Philip K. Dick was one of the most imaginative and thought-provoking science fiction writers of the 20th century. His short story We Can Remember It for You Wholesale was first published in 1966 in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. The story explores deep ideas like memory, identity, reality, and the power of fantasy. Even though it’s a short read, the ideas it contains are massive. It has also inspired two Hollywood movies titled Total Recall (1990 and 2012), though these films expand the plot with action sequences that go far beyond Dick’s original tale.
At the heart of the story is a simple question: What if our memories weren’t real? What if they could be changed, erased, or even implanted? Would we still be the same person? Through the journey of a man named Douglas Quail, Dick challenges us to rethink how we define reality and identity. This article will walk you through the story’s plot, characters, themes, and impact on science fiction.
Plot Overview
Douglas Quail is an average man working as a low-paid office clerk. He lives a boring life and constantly daydreams about visiting Mars. He can’t afford the trip, but his desire is so strong that he decides to visit a company called Rekal Incorporated. Rekal offers a unique service: they implant fake memories into your mind, making you believe you experienced something incredible, even if it never happened.
Quail asks Rekal to give him the memory of a trip to Mars as a secret agent. But during the process, something unexpected happens. As the memory is being implanted, he begins to recall that he has already been to Mars, for real. It turns out that Quail once worked for a secret government agency. He was sent to Mars as a covert operative, and to keep it secret, his memories were erased.
Rekal quickly shuts down the memory procedure and returns Quail home. But now, pieces of his real memories start to come back. The government gets involved. They send agents to silence him, worried that his hidden past could become public. However, instead of killing him, they decide to offer him a deal. If he agrees to have new, fake memories implanted of something harmless, they will let him live.
Quail accepts the deal. This time, they implant a memory that he saved Earth as a child by stopping alien invaders. But in another twist, the scientists at Rekal realize that this too was a real memory. Quail, as a young boy, had once stopped an alien invasion. His implanted memory turns out to be yet another forgotten truth.
This double twist, first discovering he was a secret agent and then learning he was a childhood hero, is classic Philip K. Dick. It leaves readers questioning what is real and whether truth is ever truly knowable.
Major Themes
1. Memory vs. Reality
One of the central ideas in the story is the conflict between memory and reality. Quail believes he’s lived an ordinary life. But when new memories are implanted, real memories come to the surface. His mind becomes a battlefield between what’s real, what’s fake, and what’s forgotten.
The story makes us think: if you remember doing something, even if it never happened, does that memory become your reality? For Quail, his sense of self changes with each memory revealed. If our identity is based on our memories, then manipulating those memories means changing who we are.
Philip K. Dick was fascinated by these kinds of philosophical questions. He wanted to explore the idea that truth could be hidden or altered, not by lies, but by memory itself.
2. The Allure of Fantasy
Quail’s desire to visit Mars represents more than just wanderlust. It reflects the human need to escape boring or difficult lives through fantasy. People read books, watch movies, or play video games to live different lives, even if just for a while.
Rekal’s service takes that to a new level, selling fake memories. It’s a commercial form of fantasy, but instead of imagining it, you remember it as if it were real. Quail chooses to become a secret agent because it makes him feel important. Ironically, that fantasy turns out to be real.
Dick is asking whether people prefer pleasant illusions over difficult realities. Would you be happier believing a fake but exciting life? Would you rather forget the truth if the lie made you feel better?
3. Power, Control, and Identity
Another major theme is control. In Quail’s world, the government erases memories to protect secrets. Rekal controls people’s experiences by installing memories. In both cases, power comes from shaping what people remember.
This raises serious questions about identity. If someone can change your memories, can they control who you are? Quail’s journey shows how fragile our sense of self can be. Each version of his memories leads him to act differently, first as a clerk, then as a spy, then as a savior.
This makes us wonder who we really are. Are we defined by our memories? Our actions? Or something deeper?
4. Irony and Layers of Truth
The biggest irony in the story is that every fantasy Quail chooses turns out to be real. First, he wants to be a secret agent. He already was. Then, he chooses a childhood fantasy of saving the Earth. That, too, actually happened.
