Jean Passepartout and Phileas Fogg

AI-generated picture by Prof. Jonathan Acuña Solano in September 2025

Introductory Note to the Reader

The first time I read Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days, I was in fourth grade. At the time, the
novel felt long, even overwhelming, but it captivated me with its adventure and its fascinating characters.
It was not just a reading experience: it became a milestone. My Spanish teacher had asked us to read
a book by Jules Verne, and when I finished, I had to recount the story to my classmates. That moment
turned into my very first public speaking experience, standing in front of my peers, retelling Fogg and
Passepartout’s adventures.
Decades later, I rediscovered the book in the Amazon Kindle store, and reading it again filled me with
nostalgia and curiosity. Now, as a literature professor, I approach this novel not only as a cherished
memory but as a text rich in narrative texture, symbolic depth, and psychological insight.

Loving, Reading, and Traveling: A Psychological

and Semiotic Reading of Jules Verne's Around the

World in 80 Days
 Abstract Keywords:
This essay explores Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Jules Verne, Phileas Fogg,
Days through the dual lenses of Erich Fromm’s Passepartout, Aouda, Erich
psychology of love and Roland Barthes’ semiotic critique. Fromm, Roland Barthes,
It examines how Phileas Fogg and Jean Passepartout Orientalism, Semiotics,
function as external and internal protagonists, how Aouda Love, Ideology
catalyzes transformation, and how Detective Fix sustains
narrative tension. By situating the characters within
Fromm’s framework of love as active concern and Barthes’
notion of myth as ideology, the essay argues that the novel
is both a story of personal growth and a map of 19th-
century imperial ideologies.
Resumen
Este ensayo analiza La vuelta al mundo en 80 días de Jules Verne desde dos
perspectivas críticas: la psicología humanista de Erich Fromm y la crítica semiótica de
Roland Barthes. Se examina cómo Phileas Fogg encarna la racionalidad imperial,
mientras que Passepartout representa la espontaneidad emocional. Aouda, como
catalizadora, revela tanto la capacidad de transformación personal como los límites de
los estereotipos orientalistas. Fix, por su parte, encarna la obsesión por la vigilancia. La
novela, leída desde estas perspectivas, no es solo una narración de aventuras, sino
también un reflejo de los mitos culturales del siglo XIX.
Resumo
Este ensaio explora A Volta ao Mundo em 80 Dias de Jules Verne a partir de duas lentes:
a psicologia do amor de Erich Fromm e a crítica semiótica de Roland Barthes. Phileas
Fogg surge como símbolo da racionalidade imperial britânica, enquanto Passepartout
traz a dimensão humana e caótica da jornada. Aouda funciona como catalisadora da
transformação emocional, mas também como representação de estereótipos
orientalistas. Já o detetive Fix mantém a tensão narrativa por meio da suspeita e da
vigilância. Assim, o romance é tanto uma narrativa de crescimento humano quanto um
mapa dos mitos culturais do século XIX.

In Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days, an ostensibly straightforward

