The Lost World

Watch the film adaptation of The Lost World. Director Steven Spielberg altered several key scenes and softened the book’s pessimism. Compare and contrast these differences and defend or critique the alterations.

Prepare a character analysis of Lewis Dodgson. Define his motivations, his psychology, his behavior. Using the background information we receive on Dodgson’s business practices, his decision to kill Sarah Harding, and his attitude toward the island’s animals, does he make a too-easy villain?

The novel celebrates the strength of women—physical, emotional, and moral. Triangulate the characters of Kelly, her role model Sarah Harding, and any of the dinosaur mothers the team encounters and define the elements of a strong woman.

“God,” Malcolm suggests darkly, “is in the process.” Examine the argument about genetics and humanity’s tinkering with life itself as a theological argument. Where is God in Site B? Can science dispense with the need for a God to run the universe? Is that, on the whole, a wise decision?

Ian Malcolm is sometimes seen as the mouthpiece for Crichton; Malcolm’s philosophizing may reflect Crichton’s own beliefs. Use the introductory materials—Malcolm’s presentation at the Institute, his morphine-induced ramblings (324-328), and his summary remarks on the boat as the crew leaves the island—to analyze Malcolm’s worldview.

Compare and contrast Sarah Harding, Richard Levine, Jack Thorne, and Ian Malcolm. What characteristics do they share as scientists/researchers? How are they different?

How do you read the novel’s closing paragraph, the celebration and affirmation of living in the moment delivered by Jack Thorne? Does the novel prepare for that optimism? Does it feel tacked on? How would the novel be different if it ended five paragraphs earlier with Malcolm’s forbidding remarks? Why do you think Thorne is given the novel’s last word?

Consider Kelly and Arby. What does the novel argue about the value of kids? They are both dismissed as problems in the beginning, but what do these two bring to the expedition?