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
As the group walks towards the visitor building, Grant reflects on how the park will change the direction of paleontology. No longer will paleontologists need to do detective work or make deductions about dinosaurs. Debates, like the one over whether dinosaurs were warm- or cold-blooded, will be settled. Malcolm expresses surprise that the sudden redundancy of his life’s work doesn’t bother Grant. But Grant replies that although no one expected it so soon, he and others have considered the possibility of one day cloning dinosaurs.
Paleontologists like Grant learn to read and interpret the vestiges of the past, and they’ve made incredible discoveries about creatures like the dinosaurs that lived and died eons before humans came into existence. But bones can’t give insight into how these animals lived or behaved. Now, with access to living animals, scientists will gain the insight necessary to correct or refine their hypotheses.
Themes
When Ed Regis draws Ellie’s attention to the “authentic Jurassic ferns” around the pool, she realizes that the park planners have inadvertently created a potential hazard. These plants are poisonous, dangerous to eat or even to touch. Most people, Ellie thinks, consider plants a decorative backdrop to real life, never realizing how vital—and competitive—plants can be within their ecosystems.
As a paleobotanist, or scientist who studies ancient plant life, Ellie possesses specialized knowledge that the park’s planners don’t have. The planners’ lack of insight into the potential dangers of their decorative foliage shows an insufficient insight into the potential dangers of the park. And the competition between plants and animals in ecosystems illustrates the chaos and myriad variables that exist in natural environments.
Themes
The hotel rooms still need some finishing work. Looking around, Grant notices heavy bars over the skylights and windows. Neither he nor Ellie remember seeing them—or fortifications like the steel-clad doors and enormous fence surrounding the building—on the plans.
The fortifications added to the lodge suggest the park creators’ unacknowledged awareness of the dangers that some of the dinosaurs pose. And by noticing them, Grant and Ellie demonstrate the careful attention to detail that insight requires.
Themes