tale of global adventure unfolds as the enigmatic Englishman Phileas Fogg
accepts a wager to circumnavigate the globe in just eighty days. At first glance,
Jules Verne’s novel is a product of its time (the 19th Century); the plot is an ode to
technology, exploration, and British punctuality. However, by employing a dual
theoretical lens, Erich Fromm's humanist psychology and Roland Barthes' semiotic
critique, the characters emerge as vessels of deeper truths. Through these
perspectives, we can interpret the novel not only as a travel story but as an
exploration of love, identity, and the symbolic operations of narrative.
The Exterior and Interior Protagonists
Mr. Phileas Fogg, with his clockwork routine and emotionless disposition,
initially appears as a flat protagonist. His actions drive the plot, but his personal
transformation remains subtle. In contrast, his French valet, Jean Passepartout,
provides the emotional arc of the novel. Verne introduces Fogg as a man who
"never hurried and was always ready" (Verne, ch. 1), a figure ruled by reason.
Passepartout, however, is the relatable counterpart: reactive, humorous, and often
overwhelmed by the chaos of the journey.
While Fogg is the external agent of the story plot’s motion, Passepartout is
the internal witness, growing visibly throughout the narrative. Their dynamic
mirrors Fromm’s dialectic between sterile conformity and authentic engagement
with life. Both characters complement each other having the reader question who
the real protagonist of the story is; both can be a good response to the doubt their
interaction in the plot presents.
Frommian Love and Human Transformation
In The Art of Loving, Erich Fromm posits that love is not a fleeting emotion
but an art, one requiring maturity, discipline, and the overcoming of narcissism. Dr.
Fromm writes, "Love is the active concern for the life and the growth of that which
we love" (Fromm, 1956, p. 25). Early in Verne’s novel, Fogg embodies what Fromm
would label as automaton conformity, a state in which man suppresses individuality
to fit societal mechanisms. This is evident in Fogg's regulated lifestyle and
emotional aloofness. Based on the idea of Victorian society, Phileas fits society
and its mechanisms thoroughly.
However, as the journey unfolds, Fogg undergoes a subtle evolution
catalyzed by two essential figures in the story’s plot: on the one hand we have
Passepartout, and, on the other hand, there we have Aouda. Passepartout exhibits
Frommian brotherly love through his loyalty, concern, and emotional
responsiveness toward Phileas. Passepartout often chooses conscience over
convenience, such as when he intervenes in Aouda's rescue from suttee in India,
an act that disrupts Fogg’s schedule but aligns with moral duty and the way an
English gentleman is meant to behave under the circumstances described in the
novel.
Aouda, the rescued Parsi widow, becomes the emotional catalyst for Phileas
Fogg. Her presence introduces vulnerability and mutual care. When Fogg learns
that he has seemingly lost the wager, his first instinct is not despair but to ensure
Aouda's well-being and her peace of mind. In her words, "You are more than brave;
you are good" (Verne, ch. 35), affirming Fogg’s latent emotional depth that is only
emerging through, at the beginning, his relationship with Aouda. His eventual
proposal to Parsi widow suggests that Fogg has finally learned Fromm’s productive
love, rooted in care, respect, and responsibility, rather than passion or possession.
Semiotic Structures and Barthesian Myth
 While Fromm emphasizes inner transformation, Roland Barthes invites us
to read the novel as a system of signs, revealing how characters function less as
individuals and more as ideological symbols. In Mythologies, Barthes argues that
myth is a type of speech: "Myth transforms history into nature" (Barthes, 1972, p.
129). In this sense, narratives like Jules Verne’s mask their ideological
underpinnings by presenting them as neutral or universal individuals.
Phileas Fogg, in this light, is the mythic subject of imperial rationality: self-
possessed, efficient, and in control of what happens in his life. He is not merely an
Englishman; he is England or rather, what England imagines itself to be at that
moment in history. His mastery of time and space, epitomized by his calm response
to calamities and unexpected events, enacts the colonial fantasy of global
domination through logic and machinery that the Brits projected at that moment in
time.
Jean Passepartout, by contrast, is a semiotic disruptor. He constantly
interferes with Fogg's plans, unintentionally introducing chaos and thereby
injecting spontaneity into the text, something that can be described as the
opposition of what Phileas is or represents. Barthes would likely interpret
Passepartout as the reader's surrogate, puncturing the illusion of control and
revealing the constructed nature of the narrative. Passepartout is the foil character
that makes sense for the story in the plot’s narrative.
Aouda, in Barthes' framework, is a problematic figure. Though she provides
emotional depth to the story, she also represents the Orientalist trope, the exotic
woman rescued and civilized by the Western man. As Edward Said notes in
Orientalism, the West often constructs the East as "a passive object of
representation" rather than a subject with agency (Said, 1978, p. 108). Aouda’s
symbolic function is less about autonomy and more about fulfilling narrative closure
through romantic resolution.
Detective Fix, the comic and obnoxious antagonist, embodies the paranoia
of the modern surveillance state that wants to know what individuals are up to. His
relentless suspicion of Phileas Fogg, despite mounting evidence of his innocence,
operates as what Barthes calls a hermeneutic code, a narrative delay that sustains
tension while masking deeper ideological patterns.
Synthesis: Love and Ideology in Motion
By marrying Fromm's ethics of love with Barthes' structuralism, we gain a
fuller understanding of Verne's novel. Fromm helps us see Fogg’s journey not just
as physical but spiritual, a movement from detachment to connection. Barthes, on
the other hand, exposes the ideological undercurrents of that same journey,
revealing how cultural myths of Western supremacy, gender roles, and progress
are embedded in the text.
As Terry Eagleton notes, "Literature does not exist in some aesthetic realm
divorced from ideology. It is itself a form of ideology" (Eagleton, 2008, p. 19).
Around the World in 80 Days is therefore both a narrative of emotional awakening
and a map of 19th-century semiotic ideologies. Phileas Fogg becomes a man
capable of love, but he remains a signifier of empire. Passepartout grows as a
human but also functions as a comic safety valve for the story's tensions. Aouda
catalyzes moral growth but also reflects cultural reduction.
In the end, Verne’s novel, like the journey it depicts, oscillates between
freedom and control, between authentic love and cultural myth. The question is not
simply whether Fogg wins his wager, but whether he becomes more fully human.
And through the eyes of Fromm and Barthes, we see that perhaps he does but
only just.

