English summer project "jurassic park”

Main Characters and Descriptions

Alan Grant- Alan Grant is a “ barrel-chested, bearded man of forty”, he is a college professor in Denver. He sees himself as an outdoorsman and knows all the important work in paleontology. Grant is patient with academics and doesn’t believe in technology.

Ellie Sattler- Ellie Sattler is a paleobotanist and is Grant’s partner. Ellie Sattler is “ smart, 24, darkly tanned, and blonde”. She wears cut-off jeans and a work shirt tied at her midriff.

Ian Malcolm- Malcolm is a mathematician from Texas, he predicts the park will fail because the chaos theory states that you cannot control nature. He’s 35, bald, tall, thin, and wears all black every day because he thinks he should not have to waste time thinking about his wardrobe.

John Hammond- John Hammond is a “ Dinosaur Nut”, “ eccentric”, and “ as sinister as Walt Disney”. He’s a billionaire and the very greedy park owner. He lazily runs the park and does not pay attention to details that could and did take many lives.

Robert Muldoon- Muldoon is the park warden who drinks and argues a lot. He’s a “ famous white hunter from Nairobi” and a “ burly man in khaki, sunglasses dangling from his shirt pocket”.

Donald Gennaro- Donald Gennaro has a background in investment banking. In 1982 Hammond hired him to set up InGen, he’s now the general counsel for InGen.

John Arnold- John Arnold is the head engineer, he has his doubts about the park but disagrees with Malcolm that it will fail. The novel describes him as a “ chain-smoking man of 45”.

Dennis Nedry- Nedry is a disgruntled employee of Hammond and chooses to smuggle embryos out of the park. He gets attacked by a poison-spitting dino and dies. Dennis Nedry is the main reason the park fails because shuts off the main power. He was originally hired to set up and design the parks control system.

Lex & Tim Murphy- These kids are Hammond’s grandchildren. Lex loves baseball and is not interested at all in dinosaurs. She’s 7 or 8 and blonde. Tim loves dinosaurs and is a computer wiz, he’s 11 and wears glasses.

Ed Regis- Regis is another disgruntled employee because he’s charged with watching Hammond’s grandchildren. Ed is the head of park relations.

Henry Wu- Henry Wu is the chief geneticist. He’s slim and in his 30’s. He refused to believe that the dinosaurs were breeding.

Protagonist & Antagonist

The protagonists are Alan Grant, Ellie Sattler, and Robert Muldoon because the three of them were the most important parts in getting the generator back running and keeping the rest of the living people safe. The antagonists are John Hammond and Dennis Nedry. John Hammond is an antagonist because he let the park run carelessly. He paid no attention to the details that took many lives. Dennis Nedry is an antagonist because he shut the power down and caused many dinosaurs to escape, which caused many other problems throughout the park.

Hammond’s Perspective

Hammond would have under exaggerated the problems in the park and would have made the problems other people’s faults. He would have made the idea of the park seem less dangerous than it really was and shared worse thoughts about employees like Nedry.

Why is it called Jurassic Park?

Michael Crichton named the novel Jurassic Park because a lot of the animals in the story were from the era and because it sounds more appealing to the readers than the eras some other dinosaurs were in.

How does the title foreshadow the creatures/events/Alan Grant?

In the Jurassic era Pangea split apart and spread out, so that foreshadows the raptors getting out and spreading off the island. The title also foreshadows that some of the creatures are from the Jurassic era and the animals Grant study are from this era too.

Any Imagery?

Yes

What does the imagery provide for the reader?

Imagery draws the reader’s attention into a sensory experience. It provides readers with mental snapshots and keeps them wondering what will happen next. It is a way of describing something symbolically.

Example of imagery in novel and its significance

When Sattler notices the poisonous ferns it’s a sign of danger and ignorance, ‘ whoever had decided to place this particular fern at poolside obviously didn’t know that the spores of veriformans contained a deadly beta-carboline alkaloid. Even touching the attractive green fronds can make you sick”. The park designers weren’t just ignorant about the deadly poolside plants, but about the huge, dangerous, venomous, smart, and deadly creatures living in the park too. No one knew that the Dilophosaurs spit poison and then attacked their prey until Dennis Nedry was found dead. In this novel, poison signifies dangerous ignorance.