Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Around the World in Eighty Days, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Modernity, Time, and Control
Imperialism
Chance, Adventure, and Human Connection
Honor, Reputation, and Duty
Summary
Analysis
Passepartout views Fogg, his new master, as “exactitude personified.” Passepartout, by contrast, is lively and laid-back; it is unclear whether he will live up to Fogg’s strict standards. In his bedroom, Passepartout finds a clock that is synced with Fogg’s and a schedule that details his mater’s whereabouts and his own duties down to the minute. Inspecting the rest of the house, he is thrilled to find that it is “coziness, comfort, and method idealized” and he believes that, though Fogg operates like a machine, they will get along well.
Passepartout views Fogg’s robotic, precise habits as a virtue rather than a vice, suggesting that the men are connected by a shared desire to feel in control of their lives. Although they have different personalities, this mutual reverence for order foreshadows the close bond that develops between Passepartout and Fogg later on in the novel.
Themes
