Northrop Frye

Northrop Frye In The Electric Ant

In "The Electric Ant" by Philip K. Dick, the protagonist - Garson Poole - suffers an injury to his hand due to an accident, and because of that injury he discovers he is an electric ant. This realization turns his life around and allows readers to sympathize with Poole because of his sadness in discovering who he really was. But if one reads carefully and digs deep, readers are able to see that this story has incorporated many pre-existing forms of literature, something Northrop Frye states is in every piece of literature ever written. "The Electric Ant" is a short story that proves Frye's theory of where most pieces of literature come from and exactly what occurs in them.

Northrop Frye states that all pieces of literature come from pre-existing forms of literature, including bible stories and myths (pg. 13-14). At the beginning of "The Electric Ant", Mr. Poole, or later just Poole, is told by those that work at the hospital that he is an electric ant and must go elsewhere to have his hand replaced, "So we can't really treat you here, now that we've found out," (pg.307). Mr. Poole not being able to be treated because he is not whom they usually treat at the hospital bears a similar resemblance to several bible stories about lepers. In Jesus' time, those with leprosy were not accepted and felt like outcasts from

the rest of society, (Luke 17:19-35). While Mr. Poole was not an outcast, the similarity between people being treated differently because of something beyond their own control is there, and clearly one can see the connection between this story and one part of Frye's theory about literature.

"The Electric Ant" contains a moment of realization, which connects to the play Oedipus Rex. In the play, the protagonist, Oedipus is an important figure during the time, as is Mr. Poole, being the owner of Tri-Plan Electronics. Mr. Poole comes to a realization about himself when he is told that he is an electric ant, something he previously did not know but someone else (Danceman) did, "Since you took over the firm. I was told that the actual owners of Tri Plan [...] wanted Tri-Plan run by an electric ant whom they could control," (pg.312). The connection to Oedipus Rex is that Tiresias knew something that the prophecy about Oedipus was true, a realization Oedipus himself had to come to (pg.69). Another connection is that after the prophecy about Oedipus proves to be true, things do not go back to being the way that they used to be, and that is seen in "The Electric Ant" with a statement by Sarah Benton,

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