Around the World In Eighty Days: Summary
The title of the novel, Around the World in Eighty Days, is pretty much self explanatory. An Englishman, Phileas Fogg, places a wager that he can circumnavigate the world in 80 days. The events that occur throughout the novel describe his journey around the world.
Phileas Fogg, the protagonist, was a lonesome person who lived with his paid servant. Mr.Fogg was thought to be rich although no one knew where his riches came from.
Jean Passepartout, Fogg's paid servant. A strange fellow who had held many different jobs, such as fireman and gymnast.
Detective Fix, an English detective who followed Fogg around the world because he suspected that Mr. Fogg was a bank robber.
Aouda, a Parsee woman who was saved from a Setee by Fogg and
Passepartout.
The antagonist of the novel was time, Mr. Fogg was pressured to arrive back in London within 80 days or otherwise lose his fortune.
My favorite character in the novel is Passepartout. Passepartout was an innocent Frenchman that just after being hired as Mr. Fogg's servant was told to pack for a trip around the world. Throughout the entire novel the reader is informed of all the peculiar habits of Fogg that Passepartout had to support.
My least favorite character is Fix the detective. He followed Fogg around the globe, he missed arresting him in India and Hong Kong through incompetence, and as soon as they arrived back in London, he did arrest Fogg but erroneously. The main conflict of the novel was time. Time caused a lot of pressure on Fogg; he had to get back to London on time or he would lose the money he wagered. Mr.Fogg and Passepartout were confronted many times with the problem of lost time; when time was lost extra effort and work had to be put in so as to make up for the lost time.
The incident that made me happy was when the real bank thief was caught and Fogg was let out of jail with exactly enough time left to arrive in London on time.
The one part that I would change is when Passepartout and Fogg are separated on India and then they meet up again coincidentally in Japan. I know that this is science fiction, fiction being the important word but still it is to something that is almost impossible to happen in real life.
While Fogg and Passepartout were in the India jungle, they saw a woman,
Aouda, who was going to be burned alive as a sacrifice. Fogg decided to attempt to save her.
The extend of most American’s knowledge of early America is of Columbus’ discovery of America for Europe in 1492 and the landing of the Mayflower in Plymouth in 1620. This was true of A Voyage Long and Strange author, Tony Horwitz. Horwitz felt as if there were pieces missing in his picture of early America and set out on a journey that spanned from Canada to the Dominican Republic. The novel starts out with a prologue of Horwitz talking about his own reasons for wanting to learn more of early America and then is broken into three sections Discovery, Conquest, and Settlement. Each section discusses another period in early American history starting with first contact in Vinland and ending with the landing in Plymouth.
The trans-Atlantic interactions from 1600 to 1763 significantly contributed to maintaining continuity and fostering changes in the labor systems in the British North American colonies. When the colonies were founded, plantations played an important role. The Europeans maintained continuity of labor systems since the demand for labor was high in the colonies. By using African slave labor, they endorsed change to the labor systems.
The difference in Agamemnon’s and Odysseus’s approach of their homeland is a reason for their differing fates. Agamemnon, the king of Argos, returns from Troy after a safe journey. Once he lands on the shores of his native earth, his false sense of security renders him unsuspecting of the possible danger that lurks in his own home. His naiveté leads him to approach his home directly to show his people that he has returned. Since his subjects were no longer loyal to him, his exposure leads to his demise. Their disloyalty is revealed when Aegisthus, the man who plots to kill Agamemnon, gathers the town’s best soldiers to ambush the king. Agamemnon meets Aegisthus, who organized a banquet where the king and his company are mercilessly slaughtered. Because he fails to assess the danger that exists in his homeland, Agamemnon meets his end soon after his return.
Barbara Blaugdone traveled a great deal, using her faith and drive to spread her message across England and Ireland. In England, she traveled well over a hundred miles, in Ireland she traveled over two hundred. She also made several voyages by sea. Her travels must have been long and difficult, as she faced not only the everyday dangers of the road but the dangers of persecution and imprisonment as well.
