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
Near the jungle river, Muldoon realizes that an incorrectly secured tree shorted out the fence. They’re deep in dilophosaur country, and he wants to get himself and the workmen out of the range of the venomous animals as quickly as possible. So, he decides to hold off on investigating the dim lights—possibly headlights—one of the workmen spots in the distance.
Park employees used the incorrect materials when installing this tree, exactly the kind of small, unpredictable irregularity that chaos theory says time and life will amplify. And Muldoon’s decision to ignore the report of headlights offers yet another reminder that a person can’t see what’s going on if they choose not to look.
Themes
In the control room, Arnold’s mood has improved. Enough of the park systems have come back online to allow him to humor Gennaro with an explanation of the “Malcolm Effect.” Malcolm, he explains, uses computers to model the behavior of complex systems. These systems have limits; for example, Arnold could drop a bead of water onto the back of his hand, and although he can’t predict which direction it will run, he knows it must follow the surface of his hand until it drops off. Arnold tells Gennaro that Malcolm’s models tend to have “a ledge” where the drop’s motion will accelerate. He named this acceleration the “Malcolm Effect,” and it tends to cause systems to collapse. His initial report labeled Jurassic Park an unstable system destined to collapse. And, when he and Hammond got the report, they disagreed with it and ignored it.
In having Arnold, not Malcolm, explain the nature of “the Malcolm Effect,” the book demonstrates that park operators can understand the risks their choices incur—they just chose to ignore them, like Arnold, Wu, and Hammond ignored Malcolm’s initial report. The drop of water on the back of Arnold’s hand gives readers a concrete way to visualize chaos theory, which considers the way small variables can have outsize effects on events. Malcolm’s innovation is predicting a particular tipping point where any ability to affect the outcome of a system evaporates. Arnold feels certain the danger of this point has passed.
Themes
In the park, Hammond supervises Dr. Harding and the work crews as they tranquilize and move a hypsilophodont. Hammond frets over the creature, repeatedly questioning Dr. Harding’s decisions. Harding came to Jurassic Park from the San Diego Zoo, drawn by the opportunity to write the world’s first textbook of dinosaur veterinary care. He resents Hammond questioning his expertise.
In contrast to Muldoon, who has consistently demonstrated concern over the health and safety of the park visitors, Hammond worries more about anything happening to his expensive and exclusive dinosaurs. And readers get a bit of insight here into Dr. Harding’s reason for joining the project: pride.
Themes
Meanwhile, back in the control room, Arnold tries to explain to Gennaro why he and Hammond discounted Malcolm’s report. Their park project involved living things, which—unlike mechanical systems—exist in a constant state of flux. “[T]iny jiggles” signify health in a living system, although Malcolm treats them as defects, according to Arnold. Only in a mechanical system, he claims, do small wobbles tend to increase to the point of destruction. Malcolm, he insists, simply didn’t understand that tiny changes in a natural system signify health and responsivity. Gennaro suggests that Malcolm may understand the difference between natural and mechanical systems better than Arnold gives him credit for, but Arnold points to the reawakening park as evidence for the park’s stability.
Arnold’s explanation demonstrates his belief that he understood Malcolm’s argument. But Gennaro pushes back on this assurance, and he strongly suggests that perhaps Arnold and Hammond missed some very important pieces of chaos theory. The biases Arnold carries from his personal history as a mechanical engineer limit his vision. In contrast, Gennaro—a lawyer with fewer preconceived notions about the ways mechanical or natural systems work—can see the truth much more easily.
Themes
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In the park, Dr. Harding revives an anesthetized dinosaur, assuring Hammond of her wellbeing despite her wobbly gait. Arnold turns off electricity to the jungle fence so Muldoon’s team can repair it. When they’re done, they move on to the other shorted sections. Arnold is trying to fix the phone lines when Muldoon calls in from the field to report that the tyrannosaurs seem to have gotten into the sauropod paddock. When he finds out, Hammond wants Muldoon to subdue the carnivorous dinosaur immediately, worried about how many sauropods he might lose. But Muldoon refuses to comply; not only is it nighttime, but there isn’t anything in his arsenal capable of taking down an adult tyrannosaur. None of the tranquilizers will have an effect, and the one rocket that Hammond allowed him to buy disappeared hours earlier with Nedry.
Hammond spends a lot more time worrying about safely retrieving the dinosaurs than finding the missing guests—including his grandchildren. He shows little concern for human health or safety, especially when compared to his monetary investment in the park and his hopes for the vast fortune he thinks it will make for him. Notably, as the only park employee with extensive experience of predatory animals (Dr. Harding’s expertise is with birds, not apex predators), and thus with a sense of how little control humans actually have over events in the wild, Muldoon is the only park employee willing to take a stand against Hammond.
Themes
