Clear and Present Danger
51 pages • 1-hour read
Tom ClancyClear and Present Danger
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of graphic violence and death.
The Term “Druggies”
The term “druggie” appears 48 times in the novel as a recurring motif related to The Destructive Power of Drugs and the Drug Trade. The universal disdain for people with substance abuse disorders within the novel reflects the outdated perspective of the book’s publication in the late 20th century. At that time, many Americans saw drug use and dependency as a moral failing, rather than a medical issue often linked to genetics and socioeconomic circumstances.
The novel suggests that Alabama prosecutors pursue the death penalty for Jesús Castillo and Ramón Capati, the men caught by the crew of the Panache, because they know that “frying some druggie-pirate-rapist-murderers would surely appeal to the citizens of the sovereign state of Alabama” (165). The use of the multi-hyphenate term criminalizes drug use and suggests that an American citizen might consider drug use as valid a reason to execute someone as rape or murder. The novel’s use of the word “druggie” also reflects the dehumanizing rhetoric common at the time of the novel’s publication.
After watching six cartel soldiers smoke marijuana, then accidentally trigger a booby trap, Chavez reflects that “even for druggies […] it was a bad way out” (297). This suggests that Chavez does not see the men as fully human. Later, another American soldier celebrates the fact that he “bagged us another druggie” (455). The use of hunting terminology suggests that, like Chavez, this soldier does not see people with substance dependencies as people.
The President
The President of the United States is never named in Clear and Present Danger, and is referred to only by his title or his code name, “Wrangler.” Maintaining the anonymity of the president is a narrative decision that allows Clancy to focus the novel on figures who are not globally famous but are nevertheless important, like covert operations soldier Domingo Chavez and CIA intelligence officer John Clark. Although citizens within the novel would likely attribute any military action to the president, Clancy instead suggests that world crises are navigated by people working behind the scenes.
Refusing to name the president also transforms him from a fictional individual, like Jack Ryan, to a symbolic figurehead standing in for all American presidents. As a result, Wrangler’s personal corruption becomes a manifestation for presidential misconduct in general. In the opening chapter, Clancy describes the Oval Office as “a room in which was focused and from which emanated the ultimate power of the most powerful nation in the history of civilization” (17). This description of the Oval Office explicitly figures the President as a symbol of the United States’ power, rather than as an individual person. The reduction of the President to a figurehead reflects the novel’s thematic interest in abuse of power in government.
Need-to-Know Restrictions
Throughout Clear and Present Danger, characters defer to the need-to-know system of intelligence standard in the United States military. This system appears as a recurring motif related to the novel’s military setting. The novel suggests that the hierarchy and intelligence restrictions at the heart of the American military may cause more problems than they solve. As Chavez explains, “the whole point to an Army, probably, was that what it did make sense to someone” (126). Chavez takes comfort in the fact that “even if what he was doing didn’t make much sense to him—a frequent occurrence for soldiers—it did make sense to somebody” (126). These passages suggest that American soldiers often go into battle without truly understanding what they are fighting for.
The death of Captain Ramirez and nearly a dozen other SHOWBOAT troops suggests that there are tangible risks to the military’s need-to-know restrictions. Although Captain Ramirez knows more than his troops, they are united in their “ignorance of the real situation” in Colombia (296), and of the forces responsible in Washington. As a result of Ramirez’s belief in the necessity of the Army hierarchy, “he’d allowed himself to be lulled in the complacency that assumed whoever generated the orders knew what the hell he was doing” (351). Ultimately the novel suggests that this complacency allows the cartel forces to ambush his troops, killing nearly a dozen people. The flaw of this system, as Jack Ryan notes, is that “sometimes security is so tight that people who might have had something important to offer were left out of the picture” (217).
Unlock the meaning behind every key symbol & motif
See how recurring imagery, objects, and ideas shape the narrative.
- Explore how the author builds meaning through symbolism
- Understand what symbols & motifs represent in the text
- Connect recurring ideas to themes, characters, and events