Jurassic Park is set mainly on a tropical Island near America; Jurassic Park is placed on that island so that the dinosaurs will be able to survive. The days are warm and nights are wet, this is perfect for the book because the day is used to show the pleasant thing aspects and night to show the unpleasant aspects. Crichton creates the settings using characters in the book to explain the layout of the park. The people who do so would be people like John Hammond who would explain how the environment sustains the dinosaurs. This is effective as the reader is told exactly how the park is. It is also realistic as it is easy to imagine how the place is, as we are familiar with a tropical environment.
This setting is very different from that in Frankenstein. Shelly uses two different settings in her book, one is in the university in Geneva, and the other is in the Antarctic. Both places seem not very nice, this suits the kind of story being told and the way it is told too and the language used as it gives the story a gloomy atmosphere.
The two settings are very different in each book; the first is more pleasant than the second. The settings are made this way for the purpose of the book, as I have said in Jurassic Park the tropical setting is needed as the dinosaurs need to survive and in Frankenstein the setting needs to be dull and ugly to make the atmosphere gloomy.
The atmospheres in each book are very different, the atmosphere in Jurassic Park is fuelled with suspense and the atmosphere in Frankenstein is not so fuelled with suspense. Suspense is need in Jurassic Park for the death scenes to make them more gripping and appealing to the reader so that the reader wants to keep on reading on and is attracted to the book, whereas in Frankenstein the suspense is not needed for the death scenes as the monster is very predictable in what he aims to do and we know what is going to happen. Shelly writes her scenes in first person from both the two main characters views, Victor and his creation both have sections In the book when they talk, this is to show what both persons point of view is on the situation. This gives the reader an insight into how each man perceives each other and gives the opportunity to judge for themselves who they think is the better man. An example of this is when Victor in his words describes his creation as a barbaric being, causing mindless destruction. Whereas his creation writes about how he thinks he is an outcast in society and find it hard to survive. This is good for the reader as it broadens the issues in the book and makes the reader understand each mans view. This writing of both sides creates suspense, but not in the same way as in Jurassic Park.
There are many things that show us the historical context of each book; these things show you how different the stories are due to the times they are set in.
Crichton’s Hammond uses scientific technology at its peak to manipulate nature and create his creatures. Where as Shelley’s creature is created through means of gathering different parts of dead bodies and putting them together. This shows that both tales are fragments of a whole soul, but both are performed in a very different way because of the time and in effect the technology available for each deed.
Both stories are written with the same idea in mind but are presented differently because of the writer’s knowledge at the time of nature and manipulation of nature.
Other things in each of the books, which show historical context, are the equipment and the settings used in each book. The scientists of Jurassic Park have computers, electric fences and all sorts of technology to help them in their creation of their environment whereas Victor only has dead human body parts. So each writer has different limited ideas to work with in their time.
Because both books share a similar type of story line. Both books have characters who are symmetrical to each other, this is because they have the same roles, the main character in each book are the creators one is Victor Frankenstein and one is John Hammond. Victor is just the literary ancestor of John Hammond, for each man believes he is artificially procreating, making something marvellous, the wonder of his age that will leave all other men breathless with admiration. Victor is a pleasant person and is respected at his university. He is very clever and intelligent person, who seeks knowledge through hard work. I personally thought that Victor was a nice man at first but then later on in the book when he decides not to help his creation out; “Abhorred monster! Fiend that thou art!” you start to hate him and like his creation more, which is ironic because at first you hate his creation but then later u like it, and at first you like victor and then you hate him, which could mean that Victor is turning into his creation.
Also you would expect a person like Victor who is trying to play god to have some respect for his creations like a father has for his sons, but we see him as a selfish and rude man who does not care about his creation and is like a father just abandoning his son.
John Hammond on the other hand is slightly more generous to his creations and treats them with a little more respect, this is maybe because they are a much bigger asset to him then Victors creation is to him, he knows he can make money out of them, but Victor cannot. Hammond gives his creatures a home and all basic necessities, this is maybe because Hammond needs them alive more than Victor does need his creation alive and that their well being is the key to his success. We see Hammond as a manipulative person, he uses other people’s money to fulfil his every ambition, he does not do much himself to help his plans but instead relies heavily on every one else to do what he says. Because of this we see him as a selfish and rude man, who wants everything for nothing. He treats people around him very badly, especially Ian Malcolm, which is very ironic as it is the very things that Ian Malcolm says to Hammond that come true but Hammond refuses to believe him and when things do turn out to be true we think how much of genius Malcolm is and how ridiculous Hammond is.
As we can see that both characters in the book are not what we think of them, they share similar characteristics, they are both father figures for their creations but they both do not fulfil the role of a father as we think they should, they think they are playing the role of god simply because they have created creatures which humans cannot but they do not complete their role of god, god is a very forgiving, sympathetic and kind, but both of the characters Victor and Hammond do not possess any of these characteristics. Indeed they posses characteristics very much opposite to these, they are harsh, cruel and selfish. These are the very reasons why they cannot both be successful father figures or indeed gods.
