Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Jurassic Park, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Chaos, Change, and Control
Sight and Insight
Flawed Human Nature
Technology
Summary
Analysis
Worried that she might face consequences for leaving the baby alone, Elena Morales reports its death as a case of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Meanwhile, the university lab analyzing the saliva sample from the Tina Bowman attack discovers that it contains a neurotoxin related to cobra venom as well as a marker for genetic engineering. But because they believe the sample came from a wild animal, the lab techs assume that the sample has been contaminated, so they don’t report it to Dr. Guitierrez.
The lab techs at the Costa Rican university also disregard data that contradicts their expectations. The extent of human knowledge can blind people to what we can’t explain or don’t know. This represents a particularly terrible oversight, since the lab finds but then ignores evidence of danger—neurotoxins—and evidence that this isn’t a previously undiscovered species, in fact, but a manmade one.
Themes
But in New York, a lab technician named Alice Levin sees Tina’s drawing and identifies it as a dinosaur. Dr. Stone asserts that it isn’t a dinosaur, but a living creature. When Alice insists, after looking at the frozen remains, on the dinosaur-like appearance of the Costa Rican lizard, Dr. Stone writes her off as an “uninformed” tech with an “active imagination.”
In contrast to the experts like Dr. Stone and Dr. Guitierrez, Alice Levin clearly sees what’s there in the lab sample and drawing: a dinosaur. But instead of respecting her vision, Dr. Stone uses it to dismiss her ideas as uninformed. His inability to see things that contradict his beliefs blinds him to what’s there, even when it’s blindingly obvious.
Themes
