The Andromeda Strain: Analysis of Major Characters
"The Andromeda Strain" explores a gripping narrative centered around the emergence of an extraterrestrial pathogen and the characters tasked with its containment and study. Key characters include Jeremy Stone, a Nobel Prize-winning bacteriology professor who leads the Project Wildfire initiative aimed at investigating and neutralizing the alien threat. Known for his brilliance and impatience, Stone's character is marked by his strong opinions and a history of strained relationships. Peter Leavitt, a clinical microbiologist, adds depth to the team with his expertise in parasitology and his struggles with epilepsy, which pose challenges during the crisis. Charles Burton, a pathologist, is recognized for his knowledge of bacterial effects on human tissue, despite his unkempt appearance that clashes with Stone's demeanor. Mark Hall, a surgeon with a quick temper, becomes crucial to the narrative after he unexpectedly finds himself integral to solving the crisis. Lastly, Major Arthur Manchek, the Project Scoop duty officer, manages the initial response to the situation, driven by a sense of urgency despite his personal challenges. Together, these characters navigate the complexities of science, ethics, and human vulnerability in the face of a potentially catastrophic event.
The Andromeda Strain: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Michael Crichton
First published: 1969
Genre: Novel
Locale: Flatrock, Nevada
Plot: Science fiction
Time: 1967
Jeremy Stone, a professor of bacteriology at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Nobel Prize winner, a lawyer, 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, 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, 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, a surgeon Stone reluctantly enlisted in the Wild-fire 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, 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.