53 pages • 1 hour read
Jules VerneAround the World in Eighty Days
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1872A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 11-20Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 11 Summary: “In Which Phileas Fogg Secures a Curious Means of Conveyance at a Fabulous Price”
The train runs on time with various passengers including officers, government officials, and opium and indigo merchants who work in the East.
Phileas’s traveling companion, Sir Francis Comarty, is a soldier of distinction now living in India. He notes Phileas’s mechanical behaviorisms as odd and considers the journey, as the protagonist describes it, as lacking sense and value.
The narrator describes the terrain as the train progresses, and Sir Francis discusses delays typical of such journeys in the past. The train would often have to wait for palanquins to pass. Respect for the religious customs of the locals also restricted travel, and Sir Francis notes that Passepartout’s recent blunder, which involved disrupting a ceremony, could have caused serious trouble. Phileas agrees with Sir Francis but notes that, had Passepartout been caught, the valet alone would have been punished and sent home—Phileas’s journey, even in that worst-case scenario, would surely have continued undisturbed.
Passepartout wakes from his nap, unaware of the men’s chat about him, and considers the marvels of the train. The valet’s true nature as a restless vagabond begins to emerge once again, and he becomes invested in the journey.
The train halts, and Phileas learns that there is no more railway. The papers were mistaken about the completion of the track. Sir Francis and Passepartout are enraged, but Phileas again emphasizes his expectations of delays and explains how they will alter the voyage to adjust. He purchases an elephant for an exorbitant price and begins his journey to a steamer 50 miles away.
Chapter 12 Summary: “In Which Phileas Fogg and His Companions Venture Across the Indian Forests, and What Ensued”
The guide sets a path through the Indian forests to save time. Phileas and Sir Francis sit on a howdah affixed to the elephant’s back while Passepartout bounces around in front of the howdah, enjoying the ride.
The narrator describes the surrounding forests and the locals as they pass. As they go, Passepartout worries about what Phileas will do with the elephant once they arrive at their destination to rest for the night.
They awake early in the morning and set out once more, shortly encountering a group of Brahmins. Passepartout watches with interest as Phileas coldly observes the progression. There is a statue of the goddess of love and death, Kali, followed by a beautiful Parsee woman named Aouda, covered in finery and jewels. Guards walk behind her, followed by the corpse of an old raja carried on a palanquin. Sir Francis recognizes the religious progression as a suttee, a human sacrifice.
The guide verifies that the woman will be burned alive the next day. If she refuses the sacrifice, she will be shunned by her living relatives. Nonetheless, the guide reveals that the woman is drugged to prevent her from struggling. She is a fellow Parsee, and the locals are familiar with her plight.
Phileas shocks his traveling companions when he announces they will rescue the woman.
Chapter 13 Summary: “In Which Passepartout Receives a New Proof That Fortune Favors the Brave”
Passepartout reconsiders Phileas. The rescue is a bold project that risks his master’s freedom and the loss of the wager. The valet decides Phileas must have a heart beneath his cold exterior and begins to truly care for Phileas.
The others immediately agree to the plan to save Aouda. The guide in particular agrees because he is a fellow Parsee, describing how Aouda was already forced to marry against her will because she was an orphan.
They stage their first rescue attempt that night, moving quietly through the Brahmins, who sleep heavily after a night of revelry with opium and hemp. Their attempt is thwarted when they encounter several guards surrounding Aouda and the deceased raja. Phileas declares that they must wait and watch for an opportune moment. Accordingly, Passepartout climbs a nearby tree above the tent where Aouda is being held. The rescuers become more concerned as daylight approaches, realizing the guards are too watchful. Passepartout decides on a daring trick.
Unable to stage another attempt, and unaware that Passepartout is no longer with them, Phileas and his companions follow the progression helplessly. Phileas remains tense and watchful with a knife at the ready. Sir Francis restrains Phileas when he moves to help Aouda as she is laid on a pyre beside the corpse of the raja. The pyre is lit.
