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
Detective Fix strikes up a conversation with Passepartout and helps him buy clothing since he and Fogg only packed carpet-bags. Passepartout asks Fix not to let him miss the steamer, refusing to reset his watch even when Fix points out that it is still set on London time, two hours behind that of Suez.
Passepartout, unaware that Fix is a detective, chats freely with him about Fogg and their journey. Passepartout tells him that Fogg is wealthy and reclusive, and that they left London hastily, which confirms Fix’s conviction that Fogg is the bank robber. Fix asks the consul to send a dispatch to London for the warrant so that he can arrest Fogg once they reach Bombay.
Here, random chance works against Fogg rather than for him. It is merely a coincidence that his profile matches that of the robber, and this is one situation that he has no control over. Ironically, it is Fogg’s moral and gentlemanly reputation that targets him as the suspect of this crime.
Themes
