Hot Zone Essay, Research Paper
Summary: Jurassic Park
Jurassic Park is divided into seven sections, each with a quote from
Ian Malcolm. He was a mathematician who specialized in the field called
chaos theory, which based itself mainly on nonlinear equations. The first
section follows the paths of several scenes, where in each one, there is
evidence pointing to the appearance of dinosaurs. One of these scenes
included in the very beginning, where a man was flown in to a doctor with
mortal wounds surrounding his body. One of his last words was “raptor”,
which meant “bird of prey.” Another was when a young girl was bit by a so
called lizard, but the lizard fit closely to the description of a dinosaur.
The second section ties in with the first one, but now the reader is
presented with scientific evidence of living dinosaurs. Here the reader is
given a little insight of the background to the situation, as Bob Morris,
part of the EPA, reveals information that InGen had three Cray XMP’s
shipped to Costa Rica, which were very powerful supercomputers, and 24
Hoods, which were automated gene sequencers. Later on, the carcass of a
dinosaur, which was found near the sight where the young girl was bit, was
sent to a lab to be examined, and it was identified as a Procompsognathus,
thought to be extinct for millions of years. The scientists who witnessed
the evidence, Ellie Sattler and Alan Grant, both foremost in the fields of
paleontology, were soon requested to fly down to a private island off of
Costa Rica by John Hammond, founder of InGen. A little later on in the
second section, the story unfolds somewhat, when the scene shifts to a
meeting of the Biosyn Corporation of Cupertino, where they explain that
InGen was cloning dinosaurs. The Biosyn company then hires Lewis Dodgson,
an scientists who worked at InGen, to help them steal dinosaur embryo’s for
them. He starts off toward Costa Rica as Ellie and Grant arrive in Jurassic
Park, and get their first glimpses of the dinosaurs.
The third section begins with Ellie and Grant about to tour the park.
They are joined by two children, the grandchildren of Hammond, Tim and Lex
Murphy. Tim was only eleven but he knew a lot about dinosaurs because he
was very interested in them. The small group is first taken on a tour
through the main building of the park by Mr. Regis, head of Public
Relations. Here is when Regis explains the process in which the dinosaurs
where able to be cloned. He explained that to obtain full strands of
dinosaur DNA, they extracted the blood from ancient insects, hoping to find
biting insects which still had dinosaur DNA within them. Regis then takes
them to a room where the Cray super computers are busily working, repairing
broken DNA segments. Then they arrive in the fertilization room, and then
the hatchery. Later, they are taken to the control room, where almost all
the park functions could be maintained. The main computer sustained
accurate numbers and locations of all the dinosaurs in the park, motion
detectors where set up throughout the park, and video cameras. So it was
virtually a foolproof system. After leaving the control room, the visitors
climb aboard Toyota Land Cruisers, which acted as the mode of
transportation throughout the park. They move along the park, looking at
Dilophosaurus, Triceratops, and the ferocious Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Everything was going all as planned, but as Ian Malcolm had predicted,
things started to go wrong. First, back at control, they did scans around
the park and found out that the dinosaurs were breeding, something they
were genetically not able to do. Next, Alan, and the kids saw that a group
of raptors, fierce predators, were about to board a ship headed toward the
mainland. But at that exact time it began to rain and Dennis Nedry, hired
by Lewis Dodgson to steal the embryo’s, shut down the main power to the
main computer. This started a chain reaction that escalated to the
destruction of the entire park.
And so begins the fourth section of the novel. When Nedry had shut off
the main computer, all the electricity in the park went down as well. This
was bad timing, because Alan, and the kids were trapped in the Land
Cruisers right next to the T-Rex pin. And because the electricity was out,
the fences all around the park were not electric, which allowed the animals
to get free. And this meant bad news for Alan and the group since they knew
that the Tyrannasaurus could get out at any time. Soon enough, it got out
of the pin and knocked over both of the Land Cruisers, injuring everyone
but luckily it didn’t kill anyone. Back at control, Dr. Wu, head of
genetics, was trying to start the main computer back up again, but was
unable to crack the code that Nedry had put in. In the forest, Alan was
fortunate to find Lex and Tim, and they discovered a small feed building
where they decided to stay until morning. Dr. Wu finally cracked the code
and had the computer back on-line again. But then things went wrong again.
They had reset the main computer to access the phone lines but in doing so,
they failed to realize that after that, it began to run the park off of
auxiliary power. Back in the forest, Alan and the kids had found a raft,
and began to float down a river toward control.
Now the fifth section begins as Alan is floating down the river,
trying to escape from the T-Rex, who was still trying to get at them.
Luckily the escaped it two times. They had floated down to a waterfall and
had escaped behind it when the T-Rex found them. It had a hold of Tim in
his tongue when it dropped into unconsciousness because of a tranquilizer
dart fired at it more than a hour ago. Now back at control, they had just
began to realize that they park was run off of auxiliary power. What they
needed to do to raise the main power back on-line was to go into the back
building where the switch was. Unfortunately, the raptors had gotten loose,
and were wrecking havoc all around. Already two people were killed when the
sixth section starts.
Alan and the kids arrive in the lobby of the control station where
they found out that the raptors had trapped them in the building, and were
biting through the steel bars, able to get them in less than 15 minutes.
But Alan had a plan, and was able to get to the main power switch and turn
it back on. Meanwhile, Ellie and Wu were trying to provide distraction for
Allan, when one of the raptors killed Wu. Ellie escaped barely and Lex and
Tim had a adventure of there own while they waited for Allan to get back.
They were waiting in the kitchen when Tim saw a raptor in the darkness
through his night goggles. He fortunately was calm, and he devised a plan
that trapped the raptor in the freezer. Lex and Tim ran upstairs toward
control only to find it abandoned. They arrived right after Allan was able
to turn the main power back on. Now Tim had the great task of figuring out
how to get the security back on-line. Suddenly, the raptors jumped up into
the control room. Alan arrived with the kids though, and killed off three
of them by using deadly toxins stored in the labs. They arrived back in
control just in time to turn on the security and redirect the boat going
mainland back.
The final section dealt with the destruction and final outcome of the
island. Ellie and Allan went off to search for the breeding grounds of the
dinosaurs. They had arrived at the breeding place of the raptors and
discovered that they wanted to migrate, when they were taken away by
helicopter and the island was destroyed behind them. And so ends the novel,
with an optimistic view of some dinosaurs in the jungles.
Jurassic Park starts off with a brief history ofbiotechnology, and
first introduces the International GeneticTechnologies, Inc., known in the
story as InGen. Here, itexplains what happened to InGen and their genetic
crisis, andthen using a flashback method, it presents the rest of the
story.The boo