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
In the lodge, Malcolm breathes painfully. Hammond wonders aloud who could have imagined that they would end up a situation like this, and Ellie points out that Malcolm did. Malcolm corrects her. He didn’t imagine it; he calculated it. Hammond protests that he didn’t want any of this and that he’s tired of hearing Malcolm say different versions of “I told you so.” Malcolm wearily points out that the minute a person invites doom is the moment he believes himself master over nature. Nevertheless, Hammond didn’t just imagine that he could control nature, he deliberately engineered systems that required him to do so to avoid catastrophe. “He’s lost me,” Hammond says to no one in particular.
Despite ample evidence that the park project invited catastrophe, Hammond continues to act surprised at the way things have turned out. He has no right to be surprised: he saw Malcolm’s calculations and rejected them out of a combination of arrogance, greed, and a presumptuous sense that he could control nature. His personal failings and character flaws, in other words, limited his field of vision to seeing only what he wanted to see. And he continues to do this even now, willfully choosing to not understand Malcolm’s words.
Themes
Grant and Gennaro find the visitor center’s rear door locked, requiring them to run around to the front where they can climb through the broken glass. But inside, they confront another set of locked doors separating them from Tim and Lex…and the raptors.
While Hammond continues to cling to his idealized vision of the park, Grant, Gennaro, and Hammond’s own grandchildren face mortal peril thanks to his shortsightedness.
Themes
Tim falls to the floor screaming: as he passed through the door, he felt the touch of reptile skin. But it’s just the baby raptor: he and Lex have stumbled into the nursery. The scared baby jumps into his arms, chirping and squeaking in terror because the adult raptors have followed the children through the still-open door. Tim flings the baby in their direction. Much to his horror and distress, the adults immediately kill and start to eat it. In a blind panic, Tim and Lex run madly through the lab until they run into Grant, with Gennaro by his side. It took Grant longer than it took Tim to think of taking a security key off a dead guard, but once he did, he and Gennaro entered the lab in search of the kids.
At the beginning of his time on the island, Tim seemed to befriend the innocuous juvenile raptor. But any illusion that these animals are friendly, controllable, or safe has since evaporated—as Tim has seen new evidence, his opinion of the animals has changed. And the raptors continue to demonstrate nature’s cruel power and ability to shock and overwhelm people when they tear the infant up and eat it.
Themes
Grant tells Gennaro that he has a plan to dispatch the raptors and pushes him, Lex, and Tim, through a nearby door. He hopes it will allow them to access the control room, but it doesn’t have an exit on the other side. Slowly and cautiously, Grant leads the raptors from room to room until they reach the Fertilization Room. Remembering what Wu said on the tour—that the lab contained dangerous chemicals—Grant pokes around until he finds a collection of vials marked with skull and crossbones. He carefully draws some into a syringe. The raptors enter the hatchery, stealing quietly between the tables. Slowly and quietly, Grant injects an egg with the poison, then rolls it towards the raptors. The first egg stops short; the second rolls too slowly. But the third egg, which Grant rolls fast, activates one of the raptors’ chasing instincts.
Grant’s use of the lab’s poisons—and his changing strategy of egg rolling to catch the raptors’ attention—again shows him to be a careful and astute observer of the world. And it demonstrates that careful observation has a direct impact on humans’ ability to survive when nature becomes hostile. This in turn has implications for the ability of humanity to survive on a planet that’s rapidly changing due to novel technologies and human interactions with wild ecosystems (like the deforestation mentioned at the beginning of the book).
Themes
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One of the raptors bites the egg before catching sight of Grant and stalking toward him. Just before it pounces, the poison takes effect and the gasping, gurgling creature collapses to the floor. A second raptor seizes on its vulnerable state to take a nip at its hind leg, but the first raptor lashes out, sinking its teeth into the second’s neck. The poison quickly dispatches that dinosaur too, leaving only one, which turns its attention to Grant. Suddenly remembering the radio, Grant calls Ellie and asks her to keep talking, then he slides the radio across the floor. The raptor, distracted by the strange, disembodied voice, turns its attention from Grant to investigate, giving him the opportunity to plunge the needle with its remaining poison into the beast’s tail. Once the danger has passed, Grant, Gennaro, Lex, and Tim head back to the control room.
Hammond’s and Arnold’s earlier insistence that Muldoon ensure the health and safety of the dinosaurs limited his earlier attempts to stop the rampaging tyrannosaur. At that point, they still prioritized the park’s financial success over the lives of their visitors. Now that the survivors find themselves in a life-and-death struggle, Grant simply poisons the animals. Advanced human technology gives him an edge over the lethally clever raptors, at least when he has access to it.
Themes
