A Scanner Darkly Literary Elements

Science F

Orange County, California The novel is set in 1994 but at the time of writing (1977) thiction is was way in the future and so the novel has a dystopian edge to it

The story is told from Bob Arctor's perspective.

The tone is one of hyper-vigilance and mistrust. The mood is confusing and filled with secrecy.

Bob is the protagonist. Because almost none of the characters are who they say they are it is hard to pinpoint an antagonist; however, Bob's job is antagonistic in that in pretending to be a drug addict he actually becomes one.

There is conflict between Bob and himself, and between Bob and the police who pick him up as they suggest to him that he is Bob Arctor but he will not believe them.

Bob finds the source of the Substance D whilst gardening at the New Path farming commune and vows to give some of the flowers to his friends. As his "friends" are narcotics agents posing as fellow recovering addicts this is very likely to bust the New Path investigation wide open.

Bob's addiction to Substance D foreshadows his mental breakdown.

Substance D is described as slow death which is an understatement in that it kills the person that the addict used to be mentally long before it actually kills them physically.

The story alludes to the drug subculture that Dick experienced himself in the 1970s.

The images portrayed are all things that Dick saw himself whilst an addict living in a large house with homeless people he invited in so that he would not have to be alone. The imagery Dick creates in the novel enables the reader to understand the paranoia that Bob is experiencing and to picture all of the special tools he is given in order to mask his identity.

Bob is largely written off as useless as an agent by the end of the novel, but it is he who discovers the source of New Path's funding and the source of the Substance D whilst working at the New Path commune.

There is a parallel between Bob's life of lies and deceit as an agent and the life that Donna is living as an undercover agent masquerading as a small-time drug dealer.

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