, Jack Bohlen, to develop a device for communicating with the nonverbal, autistic child, Manfred Steiner, who has precognition abilities. Kott wants to get the edge in a business deal, but the child projects schizophrenic vibes onto the two men that skew everyone's reality. The time-slip, therefore, is the nonlinear timeframe. The native Martians, called Bleekmen, recognize the malleability of time and understand the value of Manfred's gifts although the colonists debate the value of keeping anomalous children alive. These simple tribal people also serve as a contrast to the Teaching Machines that spout Establishment-approved information to school children on Mars. From intelligent machines to schizophrenic humans to psychic indigenous observers, this story has nothing to do with Mars, except as a backdrop, and everything to do with the vagaries of human nature on Earth.

Despite Faulkner's roots in the South, he readily condemns many aspects of its history and heritage in Absalom, Absalom!. He reveals the unsavory side of southern morals and ethics, including slavery. The novel explores the relationship between modern humanity and the past, examining how past events affect modern decisions and to what extent modern people are responsible for the past.

Author Biography

Philip Kindred Dick and his twin sister, Jane Charlotte, were born six weeks prematurely on December 16, 1928, in Chicago, Illinois, to Joseph Edgar, a fraud investigator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and Dorothy Kindred Dick. Jane died several weeks later, and the loss of his twin had a residual impact on Dick's life and the themes in his writing. The family relocated from Chicago to the San Francisco Bay Area, but Dick's parents divorced when he was five. He attended high school in Berkeley then briefly attended the University of California at Berkeley. His teen years were plagued by two problems: a serious swallowing disorder that prevented him from eating in public and acute vertigo that gave him the strange sensation of being disconnected from real life. This unnerving feeling contributed to the paranoia that often appears in his writing. For several years he worked in a record store, the only real job he ever held other