52 pages • 1 hour read
Michael CrichtonState of Fear
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2004A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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BetaPart 7 (Pages 507-603)Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 7: “Resolution”
Pages 507-556 Summary
Henry, the group’s local guide, takes them through the jungle while discussing the recent cannibalistic attacks. The group picks up what they think are guns and ammunition (but turn out to be empty crates), and then board a helicopter. Henry double-crosses the group, telling them he has made a mistake and piloted them near the rebel headquarters. He lands them on a spot near Resolution Bay, and attempts to force them out. Instead, Kenner forces Henry out. Rebels overtake him as the group takes off again in the helicopter. They land again and begin walking through the jungle toward the bay. They find the eco-terrorists’ camp, and hear the sounds of the cavitation generators being tested.
A group of rebels overtakes Kenner and the others, although Sanjong manages to slip away. The rebels separate the men and women, and shackle them in thatched huts. Outside, they are preparing a cannibalistic ritual. Ted is placed before a crowd. The mob attacks him, and then begins to slice off pieces of his flesh and eat them while he dies.
Evans and Kenner are shocked when Morton appears, alive. He frees them from their handcuffs and gives them weapons. Inside a hut with Sarah, Jennifer manages to get partially free. She coaxes one of the guards towards her, then attacks and kills him, looking for keys to her handcuffs. When the next guard enters, they attack him as well, and notice the keys outside the tent. The men arrive and get the keys to the women. They attack a group of guards and escape back into the jungle, pursued by rebels.
The group makes it to the beach of Resolution Bay and gets back to the plan of stopping the attempt to trigger a mudslide and tsunami. With just one hour to go, they are held back by the realization that they have little ammunition with which to destroy the cavitation generators. They also need a plan to escape to higher ground in case their sabotage fails and there is a tsunami. They decide to start their attack on the terrorists’ camp anyway. Inside one of terrorists’ tents, Evans finds Bolden. They struggle before Evans pushes Bolden into the cavitation generator, killing him. Kenner has become separated, and is charged by a giant crocodile before finally making it back to the others. Despite their efforts, the group is too late, and the tsunami is triggered. They race to higher ground with only minutes to spare. While the tsunami itself is headed toward California, they narrowly outrun the residual waves.
Pages 557-603 Summary
The seismic activity is detected from by the National Earthquake Information Center in Colorado, and hours later a minor, nine-inch rise in ocean levels and a few waves “averaging six feet in height that excited surfers briefly, but passed unnoticed by everyone else” (559) occur. The eco-terrorists’ effort has failed to generate a serious tsunami.
Morton explains that he had faked his car crash using two identical Ferraris, escaping in the other. Kenner had been aware of the plan, which was designed to throw Drake off. Morton tells Evans he plans to start a new organization, aimed at solving more tangible problems, like environmental destruction caused by poverty, rather than engaging in the fight against global warming. He also wants the organization to be free from biased research.
State of Fear closes with an Author’s Message where Crichton expresses his own views about the issues discussed in the novel. He concludes that humans know little about the environment, all things considered. While he acknowledges that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are increasing, he also counters that there is a “natural warming trend,” and that it is unclear how much influence humans have on this, if any (569). He reiterates other points that are touched on in the book, including the inconsistency of computer climate models, the influence of the media on perceptions of global climate change, and the misguidedness of well-intentioned environmentalists. Like Morton, Crichton asserts that a new kind of environmental group is needed, one that is nonpartisan and based on unbiased research. He ends by declaring, “Everybody has an agenda. Except me” (573).
The message is followed by an Appendix, the first part of which explains Crichton’s thoughts about the dangers of politicized science. He compares the current allegiance to the science of global warming to the widespread belief in the good of eugenics in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. If people could be so wrong as to believe in the good of cleansing the human race of “inferior ones—the foreigners, immigrants, Jews, degenerates, the unfit, and the ‘feeble minded’” (576), Crichton asserts, then it is equally likely that the truth about global climate is being suppressed by an agenda trumpeting the threat of global warming. Crichton also supplies a second Appendix, providing sources for the graphs used throughout the novel, and an Annotated Bibliography of the books and journal articles he used as sources.
Part 7 (Pages 507-603) Analysis
State of Fear climaxes by returning to the elements of the thriller genre: “Resolution” features chases, ritualistic cannibalism, killer crocodiles, and a tsunami. At the same time, the novel wraps up its varied perspectives on the concept of global warming by closing with a forward-thinking plan of action for addressing the issue—first through the eyes of its characters, and then again through the voice of Crichton.
While the dense jungle setting and the dramatic capture of Kenner’s group by cannibalistic rebels jumpstarts the pace of this part of the novel, it is the miraculous reappearance of Morton that starts the endgame. His reemergence is an example of the literary device deus ex machina, where a seemingly insurmountable problem (Kenner’s and Evans’ imminent death at the hands of cannibals, in this case) is solved by the sudden appearance of an unexpected person or event. By contrast, Sarah and Jennifer resist the rebels and begin their escape all on their own, in one of many examples in State of Fear where Crichton emphasizes the superior ingenuity and skill of its female characters.
Alongside Morton’s reappearance, the closing chapters of the novel tie up other loose ends. For example, the group spots Bolden on the island, undeniably proving his involvement in the ELF plot. Despite the cannibals, crocodiles, gunfights, and more, Kenner’s group makes it to the scene of the plot to resist it. Their counter-sabotage efforts do not succeed in stopping ELF, however; the cavitation generators still generate a tsunami. In an ironic twist, the tsunami that is generated is so small that it also fails to wreak the havoc that ELF had hoped for. Essentially, both groups fall short of their goals, allowing the novel (and Crichton) to make an assertion: Eco-terrorists may fail because of ineptitude, yet those invested in spreading environmental truth will also not succeed simply by resisting eco-terrorism and deceptive media portrayals of global warming.
Instead, Morton asserts, a new kind of response is necessary. Crichton echoes this same sentiment in the Author’s Message that immediately follows the closing of “Resolution.” This is one of several ways in which State of Fear blurs the line between fiction and reality. Though Crichton claims he does not have an agenda, by sharing viewpoints that are essentially the same as Morton’s, he utilizes a fictional character as a mouthpiece for his own viewpoints. This blurring of fiction and reality continue in the Appendix on the dangers of politicized science and the Annotated Bibliography that end the book. Throughout the novel, Sanjong, Kenner, and others have produced graphs and references—and the chapters themselves introduce footprints—to works that Crichton explicitly shows readers as well.
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