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 control room, Arnold makes a note to have maintenance check out the grinding gears of the Land Cruisers. This, according to Hammond, is a minor detail, to which Arnold—a veteran amusement park engineer—counters that “there are no minor details.” Always nervous, Arnold feels particularly edgy now that the park hosts actual visitors for the first time. He knows from experience that it can take years to iron out the bugs in even just one element of an amusement park and worries that Jurassic Park won’t be ready in time for its opening in a year’s time.
Although Arnold’s attitude suggests an ultimate belief that he can iron out all of a system’s bugs—or at least the important ones—his nervousness belies his earlier boasts about the power of the park’s computers. On some level, he seems to understand that his sense of control over the park rests on a shaky foundation. In contrast, Hammond—unaware of the system’s details and thus not qualified to judge its success—serenely assures Arnold of the rightness of his vision for the park.
Themes
When Hammond labels Arnold “just a worrier,” Arnold lists the things that add complexity to running Jurassic Park: it has all the issues of a normal amusement park and a major zoo combined, plus the wild card of caring for animals that no one has ever tried to keep previously. Issues arise all the time, like the tyrannosaur making itself sick drinking lagoon water or the triceratops killing each other in struggles for dominance, or the raptors—but Hammond cuts Arnold off before he can repeat complaints about the raptors. He maintains that if they can just get the park engineering and computer systems fully functioning, then the animals—which they can train, after all—will “fall into place.” Hammond turns his ire on Nedry, blaming his “damn computer” for the park’s issues.
Arnold’s list of variables here confirms Malcolm’s ongoing assertions that Jurassic Park is a complex system, in contrast to Hammond’s insistence that the idea is actually quite simple. Since chaos theory holds that systemic instability arises from an abundance of variables, no matter how tiny or inconsequential they seem, the park operators should be concerned. And not all of the variables are tiny, it turns out: the bloodthirsty raptors resist any attempts at human control. Instead of facing these issues, Hammond looks away, pushing the blame onto Nedry.
Themes
Nedry’s running list of bugs now includes 130 items, from minor issues to major hazards, like the fact that the security program won’t run on auxiliary power. Faced with the realization that he can’t fix them all himself, Nedry has commandeered the phone lines to transfer program data to his team in the United States for help. And while Nedry works, Arnold keeps a paranoid eye on his actions.
Nedry’s lengthy list of bugs reinforces a growing sense of the park’s instability. And Arnold’s paranoid behavior suggests that he suspects Nedry as another potential source of chaos.
Themes
On the tour, the Land Cruisers pass the site of the incomplete Jurassic Park aviary on their way to the Mesozoic jungle habitat that houses the dilophosaurs. These beautiful creatures, spotted like leopards and bearing impressive crests on their heads, are among the earliest carnivores. Like modern Komodo dragons, they use poison to dispatch their prey so they can eat at their leisure. Next come the triceratops, near-sighted animals with large, bony hoods that stand, motionless and boring, in the shade of the trees.
The narration piped into the ride vehicles continues to portray the park as a glorified zoo, while the dinosaurs themselves continue to point to the ability of nature to resist or evade human control. The dilophosaurs’ venom makes them dangerous, requiring them to be kept far from the road. And the motionless triceratops fails to entertain the guests.
Themes
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