THEMES - THEME ANALYSIS

Dangers of Intelligence

There is an inescapable irony that surrounds Project Wildfire. The army has assembled some of the country's best minds to combat a biological threat that could eventually destroy all of mankind. This danger would never have occurred, however, if another group of brilliant minds had not discovered a way to transport such lethal bacteria from outer space to earth. In an effort to protect one nation another nation, the United States army had unleashed something with the potential to destroy all nations.

Crichton sums up this idea in the thoughts of Dr. Stone: (Stone) often argued that intelligence was more trouble than it was worth. It was more destructive than creative, more confusing than revealing, more discouraging than satisfying, more spiteful than charitable. (page 202)

Chaos vs. Control

Another theme, which also characterizes another Crichton novel Jurassic Park, involves the belief that human beings can always outwit nature due to mankind's superior intelligence and reason. By thinking they can plan for every eventuality, the Project Wildfire team makes the same mistakes that the Ingen team commits while planning their dinosaur island. Despite their state of the art technology, the combined experience and knowledge of the scientists, and seeming unlimited personnel and resources, the Wildfire team is unable to completely control the sequence of events after getting the Andromeda Strain into the lab.

Technology as a double-edged sword

Regardless of the army's intentions, their efforts to develop more sophisticated weapons have endangered the very people they were supposed to protect. Hoping to discover new forms of bacteria that could be used in warfare, the "Scoop" satellite brought back a deadly germ agent that wiped out an entire town because the army couldn't properly contain it. As man increases his own capacity to manipulate the world around him, he also increases the chances that he will destroy himself, or the planet, or both.

In this same vein, this technology that man relies on the save him can quickly be rendered useless if any malfunction occurs. The failure of the telex printer was an unforeseeable occurrence that jeopardized everything. A multi-billion dollar lab, with millions of lives riding on its discoveries, thwarted because a tiny sliver of paper jams between the hammer and the bell inside the printer.

PLOT STRUCTURE ANALYSIS

Initial Incident

The action begins to intensify as soon as the two army officers are killed by (we think) the mysterious old man in the white robe. This incident starts everything else in motion. The army orders a flyover, Mancek dials up the Wildfire hotline, and the scientists start getting pulled from their daily lives.

Rising Action

Everything that happens from the initial incident up to the moment where Hall makes his highway diagnosis. The scientists assemble and go through the decontamination. Peter Jackson and the baby are moved to the Wildfire facility. The President decides not to drop the bomb. Stone discovers that the organism is growing. The plane crashes in Utah. The telex printer malfunctions and cuts off the scientists. Burton fails to autopsy the coagulated rats. Leavitt has his epileptic seizures, etc.

Climax

Since the whole purpose their work is to discover the nature of the Andromeda Strain and thus find a possible prevention for it, the moment where Hall formulates his highway diagnosis qualifies as the climax of the action. Once he understands that blood pH is the key to the bacteria's survival in the blood stream, the mystery is solved.

Falling action

After Hall's discovery, a few loose ends need to be wrapped up. Burton becomes trapped in a room with the Andromeda Strain. The seals begin bursting and the entire fifth level becomes infected. Stone and Hall get trapped in a room without a nuclear substation and have no way to prevent the detonation.

Moment of Final Suspense

The action intensifies briefly as Hall attempts to enter the core and climb to the fourth level in order to enter his key and press the red button to stop the countdown. He gets shot at with tranquilizers, but somehow manages to avert a nuclear self-destruct detonation and save the lives of everyone in the facility. This might also be interpreted as the climax of the book, since a detonation would not only destroy all the research on Andromeda but also provide it with a huge burst of energy that would cause it to further mutate.

Denouement / Outcome

Stone's comment The important thing is that we know understand gives meaning to the outcome of the novel. By the end of the novel the scientists have discovered the true nature of Andromeda. They've also learned that, despite the most careful preparations, mishaps can and will happen. This knowledge was purchased at all terrible price, however. Crichton leaves the reader with a sense of ambiguity as to whether or not this was all worth it.

POINT OF VIEW

The story of The Andromeda Strain is told by a third party omniscient narrator. The narrator not only knows all the details of the character's lives (which he shares rather sparingly), but also relates a great deal of the history of medial and scientific research. From the narrator we learn a great deal concerning past scientific conferences and the theories that have shaped the opinions and attitudes of the Wildfire scientists.

In addition, the story is related many years after the fact. Crichton structures the novel as if some high ranking official were impassively recounting the details of one of the worst scientific tragedies in U.S. history. It is not a memoir, however. It lacks any one the emotional involvement that would characterize the story were it told by Hall, Stone, or Leavitt. Reading the novel is almost like reading a military report, which somehow makes it eerily convincing.