Blog Post #12 - Paycheck

“Paycheck”, by Phillip K Dick, was a pretty interesting short story. It was somewhat of a mystery, but a thriller as well. Overall, I think there a couple major themes integrated into this piece of literature, but one theme seemed to dominate the story. So, I picked out a couple passages that demonstrated that select idea. The first excerpt is from page 26, and says the following:

“When an individual person was defenseless, a business was not. The big economic forces had managed to remain free, although virtually everything else had been absorbed by the Government.”

The second excerpt is from page 33: “As far as I’m concerned, I’m an individual caught between two ruthless forces: government and business.”

And the final excerpt, which is somewhat long, is from pages 51 and 53: “An individual has no place to turn to, anymore. No one to help him. He’s caught between two ruthless forces, a pawn between political and economic powers. People can’t live this way, tossed back and forth by political and economic powers. Masses of people shoved this way and that according to the needs of this government or that cartel. There’s gong to be resistance, someday. Not by big people, powerful people, but by little people.”

I think these quotes relay a powerful, major theme, which is that a citizen in today’s day and age is trapped, theoretically. We are trapped between the power and control of the government, as well as the regulations of large corporations in the world. It is almost impossible to stand alone on your own accord. In this story, Jennings is literally in conflict with the two ends of the spectrum (the government police force and the Rethrick company), but I believe this is meant to be interpreted as more than the actual conflict in the piece. I believe Jennings is an example of someone in today’s society, in which one is looking for safety and feels as if turning to one of these havens would be smart, but it turns out it isn’t, because both government and big business are becoming hurtful. And then finally, referring to the final quote I listed, I believe people are eventually going to realize this and fight back, rebel, create a resistance. This idea has been proposed before, such as in John Locke’s Second Treatise on Government, in which the idea that people have the right to dissolve their government if it does not work solely in their best interest. I believe that “Paycheck” is also driving home this idea as well.