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
At the plush San Francisco law offices of Cowan, Swain and Ross, Donald Gennaro’s boss waits for him to get off the phone with John Hammond. After Gennaro hangs up, he bluntly tells his boss that they can’t trust Hammond any longer. He insists that everything is going well, but between construction delays, rumors of dead workmen, and the apparent discovery of a strange new lizard biting people in Costa Rica, Gennaro doesn’t believe him. He forced Hammond to accept a series of independent site inspections beginning immediately.
Hammond attempted to remove himself from regulation and oversight by all bodies, including his investors, by establishing his lab on a private island. But his attempt to control the park has already failed on both accounts: Gennaro plans to force accountability from outside, and the reports from Costa Rica indicate that some dinosaurs may have escaped Hammond’s control.
Themes
Gennaro’s relationship with Hammond began in 1982, when the 70-year-old eccentric was raising the capital to start InGen. Gennaro helped him amass nearly a billion dollars. The law firm owns a five percent stake in InGen, and it wants to ensure the success of its investment. Gennaro decided to ask Hammond to invite Grant, Ellie, Malcolm, and a computer system analyst—all of whom served as consultants on the island project. He will accompany them. After updating his boss, Gennaro calls Dr. Grant to thank him for agreeing to come to the island on short notice…and to ask him for information about the potential “compy” specimen.
The human flaw of greed motivates both Gennaro and Hammond, and the park’s failures will point toward the dangers greed and other vices pose to humanity’s survival. Gennaro’s financial stake in the park will reward him for its success and potentially ruin him with its failure, suggesting that his involvement runs too deep for him to provide adequate oversight. To get an accurate view requires the expertise and insight of outsiders.
Themes
