Around the World in Eighty Days: Imagery 2 key examples

The characters see "fervent Brahmins" praying to their gods. The narration asks the reader to zoom out in their mind to see the steam ships, and by extension the train as well, cutting through this territory. This idea of "zooming out" may sound cinematic to 21st century readers. Before film, it was also an idea that the railroad popularized. When the railroad was new, people were fascinated by the speed with which the outside world could pass before the passengers' eyes. Moving so quickly over so much space was an entirely new experience for virtually everyone. Within a very short span, a railroad passenger could take in a vast yet close-up tableau of the countryside. Human perception had never been able to do this before. The tableau the narrator conjures is one of cross-cultural encounter: European industrialization (trains and steam ships) comes to traditional India (gulls, turtles and "faithful" locals).

By allowing the characters and the reader to imagine this vast but detailed tableau of anglicized India, the narration also sets the scene in motion, like a time lapse. The gods these people pray to are part of a past that (according to the language of the passage) no longer exists. In a sense, it's possible for these characters—from their vantage point on the train—to visit this past as tourists. But as soon as readers imagine the tracks cutting through, or the steam boats cutting through the river, the illusion disappears. The imagery of the passage creates the sense that an older version of India is forever disappearing, wiped away by this newer, anglicized version. The idea of a colonized nation's traditions as relics of a lost past is a common feature of writing about imperialism. Verne seems ambivalent about the sense of loss he is conveying here. It is sad, but it also seems inevitable. More than that, it is transfixing for the characters and the readers to watch "modernity" sweep away the so-called old world.

The imagery emphasizes the buffalo as part of a hostile landscape. They are a loud "torrent of living flesh" that is more formidable than a river because they can't be contained by a dam (at least not by a dam humans currently know how to build). Like a river that breaks through any wall people try to use to contain it, the buffalo are a natural obstacle for "modernity," in the form of the railroad, to overcome. This conflict was far from an imaginary conflict between past and future: railroad companies often hired people to ride the trains and shoot buffalo to clear the way for the trains. Buffalo and trains were in direct competition with one another.

Although the image of the buffalo as a river emphasizes a battle between humans and nature, the over- hunting of buffalo and the disruption of herds by the railroad had devastating impacts on Indigenous communities across North America. The imagery in this passage thus speaks to the novel's sense that industrialization and imperialism have functioned together to make Fogg's eighty-day journey possible. Manifest Destiny, the idea that the United States was destined to take political control of all the territory between the East and West coasts, relied on the disempowerment and even disappearance of Native American nations. The railroad, which cut through territory and killed off the buffalo many of these nations relied on, was a technology that contributed to genocide, forced migration, and imperial conquest. The metaphorical image of a "torrent of living flesh" hints at how intertwined the natural landscape is with life, both animal and human. This moment of conflict between the train and the buffalo is one of many instances where the novel is ambivalent about industrialization and imperialism. "Modernity" is advancing quickly, but its journey is far from smooth. At many turns, it is pushing against a "torrent of living flesh" that does not want to yield to a future where technology causes life to be devalued.