Philip K. Dick uses this irony to show how complex and uncertain truth can be. Every time Quail tries to escape into fantasy, he stumbles upon another layer of hidden reality. The story ends with a powerful idea: maybe all our dreams are echoes of forgotten truths.
Character Breakdown
Douglas Quail
Douglas Quail is the main character. At first, he’s shown as an ordinary man, mild-mannered, bored, and tired of his daily routine. He dreams of something greater, which makes him relatable. His desire to go to Mars drives the plot.
But as the story progresses, we learn he’s not so ordinary. Beneath his dull life is a hidden identity: a trained secret agent and a childhood hero. Quail’s journey is about discovering who he really is, one memory at a time. Each discovery pushes him further from the man he thought he was.
Quail’s character is tragic in a way. He never truly controls his own life. His memories, and by extension, his choices, are manipulated by others. He becomes a symbol of how fragile and malleable human identity can be.
Kirsten Quail
Kirsten is Quail’s wife. She’s practical, sarcastic, and sometimes dismissive of Quail’s dreams. She represents the ordinary life Quail wants to escape. In some versions of the story and adaptations, her role is expanded, sometimes portrayed as a spy sent to monitor him.
Though she’s a minor character in the original short story, she reflects the gap between Quail’s reality and his fantasies. Her presence emphasizes how unremarkable his life feels and why he’s so eager to change it.
Rekal Inc. Staff
The employees at Rekal are business-minded but shocked when Quail’s real memories surface. Their job is to sell fantasies, not uncover truths. Their reaction to Quail’s mind rejecting the fake memory shows how unprepared even they are for the blurred line between reality and illusion.
They represent the commercialization of experience, the idea that even memories can be bought and sold.
Government Agents
The agents from Interplan (the secret government agency) are cold and efficient. They view Quail as a threat because his recovered memories could reveal secrets. Yet, they also rely on Rekal’s technology to suppress the truth again.
They represent the dark side of government power, where control over citizens includes control over their minds.
Adaptations & Legacy
Philip K. Dick’s short story was adapted into two major films titled Total Recall (1990 and 2012). Both movies took the core idea, memory implants, a Mars mission, and a secret agent identity, but added action, love interests, and futuristic settings. The 1990 film starred Arnold Schwarzenegger and became a cult classic.
The films changed many details from the original story. For example, in Total Recall, Quail becomes “Quaid,” and the story includes mutant rebels, corrupt leaders, and dramatic battles. While entertaining, these additions shift the focus from psychological questions to physical adventure.
Still, both versions honor the main question Dick raised: What makes us who we are?
Over the years, the story has influenced many other sci-fi works, from Inception to Black Mirror to games like Cyberpunk 2077. Its themes of memory and reality have remained deeply relevant, especially in today’s world of virtual reality and AI-generated experiences.
Critical Reception & Analysis
We Can Remember It for You Wholesale is widely praised for its clever structure and philosophical depth. Critics have noted how Dick packs layers of meaning into a relatively short story. It challenges the reader to think about their own memories, dreams, and identity.
Many scholars view the story as a perfect example of Dick’s signature style, where nothing is ever what it seems. The story’s twists are not just there to surprise but to make a point: reality is unstable, and human identity is fragile.
Some have also discussed the psychological angle. Quail may represent people with repressed memories or dissociative identity disorders. His experiences are not just science fiction but metaphors for the human mind’s complexity.
Conclusion
We Can Remember It for You Wholesale is more than just a science fiction story. It’s a deep, thought-provoking exploration of memory, identity, control, and the human desire for meaning. Through Douglas Quail’s strange and twisting journey, Philip K. Dick forces us to look at our own lives and ask hard questions: Are we the people we think we are? Are our memories really ours? And would we be better off if they weren’t?
This story remains powerful because it taps into something very real: our fear that reality might not be what it seems and our hope that we can become more than we appear. As technology advances and memory manipulation becomes more than fiction, the questions Dick raised decades ago are more relevant than ever.