Few human experiences are as wretched as facing the fact that one is alone; perhaps because isolation is so easily recognized and dwelled upon when one is without friends to distract from life’s woes. Now consider isolation at its most extreme and ponder what such abject loneliness would work upon man. This is the fate of Dr. Frankenstein and the Monster in Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein. Frankenstein is the story of how one man’s experiment has the unintended consequence of making Frankenstein and his creation, the Monster, completely isolated from the rest of humanity: the creator of the unnatural monster dares not relate his tale lest due to his punishing guilt, and the hideous being himself shares neither kinship nor experience with anyone.
In the book Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, one main character, Victor Frankenstein creates a monster. Both characters, Frankenstein and the monster become isolated as a result of this event. Isolation can have outcomes or an impact for the future events in the story. Frankenstein's monster is alienated from the "human" society because of his appearance, and that his creator doesn't want him, which leads the monster to go on a killing spree.
Frankenstein only takes action against it after his last family member has been killed by it because he cannot get accompany from his family anymore, which shows that he cares about himself more than the lives of other people. When the creature kills Dr. Frankenstein’s brother, his good friend Henry and his wife Elizabeth, he does not want to revenge because he still has his father to live for. However, after his father died by hearing the death of Elizabeth, he lost all his social interaction so he is alone and miserable. Before the monster’s depredations, he can depend on his family when he was sick or depressed; but now he is close to the state of solitude that the creature has experienced since being created. Therefore, Dr. Frankenstein becomes dehumanized and obsess with revenge. He could only feel his pain after all his family died, but never think of the creature’s desperation. The creature, with no bindings and no belongings, is on its own the whole life. As its creator, Dr. Frankenstein gives no love to it, but leave it cruelly. He could never understand why the creature take revenge on him because he is a narcissist. In the article, “Narcissism and Empathy in Young Offenders and Non-offenders”, author Erica G. Hepper explains that, “Although narcissistic individuals depend on other people’s praise and respect to feed their ego, they lack communal motivation and fail to consider the effect they have on others” (201). Dr. Frankenstein never care to think of what might happen to the creature after he rejects it. What he cares is he could not bear to look at the creature, so he just runs away. And now, Dr. Frankenstein decides to take revenge on the creature that all its miseries are caused by himself. Surprisingly, after Dr. Frankenstein died, the creature comments him by his bed, “Oh, Frankenstein! Generous and self-devoted being! What does it avail that I now ask thee to pardon me” (146)? Even though the creature
After Frankenstein is dead, and all purpose is lost, the monster has a sort of mid-life crisis, and holds great regret. The monster’s true moment of truth came not during his “adolescent” years, but in the final moments of the novel. He did not realize the error of his ways and of his murders until it was too late, and his one true companion was sitting dead in front of him (163). Again he curses being ever created, but now he knows it would be to save mankind from his horrors, not to protect himself.
