Around the World in Eighty Days Characters: Full List & Analysis

Who drives the story

Main characters

Phileas Fogg

A wealthy, solitary London gentleman whose life runs to the minute—he fires a valet over two degrees of shaving-water temperature. He bets half his fortune on an eighty-day circuit of the globe, risks it all to save Aouda, and wins with three seconds to spare.

Appears in:: Part 1: The Wager at the Reform Club; Part 2: India: An Elephant, a Pyre, a Rescue; Part 3: Hong Kong to Yokohama: The Valet Vanishes; Part 4: America and the Five Minutes; Part 5: The Gained Day
Themes:: Time as the true antagonist; Precision versus chaos; The wager and the English gentleman; Rescue and reward

Jean Passepartout

A French valet about thirty, ex-singer and circus performer, who craves a quiet life and gets the opposite. He saves Aouda by impersonating a dead rajah, gets drugged in an opium den, is kidnapped by Sioux, and discovers the gained day that wins the wager.

Appears in:: Part 1: The Wager at the Reform Club; Part 2: India: An Elephant, a Pyre, a Rescue; Part 3: Hong Kong to Yokohama: The Valet Vanishes; Part 4: America and the Five Minutes; Part 5: The Gained Day

Detective Fix

A Scotland Yard detective convinced Fogg is the Bank of England robber on a vague resemblance alone. He trails Fogg across two continents, drugs Passepartout to delay them, arrests Fogg on English soil—and ends up sharing the reward.

Appears in:: Part 1: The Wager at the Reform Club; Part 2: India: An Elephant, a Pyre, a Rescue; Part 3: Hong Kong to Yokohama: The Valet Vanishes; Part 4: America and the Five Minutes; Part 5: The Gained Day
Themes:: The wager and the English gentleman

Aouda

A young Parsee widow rescued from being burned on her husband's funeral pyre. Her relative having moved to Holland, she travels to Europe with the party and, when Fogg believes himself ruined, proposes marriage to him.

Appears in:: Part 2: India: An Elephant, a Pyre, a Rescue; Part 3: Hong Kong to Yokohama: The Valet Vanishes; Part 4: America and the Five Minutes; Part 5: The Gained Day
Themes:: Rescue and reward

How they are connected

Key relationships

Phileas Fogg Aouda
He bets half his fortune on an eighty-day circuit of the globe, risks it all to save Aouda, and wins with three seconds to spare.
Jean Passepartout Aouda
He saves Aouda by impersonating a dead rajah, gets drugged in an opium den, is kidnapped by Sioux, and discovers the gained day that wins the wager.
Detective Fix Phileas Fogg
A Scotland Yard detective convinced Fogg is the Bank of England robber on a vague resemblance alone.
Detective Fix Jean Passepartout
He trails Fogg across two continents, drugs Passepartout to delay them, arrests Fogg on English soil—and ends up sharing the reward.

Go deeper

Around the World in Eighty Days themes & symbols

Time as the true antagonist · Precision versus chaos · The wager and the English gentleman · Rescue and reward

Themes explained

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