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          ARRoGANT                CoURiERS      WiTH     ESSaYS

Grade Level:       Type of Work           Subject/Topic is on:
 [ ]6-8                 [ ]Class Notes    [Essay on Fiction Writer ]
 [x]9-10                [ ]Cliff Notes    [Tom Clancy              ]
 [ ]11-12               [x]Essay/Report   [                        ]
 [ ]College             [ ]Misc           [                        ]

 Dizzed: 10/94  # of Words:2309  School: ?              State: ?
ФФФФФФФФФ>ФФФФФФФФФ>ФФФФФФФФФ>Chop Here>ФФФФФФФФФ>ФФФФФФФФФ>ФФФФФФФФФ>ФФФФФФФФФ
     There are many fictional books written to be enjoyed for their
contents.  However, the interest of the reader in the contents of a book is
sometimes affected by the realism with which the plot is introduced.  Tom
Clancy is an author of many books concerning the military.  He is one of
the most outstanding authors for writing fictional novels to do with
military.  His novels The Hunt for Red October and The Cardinal of The
Kremlin provide insights which will capture the imagination of many
readers.  Using historical facts, references to real military hardware and
believable characters, Tom Clancy is able to develop believable plots.

     Tom Clancy's insight into history allowed him to write a very
realistic and therefore believable plot.  His use of historical events
which actually took place and were incorporated into his stories allowed
him to enhance motives for the fictional conflict. Many people who lost
trust and belief in the Communist system defected to the United States and
other countries.  Through use of historical facts such as defection in The
Hunt for Red October (THRO), Clancy is able to advance his plot.
Defections for political reasons happened quite often during the Cold War.
There were many defections in history starting back in World War II when
famous people like Albert Einstein defected to the use because the Germans
discriminated again him being Jewish (pg. 124-5, Vol. 9 Funk & Wagnalls
Encyclopedia).  The more recent occurance of defection to the US of a high
ranking deputy chief of staff del PiЄo DЁaz happened in 1987 (pg. 24, "A
flight to freedom").  Ramius was the main character in the novel who
decided to defect.  The character helps Clancy to develop reasons for which
such a high ranking commander would defect and later cause conflict to
occur between the U.S. and Soviet Union.  The use of historical facts
common during the Cold War was defection which made Communism infamous and
Tom Clancy famous for the believable plot developed.

     Similarly in TCTK Clancy also uses historical facts to enhance his
plot making it believable.  Using a historical fact, Clancy shows how cruel
the Communist system is with no respect for the humans but only for
political power.  The landing of a German teenager, Mathias Rust, inside
the Red Square and his prosecution is brilliantly used to illustrate the
KGB's way of thinking (pp. 226-7, TCTK).  In June 1987 a German teenager
landed in the Red Square in Soviet Union.  He somehow managed to bypass
sophisticated air defence systems and causing several bureaucrats to be
fired by the Soviet Politburo (p. 24, "Destination Red Square").  The
historical fact gave Tom Clancy the ground to make the Communist
bureaucrats' characters more sensitive to treason for the fear of losing
their position and therefore their power.  Tom Clancy exploits the fear of
the Communists to make them harder to infiltrate.  The difficulty
infiltrating the Soviet government is precisely what the author wanted and
makes his plot more interesting by making it more complex.

     The historical facts are not the only way in which believable plot is
introduced.  The use of realistic characters allows the reader to believe
in whatever outcome realism will cause.  In THRO the astonishment which
Ramius feels through his thoughts being revealed by the author are all
realistic.  They sound like an average person's reactions to a situation.

     "They know our name, Ramius was thinking, they know our name! How can
     this be? They knew where to find us--exactly! How? What can the
     Americans have? How long has the Los Angeles been trailing us?
     Decide--you must decide!" (pg. 248, THRO)

Ramius wants to defect from Soviet Union and on one of his missions he
disobeys orders.  Nobody knew about his decision, not even the Americans to
whom he wanted to defect.  When Ramius received a message from one of the
American submarines and mentions his submarine's name, Red October, he was
astonished because Americans were not supposed to know about his wish to
defect.  It is only believable that a person who would not be suspected to
know something would be surprised the way Ramius was.  The circumstance
that makes the entire event more believable is that Ramius also questions
American intentions.  He does not just decide right away that he will
follow their suggestions.  It is only after a long consideration that
Ramius decided to follow American instructions. Ramius' character is
developed in a way that through his conscious decisions Clancy is able to
show that Ramius is like a real person. Through the believable character
Clancy is also able to advance his plot in a convincing fashion by having
Ramius defect.

