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 his private bungalow, John Hammond questions Henry Wu about the experts’ reactions to the tour. Wu reports that they accepted his explanation. After all, most people can understand the genetic work in broad strokes. Only the details—which Wu wants to discuss with Hammond—pose a challenge. The dinosaurs on the island don’t behave the way most people expect them to. They’re much faster and smarter. Wu wants to modify their genetics to conform to these expectations to provide a better guest experience. Hammond resists—he wants to keep the dinosaurs as “real” as possible, only intentionally modifying them for reasons like containment (for example, making them lysine dependent) and economics (making the genetic code patentable to prevent competition). Hammond assures Wu that he’s done a good job and that people will like the less modified dinosaurs.
Wu believes that he has a better or more informed perspective on the park project than the guests because he understands the tiny details of the genetics work. In reality, this kind of focus on the details at the expense of the bigger picture lead to oversights and blind spots that could undermine the park’s viability. In his conversation with Hammond, Wu points toward the almost unlimited potential of the genetic engineering technology InGen has pioneered, effectively without any regulation or oversight. And although Hammond rejects the idea of modifying the animals further than necessary, it hints at unsettling questions about what genetic engineering can design.
Themes
Wu, who was a graduate student under Hammond’s former business partner, owes his career to the eccentric man. After the partner’s death, Hammond convinced Wu to give up the “backwater” of university research for the groundbreaking, lucrative—and largely underregulated—world of private research. With copious amounts of money, Wu got InGen’s dinosaur project up and running successfully. In that time, Wu faced pressures, deadlines, and strong opinions; he also found his attention pulled from the pure science towards administrative concerns. He succeeded, but now Hammond won’t listen to him, refusing to even discuss Wu’s plan for another, more consciously modified version of the dinosaurs. With a dismissive smile, Hammond ushers Wu out the door.
Wu’s career follows the trajectory outlined—and criticized—in the book’s introduction. Though for now, the ends—within a few short years, he’s pioneered groundbreaking technological advances in genetic sequencing, engineering, and cloning—seem to justify the means. The emotional tension underlying this exchange also points toward the character flaws—greed, arrogance, and excessive self-assurance—that Wu and Hammond share.
Themes
