The Characters
The brilliant but contentious Dr. Jeremy Stone, the thirty-six-year-old leader of the research project to find the source of the mysterious disease and its cure, has recently won the Nobel Prize for his work on bacteria. Stone was one of the scientists responsible for the Scoop project; he is ironically chosen to solve the problems that his brainchild originated. Stone is a tireless worker and is devoted to his team members and to the project.
Dr. Peter Leavitt is a man with a secret. Even though the scientists have to pass rigorous physical examinations before beginning work, Leavitt successfully hides his epilepsy. Finally, exhaustion and the blinking lights of the computer console bring on a seizure. Leavitt is left with the guilty knowledge that his duplicity might have caused the research project to fail. This seizure, incidentally, prevents Leavitt from noticing the one way in which the bacteria are vulnerable. The incident is only one of several unfortunate coincidences on which the plot entirely depends. Had Leavitt not gone into seizure, he would have discovered the weak spot of the bacteria and the menace would have been ended.
Just as Leavitt is wrong in trying to hide his condition, Dr. Charles Burton is careless in his scientific method. As the narrator observes, if Burton had only thought to perform an autopsy on the brains of certain research animals being exposed to the bacteria, perhaps the answer to the puzzle would have come more rapidly.
The most clearly drawn and likable character is young Dr. Mark Hall, a surgeon chosen for the project not only for his credentials but also for the fact that he is the “odd man out”—the only one of the four who is unmarried. Crichton presents a fictional psychological study supporting the very dubious premise that single men are more likely to blow themselves up when ordered to do so. Thus, only Hall is given the ability to stop the explosion of an atomic device which will detonate automatically if the security of the laboratory is breached. Perhaps the fact that Hall is the most likable and most intelligent of the group is explained by noting that Crichton is a doctor himself. Whatever the cause of Hall’s talents, the success of the project depends on him. Indeed, it is Hall’s research and his insight into the problem that provide the answer to the puzzle. At the climax of the story, Hall makes his heroic climb through the core of the underground laboratory to save his colleagues and the building from atomic destruction.
Of all the “characters,” the reader’s attention keeps returning to the microscopic bit of life that is brought back on the Scoop. It is a character without a name and with a structure unlike that of any known Earth entity. This bacterium is made of hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen, but lacks amino acids. It therefore contains no proteins, the building blocks of all earthly life. By all the scientists’ reckonings, it cannot be alive, yet it divides, respires, and changes in form—all marks of life.
The science in the novel and the pace of the adventure must maintain the reader’s interest because the characters show little individuality. For example, Stone’s personality has supposedly caused four of his marriages to fail, yet in the laboratory he is even-tempered, gentle, and considerate. Despite Crichton’s effort to tailor carefully each character’s background, they behave much alike.
Characters Discussed
Jeremy Stone
Jeremy Stone, a professor of bacteriology at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Nobel Prize winner, a lawyer,...
(This entire section contains 627 words.)
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and a federal government consultant whose paper on the possibilities of a bacterial or viral invasion led to his Project Wildfire, a $22 million underground containment laboratory in the Nevada desert. It is at this laboratory that any extraterrestrial enemy is to be studied and countermeasures developed. Stone’s papers on bacteriology and mutant reversion have led him to be compared to Albert Einstein. His insistence on a nuclear device to destroy the lab if the alien disease threatens to escape is the key to the project and to the plot. He is a thin, balding man with a prodigious memory, a sense of humor, and an overpowering impatience that leads him to interrupt speakers and to finish conversations. Four times married, this imperious man alienates colleagues but is unquestionably an intellectual power. Stone views the disaster at Piedmont, Arizona, as a confusing but challenging puzzle and the survivors as the central clues.
Peter Leavitt
Peter Leavitt, a clinical microbiologist and epidemiologist specializing in parasitology. He is the chief of bacteriology at the same hospital as Hall and responsible for recruiting Hall. Leavitt’s research, conducted worldwide, is famous, but ill health made him give up research abroad. He suffers from epilepsy and is hypnotized by blinking lights. This carefully hidden vulnerability has potentially disastrous consequences when a flashing alarm renders him unconscious.
Charles Burton
Charles Burton, a fifty-four-year-old pathologist who accompanies Stone to Piedmont and then to the Wildfire lab. Burton held a professorship at Baylor Medical and served as consultant to the NASA Manned Spaceflight Center in Houston. His specialty is the effects of bacteria on human tissues. His unruly and untidy appearance puts Stone off, but his expertise is undeniable. Burton accompanies Stone on his initial investigation of the Piedmont disaster and later is trapped in a lab with the virus after it is released by a failed seal.