However, the crowd is stunned when the raja rises from the pyre and takes Aouda into his arms. The Brahmins fall to their knees and prostrate themselves in fear as the raja carries Aouda away from the ceremony. When the figure reaches Phileas, the company realizes that Passepartout switched places with the corpse before the progression left that morning. They rush to make an escape as the Brahmins realize the trick.
Chapter 14 Summary: “In Which Phileas Fogg Descends the Whole Length of the Beautiful Valley of the Ganges Without Ever Thinking of Seeing It”
Passepartout is praised for his exploit and reflects on the silliness of his life.
The narrator describes Aouda’s exotic beauty as she sleeps while the group continues through the forest on the elephant.
They arrive at Allahabad, where they may resume their journey by train. Phileas pays the guide for his services. Passepartout is surprised that Phileas does not reward the guide better for his devotion. Phileas tells the guide that he has been paid his due before adding that his devotion to their cause deserves extra. He offers the guide the elephant. The guide is overjoyed, and Passepartout is pleased. Passepartout pats the elephant happily and is playfully lifted in the air by the animal. Sir Francis wishes Phileas luck and departs. Phileas and Passepartout carry Aouda onto the train, as she is still recovering from the drugs she was given for the ceremony.
The narrator describes the continuation of their journey by railway. Aouda wakes, and the pair explain what has happened. Phileas offers to take her to Hong Kong, where she has a Parsee relation who may allow her to stay as she waits for the affair to be forgotten.
Aouda gratefully accepts. They travel along the valley of the Ganges, and the narrator questions what the gods Vishnu, Shiva, and Brahma would think of this anglicized India. They reach Calcutta early the next day, exactly on time.
Chapter 15 Summary: “In Which the Bag of Banknotes Disgorges Some Thousands of Pounds More”
They arrive at the station only for local police officers to seize them and take them by palkighari, a four-wheeled carriage, to appear before a judge. Aouda begs the men to abandon her, certain she is the cause for their captivity. Phileas refuses. Passepartout worries about the delay, but Phileas states that they will board the steamer at noon.
When the judge arrives, Phileas states that he is an English subject with certain rights. The man agrees and explains that the men stand accused of desecrating a sacred place of the Brahmin religion. It is not Aouda’s captors pressing charges but the group of Brahmin priests that Passepartout encountered in Bombay.
Fix, who encouraged the group to press charges, is pleased when Phileas and Passepartout are both sentenced to a week in prison with a fine of several hundred pounds. To his frustration, however, Phileas immediately posts bail, paying £1,000 each. He angrily notes that Phileas will soon have spent the entirety of the stolen money. Fix watches as Phileas, Passepartout, and Aouda board a boat to reach the steamer for the next leg of their journey.
Chapter 16 Summary: “In Which Fix Does Not Seem to Understand in the Least What Is Said to Him”
A technical description of the Rangoon, a screw steamer, begins the chapter. The narrator describes the trip from Calcutta to Hong Kong. The narrator similarly describes Phileas’s mechanically polite treatment of Aouda, but soon after, Passepartout explains Phileas’s character and the wager to their female companion. The narrator then describes Aouda’s awe and increasing adoration of Phileas. Again, the narrator details the landscape as they pass.
Meanwhile, Fix has also secured passage on the Rangoon, hiding from Passepartout to avoid suspicion. Fix hopes the warrant for Phileas’s arrest will be forwarded on to Hong Kong in time. He considers telling Passepartout the truth but decides to wait, unwilling to risk alerting Phileas to his presence.
Passepartout eventually encounters Fix and questions why he is aboard the same steamer. The valet describes their recent adventure rescuing Aouda as well as their plans to help Aouda find a relative in Hong Kong.
Chapter 17 Summary: “Showing What Happened on the Voyage From Singapore to Hong Kong”
Passepartout considers why Fix seems to be following them each step of their journey. Deciding that Fix is a spy sent by the Reform Club, Passepartout makes mysterious allusions to Fix’s attempts to follow their group. Fix, fearing that his deception is discovered, decides to reveal the truth to Passepartout before they leave Hong Kong.
