How does Passepartout change through out the book

Question

From the book(Around The World In 80 Days

Answer 1

Hi Carly! I love Around the World in 80 Days – there is a wonderful audiobook version featuring the actor Jim Dale and it is really fun to listen to!

To help you think about how Passepartout changes in the novel, it is really helpful to start by understanding that Passepartout is a foil to Phileas Fogg. Foils are character pairs that both enhance each other’s character traits and are opposites. Putting these two people in relationship with each other deepens the important themes of a story. Often the two characters impact each other so that, in some way, their roles reverse. Each is transformed through the events of the story, becoming more like the other. In other words, each changes by learning and growing in a way that reflects the impact of the other. 

If you start by thinking about Phileas Fogg’s qualities and personality traits as the story begins, you can then see how Passepartout is in many ways Fogg’s opposite. You might start to organize your thoughts on these two characters by making two columns or a T-chart identifying Fogg’s traits in one column and how Passepartout has the opposing qualities in the other. 

Then think about what happens by the end of the story. Fogg needs to learn something about what makes life meaningful. He starts out as a kind of meticulous but unemotional person who eventually will be transformed at the end of the novel – not by winning the literal prize for his trip around the world, but the more meaningful prize of Aouda. If Fogg is dispassionate and practical as the story begins, how is Passepartout? In what ways is he the opposite of Fogg? 

Now consider what Passepartout needs to learn or realize or how he needs to grow to become a more complete person by the end. If Fogg needs to grow in the emotional side, how does Passepartout need to grow in the opposite or contrasting qualities? 

Think of all the things Passepartout does and what kind of person he seems like through most of the story. He is a comic character who causes a lot of problems for Fogg. What is it about him at the beginning and through large parts of the story that leads him to cause all these problems for Fogg? 

But what about at the end? What is significant about Passepartout’s contribution at the end of the story that makes the very happy ending possible but could not have happened without the experience he goes through in the story changing him to make him a fuller and deeper person? 

I hope this helps! Understanding how a story transforms the major characters is really what gives a story its ultimate meaning. Please let me know if I can be of any further help or if you have any additional questions!