In both books this is illustrated very clearly, because as creatures in both books are developed through the story line we feel very sympathetic towards them and the treatment they get. It is very ironic as we actually think that their creations are greater than their creators, they possess better characteristics and are much better life beings.
At first we think that the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park are just apparatus in a huge experiment, but then later we see that they too are living forms of life and that they too should be treated the same as humans. We see that their creators control everything they do but we think that they should have their own freedom. We see that it is not their fault that they want to spread all over the world and get released out of the cage of an island they are in now, it is not their fault that they are being so cruelly treated, they want freedom and so they must escape for it, this leads to the destruction of the park and ironically with the park John Hammond himself, it is ironic how Hammond is destroyed by his own creatures, and not the big T-rex but the small velociraptors, that bring an end to his life. We see the velociraptors as birds, which are sublime, which makes it even more ironic. But its not the destruction of the park or the destruction of Hammond which we are upset about, but it is the dying of the creatures that we are upset about, because we build a feeling of them being just innocent subjects of a cruel experiment, and we want them to survive and Hammond to die. But in the end it is justified that everything is destroyed, creator, creations and habitat. It signals an end to a disaster, which was long predicted by Ian Malcolm who is the hero of the show at the end.
In Frankenstein similar views are created in the readers mind about the creations of Victor, at first we see him as an outcast in community, and we see him as an inhumane figure just because he does not look like a human. In reality he is bigger than human, he is greater, he is actually very intelligent and physically very big, actually ironically, he is bigger and better than his miniscule creator and most around him. Victor’s creation receives a lot of sympathy from the readers, at first in the beginning he is seen as an ugly creature whom everyone abhors but as soon as he starts to talk we understand him inside and why he does what he does, after killing victors family he talk to us but we understand him and see what is going on. We feel very sympathetic towards him. It is in the end just a tragedy that the creature has to dies, but it is also justified that Victor must dies with him.
As we can see that both stories end in the same way, with both creators, creation and habitat all being destroyed, this is what we learn from the playing of god and how wrong it is and why we shouldn’t do it.
The incidents, which lead up to the climax in each story, are systematically and cleverly put there to build up the reader’s thoughts for the end of the book. The final scene in Jurassic Park is the destruction of the Park and in Frankenstein it is the Final Confrontation between Victor and his creation. Either way they lead up to dramatic scenes.
In Jurassic Park, at the beginning there are scenes to inform us of the dinosaurs these include sightings of the dinosaurs and how they bite a young girl and how a mauled down by a Raptor. Reading these scenes makes you think that there will be dangerous animals I the book and that it will be full of violence. Afterwards when it is clear to the reader that a park has been built for the dinosaurs and the awareness of the dinosaurs becomes apparent, the death scenes get more violent and destructive and frequent. As the scenes get more brutal we seem to think that the dinosaurs are getting way to out of control but later we realise that this is the way that dinosaurs behave and it is inhumane and not possible to make them act another way, so then we feel sorry for them. In the end this stupid ness to think that the dinosaurs could be manipulated to act in a way that they will not cause destructiveness is foolishness and because nothing is done about it, it is inevitable that in the need the dinosaurs just over rule the park and destroy everything and everyone and ironically their own creator in the process. As the death scenes get more frequent, they just keep on growing in frequency and eventually the dinosaur’s crack and all the dinosaurs attack at once and the park is destroyed. Only a few people get away, one of these is Ian Malcolm the theorist who beloved none of this was possible and how right he was, everyone thinks he is genius for this.
In Frankenstein there are many deaths too until the final confrontation, but these deaths are al the same, except one which is the death of Justine Moritz. This death is different because she gets hanged for a murder which she did not commit, and which Victor’s creation committed. This fires up a lot of tension, and show that the creation is a evil person and also creates a bigger gap between Victor and his creation. We now see the monster as an evil man, but later on when we hear from him, we see that he is not actually what we think of him, he is quite the opposite, we hear that he thinks he is a clever man and is not accepted in society which is an effective method of making us feel sorry for him. In the end we can see that the book is not climaxed like in Jurassic park with the build of scenes of violence and destruction but with the points of view of both men and finally a confrontation.
Either way in both books the climax is not what is ideal. It is a lesson that both writers are trying to convey, it is a message that playing god will eventually lead to deaths, and overall destruction.
I n the end both characters in each book are as we can see victims of their own ideas, creations. They both fail because they act selfishly and do not listen to the advice of others. Both men assume the place of god, not just in the act of "playing god" but in the way they view their control their creatures as if they possessed God's powers. They lack God's love; neither Frankenstein, nor Hammond proves capable of loving and respecting his "offspring."
