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Chapter 2
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
At 11:30 AM, Fogg goes about his typical routine of walking to the Reform Club, where he eats breakfast and reads newspapers until the dinner hour. After his evening meal, he plays whist with his usual partners: Andrew Stuart, John Sullivan, Samuel Fallentin, Thomas Flanagan, and Gauthier Ralph. Like Fogg, these men are wealthy and highly respectable members of the Reform Club.
Fogg’s schedule is firmly ingrained; rather than taking the time to welcome Passepartout, he goes about his usual day. Fogg’s wealthy friends, too, give further insight into his character. Though he is not a social man, Fogg clearly cares about keeping impressive company.
Themes
While they play whist, the men discuss a recent robbery of £55,000 from the Bank of England by a “well-to-do” gentleman. Detectives were sent to ports throughout England and a hefty reward was offered in attempts to recover the money. Stuart thinks that “the world is big enough” for the thief to escape, but Fogg and Ralph believe that the world has grown smaller, since men can now travel around it ten times more quickly than they could a century ago.
The men’s conversation reflects how industrialization changed how people perceived and experienced the world. Since human beings were now able to travel more efficiently than ever before, thanks to modern technology, even the natural laws of time and space were drawn into question.
Themes
Literary Devices
Fogg and Sullivan figure that it only takes eighty days to go around the world by train and steamboat: London to Suez, Suez to Bombay, Bombay to Calcutta, Calcutta to Hong Kong, Hong Kong to Yokohama, Yokohama to San Francisco, San Francisco to New York, and New York to London. Stuart is skeptical of this, and bets Fogg £4,000 that he cannot make the trip in such a short amount of time.
Even entertaining the idea of circling the globe in eighty days and efficiently traveling between these countries would have been impossible a century before; the proposed route shows just how connected and globalized the modern world has become.
Themes
Fogg accepts the challenge, wagering £20,000 of his own, and the other men agree to the bet. He declares that he will catch the train to Dover, England at 8:45 PM that evening, October 2nd, and will be due back at the Reform Club at 8:45 PM on December 21st, exactly eighty days later.
Fogg’s impulsive wager suggests that, while he values order, he is also not afraid to take risks. Bets and challenges, then, may be a form of escape for Fogg that allows him to relinquish control.
Themes
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