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Part 2, Chapter 1: The Signature
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Invention of Hugo Cabret, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Magic, Cinema, and Imagination
Friendship, Honesty, and Vulnerability
Meaning and Purpose
Hardship and Maturity
Summary
Analysis
Before Hugo can leave, Georges enters the apartment. Jeanne tells Hugo to hide and keep quiet. She plans to lure Georges into the bathroom to give Hugo time to leave with the picture. Before she goes to Georges, she glances at an armoire; both Hugo and Isabelle notice the look. When Jeanne has left, Hugo suggests they go check out the armoire because he thinks it must be important.
Jeanne does not give the children enough credit. They are clever and manage to catch her quick glance. In general, Hugo and Isabelle are well-attuned to the thought processes of adults because they had to grow up so quickly.
Themes
Isabelle uses a bobby pin to unlock the armoire, and they look inside. At first, they cannot find anything except sheets and clothes. However, after closer inspection, Hugo notices an odd-looking panel. Isabelle stands on a chair and knocks on the panel. The panel makes a hollow sound, and she realizes something must be behind it. Isabelle pulls the panel to the side and finds a box with a lock on it. She tries to carefully grab the box and set it down, but it is heavy. Isabelle shifts her weight, causing the chair she is standing on to break. Isabelle screams, drops the box, and falls to the floor. The box smashes open and hundreds of old-looking drawings scatter everywhere.
Isabelle and Hugo’s intuition was correct: the armoire does contain a secret. However, they are not as quiet as they hoped to be, which will surely attract Georges’s attention. The presence of the drawings suggest that Georges and Hugo have yet another thing in common. Of course, everything Georges has in common with Hugo is something he shares with Hugo’s father as well. Apparently, Georges’s household is filled with secrets, as is fitting for a magician.
Themes
Seconds later, Jeanne storms into the bedroom and yells at Isabelle. Right behind Jeanne is Georges, whose eyes are on the drawings. Jeanne orders Hugo to clean up the drawings and tells Georges to go back to the kitchen. As Hugo picks up the drawings, he treats them like precious objects. Additionally, he notices that they all contain the same signature: Georges Méliès. The drawings are strange and often surreal. One features a man who lives inside a planet and opens the side of the planet up like a hatch. Another shows a knight riding a fish like it is his trusty steed. Others look like pictures from fairy tales and Greek myths.
Jeanne wants to hide Georges from what has happened, but she is too late—the pictures are everywhere and, he registers them immediately. Meanwhile, Hugo is too engrossed in the drawings themselves to care about what is going on around him. The images capture him the same way movies do. Evidently, all of the drawings are Georges’s creations, which have been locked up and sealed away. As Hugo thought, there is more to Georges than meets the eye, though he still does not know the full story.
Themes
As Hugo picks up the pictures, Georges starts repeating the word “No.” At first, he is quiet, but his voice gets louder each time he says it. Then, Georges starts yelling about the drawings; he seems to think someone is playing a trick on him. He asks where the drawings came from and who did them. Jeanne tries to take Georges out of the room, but Georges breaks away from her and begins ripping the drawings. Isabelle and Hugo grab Georges’s arms and try to stop him from damaging the pictures.
Here, Georges shows genuine emotional vulnerability, though only because he cannot control himself. Evidently, Jeanne knew Georges would have a reaction like this one, which is why she did not want him exposed to his old drawings in the first place. For the first time, Hugo and Isabelle see a side of Georges they did not know existed—one that is far different from the old man who works at the toy store.
Themes
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Jeanne yells at Georges to stop and tells him that the drawings are his. Georges laughs at this idea and says he is nothing but a “penniless merchant, a prisoner! A shell! A windup toy!” As Georges is speaking to Jeanne, Hugo and Isabelle manage to lock the drawings away where Georges cannot get at them. Georges breaks down crying and continues muttering “No” over and over again. Jeanne, who has tears running down her face as well, moves to Georges’s side. She does her best to comfort him and tells him she is sorry.
Hugo often compares himself to machines, but the comparison is almost always positive. Here, Georges also compares himself to machines, but in a decidedly negative way. He feels he’s become like one of the toys he sells to children. Clearly, there was a point in his life when things were different and he was able to create elaborate drawings. However, that part of his life is gone now, and it is too painful for him to contemplate.
Themes
