The action of the story takes place on the planet Earth after a nuclear war. The planet was turned into a scorched, dying desert. Almost all of the animals died, people underwent severe radiation and had health problems. Most people migrated to the other colonized planets in the solar system, including Mars. Those who have been forced to stay were doomed to lead miserable and sad existence in the cities. One of such people is Rick Deckard who is a professional hunter for androids. Rick is assigned to track down and destroy runaway androids, which arrived illegally on Earth. Still, in the course of hunting he could not help having doubts. Rick asks the question whether it is humane to destroy the androids. Since the planet became a deserted place with a few living beings, animals became more significant to people than they were before the war.

It would seem that birds, wildlife, fish, small rodents, and especially insects cannot be valuable, but they inherited not only emotional value, but a number of other important purposes for people.

The time came when people started to value not only each other, but animals. While friendship of the other person could not be bought, they could buy an animal from the list of the few survived copies of animals or birds that was also difficult but possible. However, real animals were expensive, and that is why there were developed electronic copies of them. Animals played an important social role as they indicated the status of a person. Society changed and the pre written paper on whether the animal in somebody’s household was real or not was not appropriate. People needed animals to have somebody to take care of and to have something they can project their love and warmth upon.

However, people were spending their money to buy some little animals, and those who could not afford it, bought a robot that simulated an animal or a bird as the lack of an animal was considered to be a sign of poorness in human society. Most people genuinely loved animals, and in the absence of the real ones they were forced to use simulations. The real happiness for people in this new world was to have a home – a real one where the real animal, alive and not electric was waiting for its owners. Animals became a symbol and element of luxury that only a few could afford.

Animals reminded people about their real character traits, they helped them remain people, giving them warmth and empathy. The term empathy is one of the leading phenomena in the story. There was a special empathy test that became the main advantage of the new civilization, because it helped to distinguish a human from an android. Animals required warmth to flourish; that is why androids could not keep them alive.

Animals started to exercise the “tyranny of objects” as people were forced to have them in their houses to prove that they are human, that they are alive and that they are not androids. Characters lived, worked, and killed androids to earn some money to spend on an animal, desperately clinging to something they did not kill. Animals served people as a distraction from depression as they move, eat, need love, attention and care that keeps people moving and prevents them from constant depressive states. Sometimes, however, electronic animals were not that helpful as the real ones as they did not have emotions and empathy in their eyes. People used animals as safe-haven for empathy because they could control it.

Fakes began to resemble real animals; they even had scheme that mimic the disease, which was embedded in the new model. Real animals continued to die, and this main danger waited for the hosts. People lost the habit of living at all, because they saw only fakes. They would prefer a false cat to facing death. While fraud animals were demoralizing, they were still necessary to distinguish social position of the family, since they determined the social class.

The main goal of the story is to show how people are attached and dependent on all living things around. The main character is fond of animals as seen from his words: “I have never found wild creatures. The feeling must have been fantastic: bend down and see that something alive bustles under your feet”. This happened when Rick found a frog on the way home. There is an irony in this episode as the main character hoped that after a number of dangerous episodes in his life, he finally finds something really important. He knows that frogs are considered extinct, and he brings it back home. However, when he checks the animal, it turns out that it is electronic. The story ends with an episode where Iran buys electronic flies for it.

The central theme of the novel is the android ethics and human relations. The author does not only display the relationships to the fore, but also enriches them with extra emotions, complicated experiences that have come from the outside. The reader can see the confrontation of intellect with secondary development and rich emotion, and the super-intellect, emotions that do not interfere with reaction and decision making, and acting in critical situations. The society changes and animals turn out to determine the emotional life of people. The main characters turn out to be hostages of the situation and become victims of the “tyranny of objects” developed by the animal cult.