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
Nedry opens the disarmed 10,000-volt perimeter fence and drives through the park towards the east dock, where a boat sent by Lewis Dodgson waits to collect the frozen embryos. The rain threatens to derail his clever plan—and his opportunity to earn an easy $1.5 million. He’s even prepared blackmail materials to make sure Dodgson doesn’t try to weasel out of the second half of his payment.
The chaos and random chance of the world affect Dennis Nedry just like they affect everyone else. If anything, Nedry’s greed and selfishness make him more vulnerable due to the ways in which they narrow his vision to his own concerns and desires rather than the bigger picture.
Themes
A creature darts through the beams of Nedry’s headlights as he realizes that he’s lost. Instead of reaching the dock, he finds his way blocked by a concrete barrier. He parks the Jeep and gets out, trying to figure out where he is. Drawn by the sound of water, he walks around the barrier and realizes he has driven up to the jungle river. His plan lies in ruins. He’s so focused on trying to figure out a backup plan that he doesn’t notice the sounds of creatures among the trees. But when he hears a largish dinosaur crashing towards him, he breaks into a run.
Metaphorically, Nedry’s getting lost on the drive represents his inability to see the world around him. Like the car headlights, which can only illuminate things that fall within the small area of their illumination, his greed and self-focus cause him to lose track of the bigger picture. And he's subject to outside chaos, like the rainstorm, which has impeded his progress through the park.
Themes
Unfortunately, other dinosaurs stand waiting near the Jeep. Because Nedry didn’t take the tour, he doesn’t recognize them. He freezes, fearing an attack, but the dinosaur only spits at him. While he wipes the slug of saliva off his shirt, a second slug hits his cheek. His cheek and hand begin to sting and swell as the poison takes effect. And then, as he tries to climb into the Jeep, the dinosaur gets him again, this time in the eyes. Blinded, screaming with pain and terror, Nedry tries to ward off the coming attack. But he can’t. The dinosaur slices his belly open and his guts fall out. As he falls to the ground, all he can do is wish that death will come quickly.
The dilophosaurs’ venom isn’t deadly, but it can lead to literal blindness. Their attack on Nedry thus contributes to the book’s criticism of his—and others’—figurative blindness to the world around them through selfishness, greed, and illusions of control over nature. A blinded Nedry becomes open to attack from any angle. And his justified death suggests that selfishness and greed threaten the very survival of humanity.
Themes
