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Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.

Clocks and Watches

Clocks and watches appear several times throughout the novel. Clocks can be found all over Fogg’s home and throughout the train stations and ports Fogg passes through as he makes his way across the world. The clocks and watches appearing throughout the story function as a reminder that time waits for no one, and everyone is subject to the hands of time. Passepartout’s watch and his refusal to synchronize it to the world clock are, ironically, what ends up enabling Fogg to win his bet. However, Passepartout’s unsynchronized watch also represents the fact that people across the world are running their lives in accordance with their own particular time zones. In order to be part of modern society, one must be aware that time runs on a global scale now and submit to a “world clock.” Time cannot be changed, but it should be kept track of if one wants to be living in tune with the world. The story’s clocks and watches support the theme of time and its ultimate dominance over life in the novel.

Native Peoples

Wherever Fogg goes, the native people are portrayed as rough, uncivilized, and uncouth. In India, the Hindu priests are represented as fierce, frightening, and engaging in human sacrifice, which is portrayed as barbaric and backward. In America, the Sioux Indians are represented as warlike and uncivilized, boarding trains and wreaking havoc on innocent passengers. The Sioux clumsily try to stop the train by releasing the steam valve but end up projecting the train forward, suggesting that they are simplistic and ignorant of modern technology. The portrayal of the native peoples over the lands Fogg and his crew visit supports the theme of British imperialism, which runs through the novel. Nineteenth-century British society often viewed native peoples as less civilized than them, a broad and unnuanced perspective that is more stereotypical and exploitative than representative of reality.

Whist

The card game called whist repeatedly appears throughout the novel as Fogg’s game of choice. Prior to his race around the world, Fogg spent hours every day playing the game with his fellow members at the Reform Club. Playing whist is also Fogg’s main way of connecting with others socially. Fogg plays whist all across the world with people on trains and ships. Whist absorbs Fogg’s attention so completely that, while playing, he fails to notice everything else happening around him, as demonstrated when Fogg fails to notice when the train he’s riding on jumps over the Medicine Creek Bridge. Aouda uses Fogg’s absorption in the game as a manipulative tool, playing with him to keep him occupied and unaware of Colonel Proctor’s presence, a move taken to avoid a fight between the two men. Whist both helps and hinders Fogg, as playing the game has helped him develop a keen sense of strategy, but playing also blocks him from truly engaging with and being aware of the world around him.

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