The Hunt for Red October

The novel takes place just a week before Christmas. When the reader first meets Jack Ryan, he is explaining to his daughter that Santa Claus shouldn’t have a problem finding them in their new home in England. When he arrives in Washington, DC, he tells Greer he needs to do some Christmas shopping. In particular, he needs to find a skiing Barbie for his daughter. This doll becomes something of a joke between Ryan and Greer: Greer continuously asks about it but always gets the doll’s sport incorrect. However, as the novel progresses and the tension between the US and the USSR increases, this doll takes on a new significance. It becomes a symbol of the innocence of the citizens of the US and her allies who have no idea that the Soviet Naval Fleet is charging toward the American coast.

The caterpillar drive aboard Red October is what makes the boat unique and something of value to the US. The Soviets achieved something the US attempted to do but failed. This drive is nearly silent, and sound is one of the very few ways submarines can locate one another miles under the ocean. Without the predictable sounds of a submarine’s engines, it is difficult to locate and identify them, especially as they approach the coast of another country. Red October’s design could potentially allow the boat to come within a few miles of an American city and fire a missile at it. However, as the novel progresses, it doesn’t take long for both Jones on the USS Dallas and Tupolev on the Soviet VK Konovalov to learn to recognize the sound of the caterpillar drive as it travels in the water. The advanced technology of the caterpillar drive represents the advanced status of the Soviet Union as a world power. However, the failure of the caterpillar drive to be undetected by both US and Soviet submarine personnel symbolizes the weaknesses of the Soviet Union as a society and its habit of boasting great strength when, in reality, these strengths are compromised.

Each naval ship that leaves the Soviet Union’s shores is required to have a political officer on board. When the search for Red October begins, one of the first things the CIA spy notes is that “the fleet was sailing with additional political officers” (240). In that same thread, the first thing Ramius does after setting sail and mailing his intentions to his superiors is kill the political officer aboard the Red October. This officer could have worked against Ramius and stopped him from disregarding his orders and arriving safely in the US.

In this novel, the political officers are a symbol of the theme Mutual Distrust between Soviet Leaders and Subordinates. They are placed on the ships to make sure the captains are all doing as they are assigned to do. Adding extra political officers to the ships searching for Red October implies they are there to ensure that those ships’ captains follow the orders given to destroy Red October and her crew. In this way, not only do the political officers symbolize the lack of trust within the Soviet system, but they also symbolize the theme Lifestyle Differences: The US versus the Soviet Union in the 1980s: The US never had a position in the military equivalent to that of the political officers. By killing his political officer, Ramius takes the first step to reaching freedom. Therefore, this act is also symbolic of the differences between his former home and his new one.