P. K. Dick's Short Story 'Null-O'

PK Dick Shorter-Short Story Character Analysis - “Null-O” In the short story Null-O by P.K. Dick, the main protagonist in the story, Lemuel Jorgensen, has a basic thought process that is far different from the average child. In fact, referring to Lemuel as a protagonist is a bit of a stretch in of itself, as the thought process which Lemuel lives buy is one that the majority of human beings would consider nearly unlawful at times. Lemuel believes in a world where the human obsession over objects is a thing of the past, and the entire world is homogenized, or more-or-less extinct, with no signs of human life to be seen. Little does Lemuel know, but there are actually an entire group of people who think the same way which he does, and they have a name for their cause - the Null-Os.

The main conflict in the story comes with these said Null-Os plotting to build a bomb that will blow up the universe, known as the U-Bomb, with Lemuel being in full support and watching this bomb come into fruition. On the other hand, there’s the people which Lemuel refers to as “ordinary humans”, who cannot stand the idea of this U-Bomb

Dick and “Electric Dreams: Safe and Sound” directed by Alan Taylor possess many similarities. For starters, the two have very similar themes. The theme of safety vs. comfort applies to both of these stories as each details a child’s conflict between fitting in at school and siding with their parents on their decisions. In “Foster, You’re Dead”, Mike Foster faces countless amounts of ridicule from other students and staff at his school due to his dad being against the idea of buying a fallout shelter in anticipation for a potential upcoming nuclear war. In “Safe and Sound”, Foster Lee faces a similar issue where she is singled out at school for not having a “dex”, or tracking device, unlike the majority of other