A Scanner Darkly

Until the end of the novel when her true identity is revealed, Donna exists primarily as Arctor’s dealer, contact, and sexual fantasy. The other characters assume, without evidence, that she is his “old lady,” and she and Arctor do occasionally engage in flirtatious rapport, but when Arctor finally verbalizes his feelings, she bluntly rejects him as “ugly.” Dick has been criticized for writing two-dimensional female characters whose narrative purpose is simply to fulfill the male protagonist’s sexual desires. Indeed, the male characters in A Scanner Darkly frequently objectify and sexualize women, discussing nonconsensual sex and even sexual violence as casually as if comparing car models. Donna, however, exhibits strength and agency, refusing to play the role of Arctor’s sexual conquest. Later, when she is revealed to be another undercover narcotics agent, she drops her cynical, doper façade and displays real empathy for the man who has been played as deftly as a chess piece and whose life has been destroyed for it. Donna is the strength while the “needle freak” Connie is the tragic vulnerability, the doper who is so desperate that she will trade anything for her next fix. While both women may function as the potential reality of Dick’s female characters, Donna demonstrates a self-determination unique to his fiction.

One of Arctor’s roommates, Barris is unique among the three for his education, his technological savvy, and his devious nature. He seems able to repair any device or car engine (at least he talks a good game). Dick’s dialogue often revolves around the minutiae of circuitry or carburetors, and usually, the most detailed and technical jargon comes from Barris. He damages Arctor’s “cephscope” only to offer to repair it. Arctor suspects he is also responsible for tinkering with his car only to diagnose the problem later. Unlike Arctor or Luckman, when Barris gets high, he tends to focus on his latest project—extracting cocaine from a can of sunscreen or crafting a new hash pipe. His room is littered with discarded electronic components, a tinkerer’s paradise. However, like Donna and Arctor, his identity is a red herring, and Dick reveals him to be just as delusional and paranoid as the others. He concocts a conspiracy involving Arctor as the ringleader of a plot to raid weapons from an Air Force base and fuel anti-government activities. By this point, he is a twitchy, sweating mess whose story the agency suspects is just as phony as he is. The novel is semi-autobiographical, so it may be that Dick knew a man very much like Barris, and his inclusion in the novel suggests that addiction is not a problem reserved for the poor and poorly educated.

The large, muscled Luckman is the third member of Arctor’s household, and in some ways, the least developed. While Arctor is the narrative’s central figure, and Barris is his nemesis, Luckman occupies a sort of passive middle ground. He rarely gets in the middle of arguments; a notable exception is when Barris claims that his car is too “modified” for Arctor to drive. Luckman counterargues, “It’s an ordinary six-cylinder motor, you humper” (107). A key moment comes when Luckman nearly chokes to death on a piece of food, and Barris doesn’t lift a finger to help. Although Luckman doesn’t remember the incident clearly, Arctor witnesses it on the holo-scanner, and he becomes convinced that Barris may try to poison them all with toxic mushrooms. Luckman is more of a kindred spirit with Arctor and enjoys using drugs as an opportunity to reflect and philosophize on metaphysical issues.