Around the World in Eighty Days: Metaphors 3 key examples

Of course, Fogg is a human, not a machine. But Passepartout imagines him as a "real machine" because he is so "regular." That is, he has an extremely precise routine that would almost be impossible for any human to maintain. Chapter 1 outlines this routine:

He breakfasted and dined at the club, at hours mathematically fixed, in the same room, at the same table, never taking his meals with other members, much less bringing a guest with him; and went home at exactly midnight, only to retire at once to bed.

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In fact, Fogg does everything with such precision that he fired his last servant for bringing him shaving water two degrees colder than usual. Most people would find these working conditions too demanding. Industrialization was still fairly new when Verne published this novel in the 1870s. At the time, labor laws and labor unions were far less developed than they are in the 21st century. People had even greater fears then than they do now about the division of labor, the replacement of human workers with machines, and the expectation that human workers structure their lives around work. The idea that Fogg is a machine and expects his employees to behave as predictably as machines makes him, on the one hand, an employer who is far too committed to industrialization and technology to treat his employees as full humans who occasionally err and require grace.

On the other hand, Passepartout is excited to work for Fogg for the same reason people may be excited to work for a corporation in the 21st century: working for Fogg promises a stable routine to a man who, true to his name, has "passed through everywhere" and is ready for a more long-term position in one place. There is situational irony in Passepartout's metaphor for Fogg because the premise of the novel is that Fogg is about to break all Passepartout's predictions. He behaves entirely "irregularly" by leaving the "domestic" behind, and Passepartout must continue traveling everywhere in order to keep his new job.

But there is another layer of situational irony: in a way, Passepartout is right that Fogg will be a "domestic and regular gentleman" to work for. At least for a while, Fogg follows all the same routines abroad as at home. Fogg is traveling not for the adventure, but rather to prove his own mechanical ability to predict and manage time. He fails in many instances to experience the cultures of the new places he is passing through, so he may as well be at home. He expects Passepartout to fulfill all the same duties regardless of where they are. It is ironic that Passepartout gets both exactly what he wants (working for a "real machine") and exactly what he doesn't want (trailing his employer around the world without regard for the lifestyle he wants outside of work). This irony illuminates a truth that many people were grappling with in the newly industrialized landscape: work that provides stability often comes with strings attached.

Of course, Fogg is a human, not a machine. But Passepartout imagines him as a "real machine" because he is so "regular." That is, he has an extremely precise routine that would almost be impossible for any human to maintain. Chapter 1 outlines this routine:

He breakfasted and dined at the club, at hours mathematically fixed, in the same room, at the same table, never taking his meals with other members, much less bringing a guest with him; and went home at exactly midnight, only to retire at once to bed.

Cite this Quote

In fact, Fogg does everything with such precision that he fired his last servant for bringing him shaving water two degrees colder than usual. Most people would find these working conditions too demanding. Industrialization was still fairly new when Verne published this novel in the 1870s. At the time, labor laws and labor unions were far less developed than they are in the 21st century. People had even greater fears then than they do now about the division of labor, the replacement of human workers with machines, and the expectation that human workers structure their lives around work. The idea that Fogg is a machine and expects his employees to behave as predictably as machines makes him, on the one hand, an employer who is far too committed to industrialization and technology to treat his employees as full humans who occasionally err and require grace.

On the other hand, Passepartout is excited to work for Fogg for the same reason people may be excited to work for a corporation in the 21st century: working for Fogg promises a stable routine to a man who, true to his name, has "passed through everywhere" and is ready for a more long-term position in one place. There is situational irony in Passepartout's metaphor for Fogg because the premise of the novel is that Fogg is about to break all Passepartout's predictions. He behaves entirely "irregularly" by leaving the "domestic" behind, and Passepartout must continue traveling everywhere in order to keep his new job.

But there is another layer of situational irony: in a way, Passepartout is right that Fogg will be a "domestic and regular gentleman" to work for. At least for a while, Fogg follows all the same routines abroad as at home. Fogg is traveling not for the adventure, but rather to prove his own mechanical ability to predict and manage time. He fails in many instances to experience the cultures of the new places he is passing through, so he may as well be at home. He expects Passepartout to fulfill all the same duties regardless of where they are. It is ironic that Passepartout gets both exactly what he wants (working for a "real machine") and exactly what he doesn't want (trailing his employer around the world without regard for the lifestyle he wants outside of work). This irony illuminates a truth that many people were grappling with in the newly industrialized landscape: work that provides stability often comes with strings attached.

This is a metaphor that substitutes distance for time. It's hard for any of the men in the club to imagine going all the way around the world in a short amount of time, so they imagine that the distance to travel has gotten shorter. In the 21st century, it is difficult to imagine not being able to reach any corner of the world within a day or two. This ease of access is still very new in the history of the world. The twin projects of industrialization and imperialism, both of which boomed in the 19th century, made global travel possible in a new way. Railroads and steamships enabled people (especially Westerners) to cross continents and oceans as a passenger with relative ease. No longer did people need to join a wagon train or ship's crew, nor charter an elephant to fight through dense forest the way Fogg and his companions must do for part of their journey in India. Imperialism, too, opened geopolitical borders so that Europeans in particular could tour abroad. Thus, industrialization and imperialism both led to the feeling that every corner of the world was reachable.

The metaphor of a smaller world illuminates the fact that while increased access to the entire world makes many things possible, it also makes anonymity increasingly impossible. No longer can you escape who you are or what you have done if you can be tracked from one country to the next. Indeed, Detective Fix tries to keep track of Fogg (who he believes is the bank robber) by surveilling his visa. This kind of surveillance does not shrink everyone's world equally. It is notable that later in the novel, Aouda is able to escape her executioners by leaving India. Verne represents India as an old-fashioned state that is not as organized or industrialized as England. Therefore, it does not have an apparatus in place to track down fugitives like Aouda. It seems to be only for Western imperial nations that the world has grown smaller. The limitation of the "small world" metaphor to Western imperial nations contributes to the novel's ambivalence about how much industrialization and imperialism have improved the world. A bigger world may be more desirable after all.

The metaphor emphasizes Fogg's disinterest in participating in the cultures of the various places he is visiting. He is drifting above them. Rather than touching down, he intends to remain in motion until he makes a full revolution around Earth. Reference to "the laws of rational mechanics" invites a comparison between the physics of "traveling" (which Fogg is explicitly not doing) and the physics of being in orbit. Traveling involves contact and friction with the ground. Fogg plans to experience as little friction as possible on his journey. He does not mean to have cross-cultural encounters, but rather to drift by without touching the places he is passing.

Fogg's fantasy of avoiding contact and friction falls apart fairly quickly. The reader witnesses him pulled into many cross-cultural encounters. Closer examination of the metaphor reveals that Fogg was always destined to be pulled into the places he is "orbiting." A body in orbit is not in control of itself at all. Rather, as it tries to move in a straight line through space, the gravity of a larger object exerts such force on it that it begins to circle around that larger object. Fogg may feel that he can pass over the places he is visiting, but circling Earth means being constantly tugged toward the places he imagines he is flying past.

By the end of the novel, Fogg has traveled all the way around the world and back to his comfortable home in London. But his orbit has been bumpy. His marriage to Aouda is lasting proof that Fogg bounced down in various places around the world, changing them and letting them change him. No matter how much Fogg believes in technology's power to smooth out his path, technology cannot overcome "the laws of rational mechanics" that humans on Earth experience.