Mark Hall
Mark Hall, a surgeon Stone reluctantly enlisted in the Wildfire team when another was unable to come. Known by associates as “swift, quick-tempered, and unpredictable,” he operates rapidly, laughing and joking while cutting, and becomes irritable when work becomes slow and difficult. He is called out of surgery to join the team and initially is not particularly welcome as a useful member (except for his knowledge of electrolytes and his unmarried status). In an intuitive leap, however, he comes to a final understanding of the terrifying disease. He describes his experiences as “horrifying” and “unfamiliar.” The alien invader finally succumbs from common earthly causes, making Hall’s discovery moot, but in the meantime, as the “Odd Man” of the Wildfire instruction manual, he is the only one who can stop the nuclear self-destruct mechanism.
Major Arthur Manchek
Major Arthur Manchek, the Project Scoop duty officer, an engineer who reacts to the mysterious cutoff in transmission of the satellite recovery team sent to Piedmont. He decides to call an alert and set up flybys, scans, and laboratory studies. Manchek is a quiet, heavyset man with labile hypertension. He is unable to lose the extra pounds necessary for promotion. Previously in charge of experiments in spacecraft landing methods at the Wright Patterson facility in Vandenberg, Ohio, Manchek had developed three new capsule shapes that were promising. He hates administrative work and was happiest working at the wind tunnels of Wright Patterson. He notices the aged survivor on the flyby films, declares a state of emergency, and calls in the experts. Manchek disappears from the novel early but reappears near the end, when he finds out about the crash of a plane that invaded Piedmont airspace and pushes for nuclear destruction of Piedmont and Wildfire.
Characters
Several minor characters, like Lieutenant Roger Shawn, who discovers the Scoop satellite, primarily serve to create a realistic setting and engage the reader. These characters lack detailed development and exist mainly to move the plot forward. Even Major Arthur Manchek, the chief duty officer who receives considerable attention early in the novel, remains more of a textual description than a fully fleshed-out character. Crichton describes Manchek as "prepared and disposed to consider a crisis of the most major proportions," a quality that sets him apart from most military personnel. Readers learn that Manchek is an engineer with hypertension, bored by people but fascinated by technical puzzles. Evidence shows he is deliberative, capable of slowing down in emergencies to maintain objectivity and clarity, and decisive. Yet, as the story unfolds, he gradually fades into the background.
The primary characters in The Andromeda Strain are the five members of the Wildfire team: Jeremy Stone, Peter Leavitt, Charles Burton, Mark Hall, and Christian Kirke. Collectively, they embody various traits that make up a complete person. Stone, a Nobel Prize winner, chairs the Stanford University Bacteriology Department. He is a conscientious scientist with an exceptional memory for scientific facts. Leavitt, a clinical macrobiologist and epidemiologist, has experience treating infectious diseases. He is imaginative but hides a flaw—he suffers from epilepsy. Burton, a pathologist from Houston, can be sloppy and impulsive in his thinking but is highly regarded for his expertise in bacteriology, often consulted by NASA and Baylor University. Hall, a surgeon known for his efficiency in routine cases, rises above his limitations in the final chapter to save the team amid chaos. His notable trait is being unmarried. Kirke, a Yale University anthropologist, is extremely logical and adept at handling complex abstractions. Due to a twist of fate, Kirke never joins the team at the specially designed facility in Flatrock, Nevada.
Most team members' names carry symbolic significance, with Kirke's being the most intriguing. "Kirk" is the Scottish term for church, symbolizing the spiritual aspect of science. By excluding Kirke from the team, Crichton raises ethical and moral questions for the remaining members to ponder. This allows him to focus on the technological challenges, enhancing the immediacy and tension of the narrative.
Ultimately, Crichton aims for the human elements of the team to merge into a composite entity, which partly explains why even the main characters are not fully fleshed out. The author seeks to illustrate in The Andromeda Strain how scientists work independently yet collectively to solve common issues. The team, therefore, functions as a unit greater than the sum of its parts, much like how a person is an amalgamation of their components and a society is a gathering of numerous individuals.
The irony lies in the fact that all the meticulous planning to assemble the team proves irrelevant in the end. The problem isn't resolved through their understanding or actions. Instead, luck plays a role in revealing the solution, and by the time they identify the agent, the problem has already transformed, leaving them powerless to address it. In this manner, the characters embody the novel's overarching themes.
