The Hunt for Red October

Jack Ryan is one of the main characters of the novel, and he appears in more than 30 novels written by Tom Clancy and others. This is the first published novel Ryan appears in, although there are later novels with timelines that precede this one. Ryan served in the Marines, worked four years as a stockbroker, and writes history books. He works as an analyst for the CIA, a desk job that allows him to spend his evenings at home with his wife and two children. Ryan has a deathly fear of flying because he was in a helicopter crash in the Marines that left him hospitalized for months. Ryan is also prone to seasickness, an issue that comes up when he is sent first to the aircraft carrier, Kennedy, and then to the British ship, Invincible.

Ryan would rather sit behind a desk than work in the field. However, when a situation arises that requires someone to board Red October and help Ramius defect with his boat and most of his officers, Ryan doesn’t hesitate. He not only boards the Red October but also hunts down a GRU agent and helps drive the boat to the US, even helping to take out a Soviet submarine on the way. Ryan shows courage and determination that are matched only by Ramius as they both fight to take Red October safely to the US, where she will be carefully studied by American engineers, and Ramius and his men will be given asylum.

Ryan is not a classic action hero. He prefers to remain behind a desk where he uses his impressive mind to analyze intelligence. Ryan is a family man, so focused on them that he goes Christmas shopping while a Soviet submarine makes its way to the East Coast of the US. He is also flawed, making him more complex than the stereotypical flat, one-dimensional action hero. At the end of the novel, Ryan appears to have overcome one of his fears, the fear of flying, when he falls asleep on the commercial air flight back to England. This could be because he flew multiple times during the novel: to Washington, DC; on a transport plane to meet both the Kennedy and the Invincible; by helicopter to meet up with the Dallas. It could simply be that he was exhausted by a lack of sleep during his adventures. Either way, his falling asleep on the plane shows a degree of change in Ryan and gives his character more depth.

Sonarman Second Class Ronald Jones is an important character in this novel because he is the first to recognize the sounds of the caterpillar drive, and his help allows Dallas to find and track Red October through the Atlantic Ocean. Jones is a rebellious young man who got himself kicked out of California Institute of Technology for pulling an unfortunate prank on one of his professors. Jones loves music and has incredible hearing, a skill that helps him as a sonarman.

Dallas is not far from Red October when she switches off her main engines and turns on the caterpillar drive for the first time. Jones hears the switch, and he detects the subtle sounds of water rushing through the tunnel drive, a sound that his equipment identifies as magma displacement. He insists the sound is synthetic and continues to search for and listen to it on his own time before finally convincing Commander Mancuso that it is a new drive system on a Soviet submarine. Without Jones’s determination, the Dallas would have lost track of Red October and Ryan wouldn’t have been able to warn Ramius that his own country’s submarines were positioned outside major ports in the US, waiting to destroy Red October on sight.

Commander Bart Mancuso is the captain of the USS Dallas, an attack submarine. Mancuso is the son of a barber from Illinois who attended the Naval Academy at Annapolis. He was one of the youngest submarine commanders in the U.S. Navy but is reaching an age at which he knows he will not be offered any more commands. Mancuso is important to the plot because he makes the decision to ask permission to continue following the silent drive system Jones identified, even though there is no proof that what Jones hears is a submarine and they cannot identify it or its country of origin. Mancuso’s decision follows his orders to identify and report on new technology being used by the Soviet subs, but the unknowns could place him and his crew on the Dallas in danger.

Mancuso learns the truth about Red October shortly before joining Ryan onboard the Soviet submarine. He is excited to see inside a Soviet submarine because intelligence can reveal only so much about an enemy submarine; seeing it for himself will allow Mancuso insight into a world he and others like him have only been able to take educated guesses at. He also relates to Ramius because they are both men who worked hard to advance in their careers. Even though they come from vastly different societies and are technically enemies, they can see eye to eye on the technology and the skills they’ve developed in their careers. They respect one another, and Mancuso is able to support Ramius when they are forced to face down the VK Konovalov.