Upon The Dull Earth - Themes

Themes

Old Testament allusions are littered throughout the story. The story assumes that many layers of reality exist, the higher the layer the more powerful it is. Silvia states that "the ladder ... seems to keep on going up and up. World after world". These statements constitute a kind of fantastic (not really science-fictional) explanation not only of creation but also of God's omnipotence. According to them, God is a being who belongs to a higher level of existence and who created other beings out of clay with his own hands. The universe of this story seems to be more influenced by gnosticism than by the Judeo-Christian religion, and the beings that looked like angels were probably not superior to Silvia. This is a horror story in the sense that it violates a Christian taboo. The taboo has to do with the assigned place of men in the natural and divine chain of being.

However, the New Testament theme of transmutation (from the ceremony of the eucharist where bread and wine represents the flesh and blood of Christ) might be the dominant one. This is a common theme in Dick's work, here carrying his characteristic gnostic twist where the transmutation goes awry under the hand of lesser divinity (the angels - in this tale they are ignorant and capricious, in many of Dick's works, especially the later ones, this divine figure is plainly malicious). The effect of this is that the entire world is transformed (transmuted) into a flawed, inhospitable form, mirroring the effect of Samael (the blind god) in gnosticism.

The title is taken from Proteus' ode to Silvia in Act 4 Scene 2 of Two Gentlemen of Verona by William Shakespeare:

Then to Silvia let us sing,
That Silvia is excelling;
She excels each mortal thing
Upon the dull earth dwelling:
To her let us garlands bring.
Works of Philip K. Dick
Novels
1950s
  • Gather Yourselves Together
  • Voices from the Street
  • Vulcan's Hammer
  • Dr. Futurity
  • The Cosmic Puppets
  • Solar Lottery
  • Mary and the Giant
  • The World Jones Made
  • Eye in the Sky
  • The Man Who Japed
  • A Time for George Stavros
  • Pilgrim on the Hill
  • The Broken Bubble
  • Puttering About in a Small Land
  • Nicholas and the Higs
  • Time Out of Joint
  • In Milton Lumky Territory
  • Confessions of a Crap Artist
1960s
  • The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike
  • Humpty Dumpty in Oakland
  • The Man in the High Castle
  • We Can Build You
  • Martian Time-Slip
  • Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb
  • The Game-Players of Titan
  • The Simulacra
  • The Crack in Space
  • Now Wait for Last Year
  • Clans of the Alphane Moon
  • The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
  • The Zap Gun
  • The Penultimate Truth
  • Deus Irae
  • The Unteleported Man
  • The Ganymede Takeover
  • Counter-Clock World
  • Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
  • Nick and the Glimmung
  • Ubik
  • Galactic Pot-Healer
  • A Maze of Death
  • Our Friends from Frolix 8
1970s
  • Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
  • A Scanner Darkly
  • Radio Free Albemuth
1980s
  • VALIS
  • The Divine Invasion
  • The Transmigration of Timothy Archer
  • The Owl in Daylight
Short story collections
1950s
  • A Handful of Darkness
  • The Variable Man
1960s
  • The Preserving Machine
1970s
  • The Book of Philip K. Dick
  • The Best of Philip K. Dick
1980s
  • The Golden Man
  • Robots, Androids, and Mechanical Oddities
  • I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon
  • The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick
  • Beyond Lies the Wub
  • The Dark Haired Girl
  • The Father-Thing
  • Second Variety
1990s
  • The Days of Perky Pat
  • The Little Black Box
  • The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford
  • We Can Remember It for You Wholesale
  • The Minority Report
  • Second Variety
  • The Eye of the Sibyl
  • The Philip K. Dick Reader
2000s
  • Minority Report
  • Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick
  • Paycheck
  • Vintage PKD
Short stories
1950s
  • "Beyond Lies the Wub"
  • "The Gun"
  • "The Skull"
  • "The Little Movement"
  • "The Defenders"
  • "Mr. Spaceship"
  • "Piper in the Woods"
  • "Roog"
  • "The Infinities"
  • "Second Variety"
  • "The World She Wanted"
  • "Colony"
  • "The Cookie Lady"
  • "Impostor"
  • "Martians Come in Clouds"
  • "Paycheck"
  • "The Preserving Machine"
  • "The Cosmic Poachers"
  • "Expendable"
  • "The Indefatigable Frog"
  • "The Commuter"
  • "Out in the Garden"
  • "The Great C"
  • "The King of the Elves"
  • "The Trouble with Bubbles"
  • "The Variable Man"
  • "The Impossible Planet"
  • "Planet for Transients"
  • "Some Kinds of Life"
  • "The Builder"
  • "The Hanging Stranger"
  • "Project: Earth"
  • "The Eyes Have It"
  • "Tony and the Beetles"
  • "Prize Ship"
  • "Beyond the Door"
  • "The Crystal Crypt"
  • "A Present for Pat"
  • "The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford"
  • "The Golden Man"
  • "James P. Crow"
  • "Prominent Author"
  • "Small Town"
  • "Survey Team"
  • "Sales Pitch"
  • "Time Pawn"
  • "Breakfast at Twilight"
  • "The Crawlers"
  • "Of Withered Apples"
  • "Exhibit Piece"
  • "Adjustment Team"
  • "Shell Game"
  • "Meddler"
  • "Souvenir"
  • "A World of Talent"
  • "The Last of the Masters"
  • "Progeny"
  • "Upon the Dull Earth"
  • "The Father-thing"
  • "Strange Eden"
  • "Jon's World"
  • "The Turning Wheel"
  • "Foster, You're Dead!"
  • "Human Is"
  • "War Veteran"
  • "Captive Market"
  • "Nanny"
  • "The Hood Maker"
  • "The Chromium Fence"
  • "Service Call"
  • "A Surface Raid"
  • "The Mold of Yancy"
  • "Autofac"
  • "Psi-man Heal My Child!"
  • "The Minority Report"
  • "To Serve the Master"
  • "Pay for the Printer"
  • "A Glass of Darkness"
  • "The Unreconstructed M"
  • "Misadjustment"
  • "Null-O"
  • "Explorers We"
  • "Recall Mechanism"
  • "Fair Game"
  • "War Game"
1960s
  • "All We Marsmen"
  • "Stand-by"
  • "What'll We Do with Ragland Park?"
  • "The Days of Perky Pat"
  • "If There Were No Benny Cemoli"
  • "Waterspider"
  • "Novelty Act"
  • "Oh, to Be a Blobel!"
  • "The War with the Fnools"
  • "What the Dead Men Say"
  • "Orpheus with Clay Feet"
  • "Cantata 140"
  • "A Game of Unchance"
  • "The Little Black Box"
  • "Precious Artifact"
  • "The Unteleported Man"
  • "Retreat Syndrome"
  • "Project Plowshare"
  • "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale"
  • "Holy Quarrel"
  • "Your Appointment Will Be Yesterday"
  • "Return Match"
  • "Faith of Our Fathers"
  • "Not by Its Cover"
  • "The Story to End All Stories"
  • "The Electric Ant"
  • "A. Lincoln, Simulacrum"
1970s
  • "The Pre-persons"
  • "A Little Something for Us Tempunauts"
  • "The Exit Door Leads In"
1980s
  • "Chains of Air, Web of Aethyr"
  • "Rautavaara's Case"
  • "I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon"
  • "The Alien Mind"
  • "Strange Memories of Death"
  • "Cadbury, the Beaver Who Lacked"
  • "The Day Mr. Computer Fell Out of Its Tree"
  • "The Eye of the Sibyl"
  • "Stability"
  • "Goodbye, Vincent"
Film and television adaptations
1980s
  • Blade Runner
1990s
  • Total Recall
  • Confessions d'un Barjo
  • Screamers
  • Total Recall 2070
2000s
  • Impostor
  • Minority Report
  • Paycheck
  • A Scanner Darkly
  • Next
  • Screamers: The Hunting
2010s
  • Radio Free Albemuth
  • The Adjustment Bureau
  • Total Recall
  • King of the Elves

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