Chapter 18 Summary: “In Which Phileas Fogg, Passepartout, and Fix Go Each About His Business”
A storm hits, and the captain estimates at least a 20-hour delay to their arrival in Hong Kong. While Passepartout becomes enraged at the weather, Phileas seems unbothered. Fix is overjoyed at the delay. When they do arrive, albeit 24 hours behind schedule, Phileas asks how soon another steamer will leave Hong Kong. The next steamer, the Carnatic, will fortunately leave the very next morning, an answer that frustrates Fix and pleases Passepartout.
Phileas enquires about Aouda’s relative in Hong Kong and learns that he moved to Holland years ago. Phileas proposes that Aouda travel with them to Europe, insisting on providing for her voyage. She reluctantly agrees, fearing that her presence is an intrusion.
Chapter 19 Summary: “In Which Passepartout Takes a Too Great Interest in His Master, and What Comes of It”
The narrator describes how Hong Kong became a colony of the British Empire, emphasizing the positive influence the English had on the culture in Hong Kong. Passepartout wanders toward the Victoria Port, where he is unsurprised to find Detective Fix.
Fix is upset because the warrant has still not arrived. He listens as Passepartout purchases tickets for the voyage, and the clerk explains that the Carnatic will leave that very night instead of the following morning. Thrilled by this unexpected development, Passepartout agrees to go with Fix for a glass of wine.
Fix and Passepartout enter an opium den, the only place nearby where drinks are available. Passepartout continues his games with Fix until the detective reveals the truth. Passepartout refutes the detective’s claims and refuses to betray his master. Determined to succeed anyway, Fix encourages the valet to drink another glass of wine and then drugs Passepartout with opium. He leaves the valet passed out in the den.
Chapter 20 Summary: “In Which Fix Comes Face to Face With Phileas Fogg”
Phileas takes Aouda to purchase necessities to ensure her comfort on the voyage. She is confused by his generosity.
Phileas meets Fix at the port, where Fix tells the protagonist and Aouda that the Carnatic sailed early—he claims that he had intended to sail on the steamer as well. Phileas arranges an alternate route, taking a pilot boat to Shanghai once he learns that the San Francisco steamer leaves from Shanghai and not Yokohama, as he believed. Fix is disturbed when Phileas offers to pay for him as well but ultimately accepts the man’s generosity.
Phileas asks the police to search for Passepartout. They wait until the last minute but ultimately set sail without the French manservant.
Chapters 11-20 Analysis
Chapters 11-20 narrate Phileas and Passepartout’s journey through the British colonies, including India and Hong Kong, making these chapters important ones for developing the theme of Imperialism, Colonization, and Period-Typical Racism. Aouda is a key figure within this theme, manifesting many elements of period-typical racism. The group encounter Aouda for the first time when they come across a Brahmin procession in India. Her intended sacrificial death portrays a major Indian religion as holistically cruel and savage. Her characterization is also problematic. She is helpless and pitiable, a passive victim in need of rescue; the Frenchman, and the valet, no less, accomplishes the rescue by tricking the superstitious Brahmin, using their own ceremony against them. Aouda’s characterization also emphasizes her British behavior, implying repeatedly through implication that any other behavior would be inferior and render her unworthy as a love interest despite her exotic beauty. In Chapter 15, Detective Fix’s latest effort to delay Phileas, this time by using Passepartout’s earlier misadventure at a Brahmin ritual site to get the valet and his master arrested, also develops this theme. The episode would have captured Britain’s growing interest, toward the end of the Victorian era, in recognizing and protecting certain aspects of cultural diversity. Verne’s effort to positively frame Britain’s limited acknowledgement of some carefully curated aspects of non-British culture, however, is undermined by the other manifestations of imperialism, colonization, and period-typical racism throughout the novel.
