Discussion Topic
The influences of Jules Verne's personal, childhood, and cultural experiences on his writing of "Around the World in Eighty Days."
Summary:
Jules Verne's personal, childhood, and cultural experiences influenced his writing of Around the World in Eighty Days. His fascination with travel and adventure, nurtured by reading and his own voyages, combined with the era's technological advancements and global exploration trends, inspired the novel's themes and plot.
What cultural experiences influenced Jules Verne to write "Around The World in Eighty Days"?
Jules Verne had a love of travel, visiting over a dozen countries during his lifetime. While his means of travel were simple -- train and steamship -- he loved to speculate about new and exciting technologies that could be used to make travel easier and more available.
While he traveled, Verne used his knowledge of foreign language to study local newspapers and speak with individuals. While he filtered everything through his own cultural bias, Verne tried to be as accurate and honest as possible, even in his fiction . For example, the human sacrifice performed by Brahmin priests was accurate only as it appeared to the eyes of an Englishman; in reality, the ritual of human sacrifice was entirely symbolic, but to Phileas Fogg, the hero of the story, it would have seemed quite real. Whether Verne himself knew this or not is uncertain, but he does not portray the...
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Brahmins in a hostile light, instead focusing on Fogg's notions of chivalry and heroism (even if misplaced).
Verne's travels allowed him personal insight into other cultures, and this is reflected in his vivid descriptions. Without the close contact afforded by travel, his writing would likely have been flat and unbelievable; by opening himself to the experiences of travel, Verne gave his works an air of truth.
How did Jules Verne's personal experiences and his era influence Around the World in 80 Days?
Jules Verne, one of the most prescient authors in history, postulated or invented many innovations long before their actual debut. Among these was his fascination with technological means of travel, including the nuclear submarine, the airship, and ever-more efficient trains and steamships.
In Around the World in Eighty Days, Verne arranges a full circumnavigation of the Earth, a feat that had been achieved already but only at the expense of time, money, and men. Ferdinand Magellan's 1519 expedition successfully completed the first circumnavigation, although he himself did not survive the trip; Joshua Slocum completed a solo trip around the world only two decades after Verne's novel was published. At the time, although much of the world had been industrialized and modern travel methods were widely available, the concept of taking a trip around the world by ones self was unheard of.
Verne used his own life experiences to model Phillias Fogg, the Renaissance man whose discipline allows him to achieve great things. Verne's love of machines and technology shows in the various methods of Fogg's travel; he relies on trains for the bulk of his land travel, and the great steamer ships of the time for his ocean voyages. His love of travel, in which he indulged from an early age, allowed him to research and show accurate pictures of far-off regions, although he was not above the invention of unknown details. Like Fogg, Verne was independently wealthy, and had a wide knowledge of varied subjects; his own travels were almost as extensive.
Today, world-travel is commonplace, but the concept itself was a major undertaking before the advent of air travel. Verne's works show both the ability of man to overcome natural obstacles and love of travel for its own sake.