For my next IRJE, I am writing about a quotation from Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton (the novel on which the film is based). The paleontologists Dr. Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler have been flown out to a Costa Rican island called Isla Nublar, where huge developments in genetics have allowed a private company to create a park with herds of genetically reconstructed dinosaurs. The quotation takes place as the two of them, a guide, and other experts pass the park’s swimming pool and Ellie notices that the huge, previously extinct ferns planted decoratively next to it are actually very poisonous – enough so that they could make anyone who touched them sick. Ellie muses about how “people” view plants:
“People were so naive about plants, Ellie thought. They just chose plants for appearance, as they would choose a picture for the wall. It never occurred to them that plants were actually living things, busily performing all the living functions of respiration, ingestion, excretion, reproduction – and defense. […]
“People who imagined that life on earth consisted of animals moving against a green background seriously misunderstood what they were seeing. That green background was busily alive. Plants grew, moved, twisted, and turned, fighting for the sun; and they interacted continuously with animals – discouraging some with bark and thorns; poisoning others; and feeding still others to advance their own reproduction, to spread their pollen and seeds. It was a complex, dynamic process […] which she knew most people didn’t understand” (pp. 85-86).
I chose this quotation because I liked how it not only made me think about how we may ignore plants in our daily lives, but also foreshadows the general irresponsibility of the park creators. While knowing that plants are alive, they are still used so often as decorations that it can be easy to forget that houseplants have their own cycles and “motivations” – to find more sunlight or create flowers to grow their species. Ellie states how the planting of deadly ferns at a pool where any visitors could encounter them demonstrates how the park creators see the plants as just decorations. Despite how ancient the fern is, the developers planted it without regard to how it might fit into today’s world and the defenses it may use. This foreshadows the rest of the book, where (spoiler!) dinosaurs escape their pens and wreak havoc on the humans who they don’t know how to react to. This violence by the ancient life against humans is a theme of the book, showing how the money-driven park operators neglect to think about the fact that their assorted displays are not museum exhibits but living creatures unaccustomed to today’s world.