These chapters also add nuance to the theme of Victorian Honor, Integrity, and Ideals. For example, Chapter 11 begins with Phileas and Passepartout aboard a train on the newly complete Intercontinental Railroad, an important historical development central to the idea of circumnavigation and the plot of the novel. On the train, they meet Sir Comarty, an English soldier who provides an important contrast to Phileas. As another English gentleman, the soldier should align well with Phileas, both aspiring to uphold the same (or at least a similar) set of Victorian-era ideals. Yet Sir Comarty is discomforted by Phileas’s odd behavior, noting his mechanical demeanor and single-minded purpose as “lacking sense and value” (60). Notably, Sir Comarty’s reflection on Phileas follows a lengthy technological description of the train and its mechanism. This passage as a whole parallels Phileas’s exaggerated reason with Verne’s technical descriptions and, in doing so, highlights a subtle distinction in Victorian-era perspectives of how to enact honor and integrity. Namely, while Comarty, especially as a soldier, manifests his honor and integrity through passion and action, Phileas tends to enact it through calm precision and flexible efficiency. That the rails run out, incomplete despite the newspaper’s claim, hints at the shortcomings of this approach if practiced to the exclusion of any emotion at all.
Phileas’s approach has its advantages, though, and these chapters reflect its power as a rough parallel to that of the Industrial Revolution. For example, Passepartout shows important character development in this chapter resulting from Phileas’s influence. The Frenchman comes to acknowledge the value of Phileas’s undertaking: He comes to “regard his master’s project as intended in good earnest, [and] believe[s] in the reality of the bet” (63). As Passepartout begins to recognize the importance of the wager as a cultural project, as evidence of the modern ability to circumnavigate the globe, the reader can also identify Phileas’s purpose. The man embodies a Victorian focus on proving British supremacy, which entails weaving honor and integrity together with technological superiority.
Phileas’s dedication to honor and integrity also comes through in his willingness to act outside his nature when necessary. While it is his capacity to operate with cool and calculated machine-like efficiency that makes him extraordinary, it is his deviations from that pattern that endear him to his compatriots—as those deviations are always to serve those in need or to repay courage or kindness. Aouda’s rescue is an important demonstration of Phileas’s symbolic characterization within the theme of Victorian honor, integrity, and ideals. When faced with a moral dilemma that endangers the successful completion of the wager, Phileas swiftly chooses the moral action, surprising his companions and deeply moving his valet.
The theme of The Juxtaposition of Art and Science is especially present in these chapters in the context of characters’ emotional reactions—or lack thereof. As the narrative progresses, Phileas’s traveling companions consistently display exaggerated emotional responses in contrast to Phileas’s unperturbed calm. In response to the incompletion of the railroad, Passepartout and Sir Comarty become enraged. Phileas, in contrast, states that he anticipated such a delay. Always adaptable, he purchases an elephant to reach his next location. During the purchasing of the elephant and the following journey through the Indian forest, his companions are shocked and delighted. Phileas views it merely as a practical solution. This contrast parallels the broader juxtaposition of science, with its cool detachment, and the arts, which center grand emotions.
Structurally, these chapters echo the structure established in the opening chapters. They emphasize exposition and setting, situating the text within the science fiction and travel fiction genres. Historical references continue, with these chapters featuring the first reference to opium, a major narcotic in the East during this period. The tension amplifies as the timer placed on the characters ticks down and their main resource—Phileas’s money—diminishes. Phileas avoids a major delay, but only by paying an exorbitant fee to post bail. The protagonist consistently choosing to pay large sums of money, that is, to prioritize the itinerary over his capital, emphasizes the significance of the wager. This undertaking is about proving the possibility of the journey and proving the potential of the Industrial Revolution and, more broadly, science. It is a reflection of ideology and principle rather than money. Tension also amplifies as the journey transitions away from railway and to steamers, placing the characters at the mercy of another unpredictable element: weather.
Finally, this section concludes by amplifying the suspense as well, in this case using the character of Detective Fix. In Chapter 17, Passepartout decides that Detective Fix is a spy of the Reform Club. This point of dramatic irony initially leads to another humorous episode of misunderstanding, as the valet takes the opportunity to toy with the detective. However, by the end of the section, the detective’s character takes a turn. He drugs Passepartout in order to separate the valet from his master and insert himself into Phileas’s group of traveling companions. Fix’s effort to delay Phileas’s journey, in this case, escalates to the point of villainy, his deceptions contrasting with the loyal and honorable behavior of both Phileas and Passepartout.
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