References
Barthes, R. (1972). Mythologies (A. Lavers, Trans.). New York: Hill and Wang.

Eagleton, T. (2008). Literary Theory: An Introduction. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Fromm, E. (1956). The Art of Loving. New York: Harper & Row.

Said, E. (1978). Orientalism. New York: Pantheon Books.

Verne, J. (1873). Around the World in 80 Days (translated by George Makepeace Towle). Public domain
translation available via Project Gutenberg. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/103

10 Possible Topics for Literary Criticism Enthusiasts

1 Passepartout as the true protagonist: emotional arc versus mechanical
precision.
2 Time, clocks, and punctuality: Verne’s obsession with mechanized life.
3 Aouda and Orientalism: rescuing or silencing the “other”?
4 Inspector Fix as the embodiment of the surveillance state.
5 Colonial geographies: what does it mean to “travel the world” in the 19th
century?
6 The wager as existential metaphor: is Fogg betting against life itself?
7 Technology and transportation: progress or illusion of control?
8 Humor and chaos: Passepartout as Barthesian punctum in a structured
narrative.
9 Fromm’s art of loving: Fogg’s transformation into a man capable of
intimacy.
10 Adventure fiction as ideology: Eagleton and Said on Verne’s narrative of
empire.

Literary Reflective Journaling on Jules Verne’s novel, August 2025: My

Notes
Phileas Fogg: The • Function: Fogg is the novel's driving force. He
Exterior Protagonist makes the wager and sets the journey in
motion.
• Personality: Stoic, precise, emotionally
restrained — almost machine-like.
• Role in Narrative: He is the external
protagonist whose actions dictate the plot's
structure (locations, pacing, deadlines).
• Transformation: Subtle. His rigid logic begins
to soften through the journey, especially after
meeting Aouda.
Jean Passepartout: • Function: Passepartout is the reader’s
The Interior surrogate — curious, emotional, reactive, and
Protagonist constantly evolving.
• Personality: Loyal, impulsive, comic, human.
He reflects the chaos that Fogg’s structure tries
to suppress.
 • Role in Narrative: While Fogg moves the plot
forward, Passepartout generates conflict,
humor, and character development.
• Transformation: He undergoes more visible
growth. He learns from Fogg’s composure but
also helps Fogg rediscover humanity.
Interplay Between • Their relationship mirrors order vs.
Fogg and spontaneity, reason vs. instinct, British
Passepartout stoicism vs. French vitality.
• Passepartout often complicates Fogg’s
schedule — yet his errors and intuition often
lead to eventual success (e.g., rescuing
Aouda).
• The bond between them evolves from formality
to deep friendship, with Passepartout
becoming emotionally invested in Fogg’s
success.
Aouda: The Catalyst • Role: Adds an emotional dimension to Fogg’s
life. Her presence brings out his compassion.
• She is symbolic of the human consequences
of Fogg’s rational decisions.
• Her growing closeness to Fogg causes both
men (Fogg and Passepartout) to reevaluate
their priorities.

Detective Fix: The • His misunderstanding of Fogg as a bank

Antagonistic Foil robber introduces suspense.
• He reflects the limits of logic without context, a
contrast to Passepartout’s intuitive
understanding of Fogg’s character.
• While he opposes Fogg’s goal, he ironically
aids in achieving it.
So, Who’s the Central Technically, Phileas Fogg is the protagonist — he
Character? makes the bet, the story revolves around his
deadline, and he experiences personal change by
the end.
However, Passepartout is arguably the central
narrative consciousness:
• He’s more emotionally accessible to the
reader.
• We see Fogg’s transformation partly through
his eyes.
• He provides the tension, the comic relief, and
many of the moral stakes.
In Literary Terms • Fogg = flat character with slow but meaningful
growth (a classic Verne archetype of reason
and progress).
• Passepartout = round character who actively
changes, feels, fears, and learns — more
relatable and dynamic.
Conclusion
Both are central, but in different ways:

Role Phileas Fogg Passepartout

Drives the Plot

Provides Perspective

Changes the Most Emotionally

Controls the Stakes

Emotional Anchor
Reflective Online Teaching
by Prof. Jonathan Acuña Solano
Loving, Reading, and Traveling: A Psychological and Semiotic Reading of Jules Verne's Around
the World in 80 Days

https://reflective-online-teaching.blogspot.com/2025/09/loving-reading-and-traveling.html