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Second Iteration: The Shore of the Inland Sea
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
While Ellie carefully works to dissolve the limestone from around excavated fossils, she listens to Alan Grant on the phone with Alice Levin. He promises to help her identify a lizard if she faxes him its x-ray. While he waits, he tells Ellie about the infant velociraptor skull he discovered before Morris’s arrival. Ellie asks if he’s excited about finding his first predator fossil they’ve found at the site—but Grant doesn’t answer. He’s staring at the faxed x-ray in dumfounded silence.
Ellie’s efforts with the fossils demonstrate the care and attention that must go into understanding the world and building a true understanding of the past. Meanwhile, Alan and Alice can talk and share data thanks to powerful modern telecommunications technology, offering a reminder that technologies in and of themselves are morally neutral; their benefit or harm depend on how they’re used.
Themes
Ellie and Grant agree that the creature in the x-ray isn’t a lizard. But Ellie can’t bring herself to accept it as real. She’s thinks it must be a well-executed hoax. Still, if it is a hoax, they agree it’s a skillful one—especially considering they believe the x-ray shows a Procompsognathus, a relatively obscure dinosaur. They discuss the possibilities. This may be a rediscovery of an animal thought to be extinct, like the coelacanth, the Australian pygmy possum, or a New Guinean fruit bat from 10,000 years ago. Still, none of these creatures are as ancient as a Triassic dinosaur.
With their expert knowledge of dinosaur bones, Ellie and Grant immediately see what other, less informed “experts” missed: the Costa Rican mystery lizard looks like a dinosaur. But their disbelief points to their reliance on the mental shortcuts they use to understand the world, namely the one that says dinosaurs went extinct millions of years ago. Still, the discovery of other animals previously thought extinct points to significant knowledge gaps.
Themes
As Ellie and Grant debate whether the x-ray depicts a hoax or a legitimate rediscovery, the phone rings again. This time it’s John Hammond, whom Grant puts on speaker so they can both listen. Hammond wants to know if the EPA lawyer who recently visited Ian Malcolm (another one of his consultants) has harassed them. But mostly, he says, he wants to invite them to visit his nearly completed “biological preserve” on Isla Nublar, an island off the coast of Costa Rica. Grant protests that he’d rather excavate his dig fossils or fly to New York to investigate the potential rediscovery of a living procompsognathid (“compy”). The mention of the living dinosaur seems to surprise and upset Hammond. He fishes for more details about the find.
As an incredibly wealthy man, John Hammond seems accustomed to being able to control circumstances and people around him. And his paranoid attempts to find out about Bob Morris’s actions suggests that he does, indeed, have something to hide on his island. As a pure scientist, Grant expresses disdain for Hammond’s projects; he would rather dig in the hot, barren badlands than visit a cushy resort.
Themes
Undeterred by any excuse, Hammond presses Ellie and Grant to visit his island at the usual consultant fee of $20,000 per day. The weekend trip would earn them $120,000—enough to finance two years’ worth of fieldwork. They accept, and Hammond tells them that his corporate jet will pick them up the next day.
Hammond exerts control on the people around him with money; throwing it around like he does when he offers to pay Grant and Ellie for their time both gives him leverage over them—they need the funding to continue their research—and allows him to show off other vices like pride in his wealth.
Themes
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