Essay On Dirk Pitt In Clive Cussler's 'Flood Tide'

A Winston S. Churchill once said,” I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat”. In the novel Flood Tide by Clive Cussler, Dirk Pitt shows he is always ready for whatever may come next, and he will attempt to accomplish it to the best of his ability. Dirk Pitt continually exemplifies the true meaning of having helpfulness, bravery, and intelligence in his everyday life. Dirk Pitt, a Special Projects Director at NUMA, displays many important traits one of which is his helpfulness towards others around him. In a secret meeting between Admiral James Sandecker, Commander Rudi Gunn, President Dean Wallace, and The Commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the president says, “What we need from NUMA is information

Before Pitt stops the diversion of the Mississippi he was trying to figure out why Qin Shang wanted to sail the United States up the Mississippi, “I (Pitt) have a crazy theory that Qin Shang built Sungari where he did because he intends to destroy a section of the levee and divert the Mississippi into the Atchafalaya, making it the most important port on the Gulf of Mexico (422). Pitts quick thinking and out of the box idea turned out to be true and it helped to save many live when he was able to redirect the Mississippi back on to its original path. At Orion Lake after rescuing the immigrants he tries to destroy the guards boat so the can’t follow them,” There was no time to build a fancy incendiary bomb so he spun off the big refueling cap to the gas tank, found several oily rags used to clean the engine fittings and knotting them together. Next he arranged the rags in a circle like dam and poured fuel in it (97). This shows Pitt intelligence by his knowledge of bomb making. It also shows he has done this enough times and is smart enough to know that the guards would try to fallow them. Then to slow them down he makes the bomb to blow up their boats. When Julia is taken captive for the second time, she is held with other immigrants. They are about to be across the country by train when Pitt shows up to stop the departure, “Pitt sighed, rose to his knees, took the revolvers in both hands and commenced firing aiming at the louvered sides of the locomotive (394). Pitt shows his knowledge of trains to shoot out the sides of the train. He eventually stops the train and rescues Julia for the second time. Pitts bravery also shows trough when he tries to stop the train in a building crawling with guards and Chinese triad members. Pitts intelligence often comes up throughout the book along with other important traits as