     Another main character who is described as living a normal life is
Jack Ryan.  The character's appearance makes him a believable character.

     "He was physically unremarkable, an inch over six feet, and his
     average suffered a little at the waist from a lack of exercise
     enforced by the miserable English weather.  His blue eyes had a
     deceptively vacant look; he was often lost in though, his face on
     autopilot as his ind puzzled through data or research material for his
     current book  ... a wife he loved and two children he doted on, a job
     that tested his intellect..." (pp. 36-7, THRO) "The talent that had
     enabled him to pick winning stocks Ryan now applied to the CIA." (pp.
     44-5, THRO)

The normal appearance of Jack and the fact that he was good at predicting
winning stocks as a stock broker, made him believable in predicting future
which was later his job as a CIA analyst.  Jack's success in predicting
Ramius' objective was believable, even though his predictions were so far
fetched that they were considered crazy by other characters in the book.
The actions of Jack Ryan and normal way of living allowed farther
development of plot which was completely acceptable to the reader making
the story believable.

     In TCTK the character Colonel Mikhail Semyonovich Filitov is also a
believable fictional person.  The death of his family and drinking, as many
other people in Soviet Union do, made the person realistic enough to be
believed in (pp. 58-9, Life in Russia).

     "The elder [son] had died in Hungary, Vatutin saw.  Because of  his
     political reliability he'd been taken from his military academy, along
     with a number of cadets, and sent to help suppress the 1956
     counterrevolution.  A crewman in a tank--following in his [Filitov's]
     footsteps, he'd died when his vehicle had been destroyed... The
     second--also a tanker, Vatutin noted--died when the breech on the gun
     in his T-55 had exploded.,  Poor quality- control at the factory, the
     bane of Soviet industry, had killed the whole crew ... and when had
     his wife died? The following July.  Broken heart, probably, whatever
     the medical explanation had been.  The File showed both sons had been
     models of young Soviet manhood. All the hopes and dreams that just
     have died with them, Vatutin thought, and then to lose your wife,
     too." (pg. 211, TCTK)

His misfortunes caused by the State created a realistic reaction of a human
being.  Filitov turned against the Soviet Union and became an American spy.
The defection was easily accepted by the reader because of Filitov's past
and reason for anger and lost trust for the Soviet State.  With a realistic
character and importance which Filitov held as a spy helped develop a
believable plot.

     Another character in TCTK who greatly contributed to the plot's
approval by the reader was the behaviour of a true Communist and a human
being, Colonel Vatutin.  He, like many other characters, made decisions
based on his beliefs about the State and also out of fear for losing power
(pg. 209, TCTK).  Vatutin was so brainwashed, like other high ranking
officials, that he really believed in what he was doing.  Anyone speaking
out against the government should have been  punished.  Vatutin also did
his job solely to get promoted to higher levels of bureaucracy at one point
thinking: "And [I] actually believed that [I] could advance [my] career."
(pg. 212-3, TCTK).  By convicting the high ranking spy who infiltrated the
Soviet Union's military projects Vatutin thought he was going to rise in
the ranks.  Understanding the circumstances described earlier in the book
it would have been a normal human reaction of trying to hold the power like
Vatutin did.  Most humans would like to have some kind of power and respect
and that is why Vatutin is a believable character who wants that power just
a bit more than others.  Vatutin's character was very believable allowing
the reader to accept the plot.

     The characters presented were not the only believable aspect in the
novel.  The authenticity of military hardware being referred to bring one
of the most convincing aspects of the plot developed by the author.  Tom
Clancy makes numerous references to the "USS Dallas" as a 688 Los Angeles
class nuclear submarine (pp. 4-5, The Hunt for Red October).  The actual
submarines portrayed in the novel, like the nuclear submarine described
actually exists today (pp. 154-5,166 High-Tech Warfare).  The ships
referred to as "America", "Nimitz" and "Kennedy" are also used in the book
(pg. 239, THRO).  These ships are actual names of aircraft carriers in
service to-date (pp. 152, 156 High-Tech Warfare).  All the military weapons
are used appropriately for the tasks assigned providing sea support to the
characters.  The effective use of military hardware allows for the reader's
imagination to take over.  It is easier to imagine a real life plane
lifting off.  The references to real military hardware allowed the reader
to experience the action by imagining existing machines doing all the
action and adding to the realism of the plot.

