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Chapter 3
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
Returning home from the Reform Club, Fogg shocks Passepartout with the announcement that they will be leaving immediately to travel around the world in eighty days. He entrusts Passepartout with his carpet-bag containing the £20,000. On the way to the train station, Fogg gives the twenty guineas he just won at whist to a beggar woman, a gesture that brings tears to Passepartout’s eyes.
Passepartout is seeing a different side of his master from his initial observations. Fogg is not just a predictable, cold man—he is obviously courageous and spontaneous enough to take on a high-stakes bet and feels a sense of duty to be generous and kind despite his solitary ways.
Themes
Fogg’s friends from the Reform Club see him off at the station. He offers to let them check his passport when he returns on December 21st, but Ralph assures him that they trust his word “as a gentleman of honor.” As the train passes through Sydenham, Passepartout cries out, remembering that he forgot to turn off the gas in his bedroom. Fogg calmly responds that it will burn at Passepartout’s expense.
Fogg’s honorable reputation means a great deal to him, otherwise he would not have taken the wager in order to prove the validity of his convictions. It is clear that his friends already view him in an admirable light and seem to hope that he succeeds, in spite of the bet.
Themes
