Ian Malcom And Richard Levine example essay topic

Michael Crichton's novel, The Lost World began with the exposition of a character who is infamous to Crichton's work, Ian Malcom. The entire introduction and prologue is about Malcom and his scientific views and theories. In a section of the book called 'Hypothesis'; , Malcom discusses a theory of 'lost worlds'; - areas in which extinct beings may live, with Richard Levine, a man who's ideas were totally different from Malcom. Levine and Malcom discuss a possible journey to an island that is suspected to be one of the so-called 'lost worlds'; .

At first, Malcom is reluctant and thinks that the idea is stupid. After much coaxing, Malcom agrees to go. Levine arrives on the island first, after a lot of useless chatter and talk and the introduction of two young characters, Arby and Kelley, who are students of Levine's and sometimes run errands for him. Almost immediately after they arrive, Levine and his assistant, Diego, begin to search for clues to what the science community calls 'aberrant forms'; , which many people have spotted but have been unable to identify.

They come to a stream bed, where they are attacked by a group of unidentifiable animals. They capture and kill Diego, and Levine is nearly killed. Malcom and his team of field researchers finally make it to the island - and Arby and Kelley stow away in one of the many high-tech trailers that they had taken on their expedition. After the first day or so goes smoothly, chaos breaks out. When three men, Dodgson, King, and Busselton decide to go to the island, thinking that no one has been there.

They plan on stealing the dinosaur eggs and breeding them. In doing so, they cause a ruckus on the island, and the dinosaurs begin to lose their patience. They go on a killing spree, which is graphically described by Crichton as well as nearly killing Arby. The climax of the story comes when Malcom and Sarah Harding (one of his associates) get trapped in a trailer that is about to tumble off the ledge of a cliff. Luckily for them, they are saved by another of their colleagues, named Richard Thorn, saves them by using Dodgson's jeep (which they had thought was broken down, AND after they thought all three of the egg thieves were dead) and ties a rope to the trailer and miraculously saves them.

The story isn't over yet, though. The group misses their scheduled helicopter and has to find an alternate route from the island. They get lucky, and find a boat house on the island. They take one of the old boats, which, surprisingly, ran, and headed back to American soil. On the way back home, they have some conversations about their philosophies, and the book ends.

There were too many dynamic characters in this novel to pick more than two to talk about, so I will describe the two who I found most interesting... Ian Malcom and Richard Levine. 'Dressed entirely in black, leaning on a cane, Malcom gave the impression of severity. ' ; (Crichton 3). This, of course, is the physical description of Ian Malcom.

Malcom comes off as a very logical and smart man - he's a mathematician. He likes to use his ingenuity and problem-solving skills when he is a jam, and he is almost forced to. His leg was injured in the first incident at the In Gen 'Jurassic Park'; site. He is a rather shy man, and for most of the story he holds back many feelings that you know he is experiencing just from the context. He also says some very confusing things, too... They used one of these things as a quote before every chapter, or 'configuration'; .

For example, 'Self-organization elaborates in complexity as the system advances toward the chaotic edge'; (Crichton 66). What kind of casual reader is going to understand this without thinking about it for a minute or two? Despite his strange actions and beliefs, Malcom is one of my favorite characters of all time - both in books and in the Jurassic Park movies. 'The speaker was dark and thin, dressed in khaki shirt and shorts, precise in his movements and manner'; (Crichton 5)...

This is Richard Levine, who's style clashes very entertainingly with that of Malcom's. A perfect example is at the very beginning of the story, when he constantly interrupts Malcom during a lecture. This continues throughout the novel... Levine always seems to be bugging Malcom about something... You know the type. You will be trying to go to sleep, and all of a sudden, 'Did you ever wonder why the sky is blue?' ; or something like that.

This guy is very smart... Just no common sense. Most of the story takes place on an island in Costa Rica known as 'site B'; . 'It was primary forest, undisturbed by the hand of man.

' ; (Crichton 40). The island was very visually mapped out by Crichton in his writing, and he gave names for all the areas on the island, as well as a map on either inner cover of the book. The weather was like a desert - hot in the day and cool in the night. Obviously, it was inhabited by many species of dinosaurs... And now, a human here or there. Around the island, there was a steep, rocky cliff that lead into the sea.

When Levine first climbed it, here is what was used to describe it... '; Five hundred feet below, the ocean surged, waves thundering brilliant white against the black rocks. ' ; (Crichton 39). The scene sounds beautiful... But I'd much rather be here at home after what happened in the novel.

To me, the theme of this novel was that every generation has their own ideas, inevitably someone is going to look back and say 'That was a stupid idea'; . I got this theme from Malcom's philosophical standpoint throughout the story, and, most of all, from the ending of the book. Thorne is telling Kelley about scientific theories being our 'fantasies'; . 'A hundred years from now, people will look back at us and laugh. They " ll say 'You know what people used to believe? They believed in photons and electrons.

Can you imagine anything that silly?' They " ll have a good laugh, because by then, there will be newer and better fantasies. To me, that was a theme that was almost directly stated in the novel. The last literary aspect I am going to analyze is foreshadowing, which Crichton doesn't seem to be very good at, but enjoys to do nonetheless. For instance, somewhere in the middle of the novel, he describes a scene where some workers are putting together trailers for their expedition and they tell the boss that they are too weak and something could happen, but the boss ignores this. It's so obvious, but it is foreshadowing. Also, another classic example of foreshadowing from the Jurassic Park series is the shaking and rumbling of the ground then a calm for a second or two before the t-rex attacks.

Once again, obvious, but it's still an example of foreshadowing. All in all, this book was good even though I do not enjoy reading. Despite many things that I thought could have been clarified and in a lot of instances, were so dumb that they insulted me, I was entertained by the book. It had a little bit of everything... Mind games, action, gore and death, and what I thought was the best part of the entire book...

Great characters. Between the most important characters, such as Malcom, to the lower-status ones such as Sarah Harding, or even Kelley and Arby's parents, who never actually appear... All of them were greatly put together. I might not be able to recommend this book to you if you are reading for pleasure, but if there was one book that you absolutely had to read, Michael Crichton's The Lost World has to be it.