SOURCE: Bertrand, Frank C. “Form vs. Content in P. K. Dick's ‘The Father-Thing.’” philipkdick.com, http://philipkdick.com/frank/thing1.htm (2002).

In the following essay, Bertrand analyzes two themes common to Dick's short stories and novels: what is reality and what makes a being human.

From a wide perspective “The Father-Thing” (F&SF, December 1954) presents, in short story form, Dick's two essential themes, ones that are repeated in one manner or another in most of his other short stories and novels. The stronger and more pervasive one, in this story, is: what IS a “human” being, as opposed to any other kind of being? And the second theme, one that is prevalent in all of his fiction: WHAT is “reality”? In a sense these two are combined in this story, to the extent that we might ask: what is the reality of a “human” being? That is, how...