     The planes like F-15, F-16 or A-10 are used in The Hunt for Red
October to provide air support to the characters in action (pp. 91, 127,
207, TCTK respectively).  The authentic planes add to the excitement which
allows the reader to imagine existing hardware used strengthening the
author's story.  The air support also adds to the realism which builds a
believable plot. The EC-2 and EC-3 AWACS used in the book are actual planes
still used by the military today (pg. 195, US Air Force and pg. 100, Spy
Planes).  The use of radar planes provides Jack Ryan with valuable
information which allows him to make decisions which dramatically but
believably change the course of the future (pp. 91, 192, THRO). Jack would
have never known the Soviet military movements if the radar planes would
never be in the air.  The coordination of other planes, in one of which
Jack himself was on, also were the responsibility of the AWACS planes
without which Jack would probably die because of a Soviet air strike about
to happen (pp. 172-3, THRO).  The highly militarized operations in the sea
which the author describes are supported by existing military hardware
which makes Clancy's plot acceptable to the reader.

     In The Cardinal of The Kremlin Tom Clancy discusses why the character
like Narmonov wants to cut a deal with the US to cut on the number of
nuclear missiles.  The use of real weapons in existence today makes
Clancy's job easier because the reader can associate the fictional story to
the real situation today.  The definitions like ICBMs or nuclear missiles
like SS-25 are actual weapons in existence today (pg. 70, US Air Force).
The SS-25 were made famous for their role during the Cuban Missile Crisis
and many readers would associate their knowledge or simply believe in the
description of the missiles Tom Clancy gives. The use of the ground weapons
also added to the realism of the setting which made the plot believable.
The actual battle fought on the ground by the mudjaheddin rebels who were
only armed with US made Stinger missiles made the story more realistic (pg.
16, TCTK). The rebels did not have good ground weapons but they inflicted
heavy casualties among the Russians because of the Stinger missiles they
somehow managed to get (pp. 120-121, High-Tech Warfare).  The rebels were
not portrayed as heavy armoured fighters but they did have weapons which
actually existed and were used against Soviets at the time.  The armament
of the Afghan rebels with AK-47 automatic rifles and the Stinger missiles
used by them was very convincing (pg. 125, High-Tech Warfare).  The
realistic weapon combinations that were actually used by the rebels made
the author's story many times more believable.

     Tom Clancy often used specific references to historical facts,
characters' personality and references to real military hardware to
convince the reader of the believable plot in both novels.  Even though
much of the book was fiction, Clancy managed to convince the reader through
the use of many facts that his plot was real.  The believable plot allowed
Tom Clancy to gain the reader on his side and made him one of the most
unique authors today.  Tom Clancy's books like The Hunt for Red October and
The Cardinal of The Kremlin mention historical facts, contain believable
characters and  refer to existing weapons present a very convincing plot.


                               BIBLIOGRAPHY



Binyon, Michael.  Life in Russia. Great Britain: Hamish Hamilton  
   Ltd., 1983.
Bram, L. Leon.  Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia. Funk &
   Wagnalls Inc., 1980, rev. 1986.
Clancy, Tom.  The Hunt for Red October. Annapolis: Naval Institute 
   Press, 1984.
Clancy, Tom.  The Cardinal of The Kremlin. New York: G.P. Putnam's 
   Sons, 1988.
Gunston, Bill.  Spy Planes: Guide to Recce/Electronic Aircraft. New 
   York: Prentice Hall Press, 1983.
Gunston, Bill.  Military Helicopters: Guide to Military Rotorcraft. 
   New York: Prentice Hall Press, 1986.
Levin, Bob with Austen, Ian. "Destination Red Square." Mcleans, 100 
   (June 8, 1987), 24.
"A flight to freedom." Mcleans, 100, (June 8, 1987), 24.
Richardson, Doug and Gunston, Bill and Hogg, Ian.  High-Tech      
   Warfare. New York: Crescent Books, 1991.
Roberts, Michael. United States Air Force. London: Brian Todd     
   Publishing House Limited, 1989.