While searching for new discoveries, Victor Frankenstein allowed two years to pass, “…during which I paid no visit to Geneva, but was engaged, heart and soul, in the pursuit of some discoveries which I hoped to make.” (Shelley 41). For two years, Victor Frankenstein never left Germany to visit his family in Geneva, Switzerland. This was so he could allow all of his focus to go to his want of discovering something new and great. Though Victor Frankenstein became isolated by choice, it is still considered isolation because he had next to no contact with any part of society. After the Creature is created, the Creature is forced into isolation. While talking to Victor Frankenstein, the Creature asks, “Am I not shunned and hated by all mankind?” and points out, “… the human senses are insurmountable barriers to our union.” (Shelley 125). The Creature realizes that he will never fit into human society. Because he is hideous, large, and scary, the Creature will never be accepted into society by humans and will always be disliked because of the fear he causes in people. Here, you can see the Creature is also smart enough to realize the problems that separate him from human society are so great that they will never be able to overcome. Though the Creature experienced isolation for a different reason, you can relate Victor Frankenstein to the Creature because of this. Even though isolation can be
As seen from the creature’s perspective in Frankenstein, he realized his longing for love would never be accepted by mankind because of his distorted personal traits, and he could never seek peace after that which made him think that “all joy was but a mockery” and he “was not made for the enjoyment of pleasure” (Shelley Frankenstein 128). After being abandoned by his creator, Frankenstein, the creature found out in his journey alone that every being’s purpose was to find love or a group that will establish relationships with one another. He wondered when his love will ever come, but he was only beaten down by insults, fear, and neglect since he was a monster to anyone he encountered. Not only that, but the creature was even rejected by his creator for his “demand for a community” that will accept him, such as his own wife who would love him (Reese 50). With this, the creator did not want anything to deal with the creature to avoid the trouble he could cause that will make society blame Frankenstein for bringing such a hazardous being to town. The creature being shut away by his own creator and society for wanting to be accepted initiates the same conflict with Mary being forbidden by her father and family for loving her husband. She found herself as the monster from her emotional approach as she was treated like a burden for wanting
In Frankenstein, the Creature constantly wondered why he had such a hideous appearance and why everyone he approached ran away from him. After various encounters with people who seemed to be terrified of him, he became motivated to learn more about his creator and why he was abandoned. After finding out who his creator was, he was set on finding him and in the process killed many people that Victor Frankenstein loved. Before setting out to find Victor, the creature
In the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, the themes of isolation and alienation are highly prevalent through the characters of Victor Frankenstein and his monster creation. Both characters experience self-isolation, loneliness, and separation from society. Isolation acts as a motif, and whether it is forced or chosen isolation, both victims suffer from the negative consequences which ultimately leads them to their unruly demise.
José Esteban Muñoz, Cruising Utopia takes an interesting stand on the issues of Queerness and its futurity by viewing said issues through the lens of marxist philosopher Ernest Bloch, specifically looking at Bloch’s The Principle of Hope. Muñoz beginnings the introduction of Cruising Utopia by stating, “Queerness is not yet here” and throughout the entirety of the introduction and first chapter reiterates his concept that queerness is an ideal that has not yet been achieved and is only a potentiality in the dawning futritry. At first glance Muñoz’s ideas make a lot of sense yet however they almost completely negate the “here and now” and focus solely on the idea of the future and potentiality even though Muñoz himself seems to indicate that
He fled from his creature leaving him to fight and learn for himself with no understanding of the how world works. This desertion left the Creature alone and hopeless, longing for any type of human connection. He starts to wonder, “…But where were my friends and relations? No father had watched my infant days, no mother had blessed me with smiles and caresses…”(124). Loneliness and rejection are only the beginning of the Creatures escalating anger towards humanity. He could not understand why he was not able to be loved in any way. As he time went on, he began to gain an understanding of what he was missing; and he realized who was responsible for his extremely lonely existence, “I remembered Adams supplication of his creator, but where was mine? He had abandoned me, and in the bitterness of my heart I cursed him”(134). From this moment the once harmless creature has grown to become a very vicious monster that set out to make Frankenstein feel the very exact pain that he had experienced. The monster would stop at absolutely nothing when it came to achieving this goal of
Many theories have been formulated to explain the major events in the 20th century (two world wars and the Cold War). Among those theories, I think realism theory (neorealism in particular) best explains these events. This paper analyzes how the Balance of Power theory from the realist tradition can be applied in the explaining the onsets of these events and the end of the Cold War. From a realist’s perspective, first, states are rational and their actions are all dictated by their primary interest, which is security. And states seek security through balancing the distribution of power. Second, polarity, which is determined by distribution of, has a significant impact on the choice of balancing behavior of states. And consistent with the history, this theory suggests that states are more likely to go to war under multipolarity while a bipolar system is relatively stable because of security dilemma between two great powers. After this, I will discuss two liberal critiques of the theory and further explain why realist theory best explain the onsets of these events.