Monkeys

Monkeys appear briefly but repeatedly as wild animals encountered along Phileas Fogg’s route: first amid the forests of India, then along the travelers’ overland crossing of Bundelcund, and later in Singapore. They are never individualized or assigned a lasting role in the plot. Instead, their movements and sounds register the environments through which the human travelers pass, sometimes responding to their passage and sometimes forming part of the landscape around them.

Identity and Appearances

The novel presents Monkeys collectively, without specifying a species or distinguishing individual animals. Their appearances are tied to particular settings rather than to a continuous thread of animal characters. In India, they are associated with forest and countryside; in Singapore, they are seen among the trees of a cultivated tropical landscape. The change of location matters: Monkeys remain recognizable as wildlife, while their surroundings and their relation to human movement shift.

Their brief appearances also differ in what they contribute to a scene. During the overland journey, their response to the travelers becomes an occasion for Passepartout’s laughter. At night, their chatter is one sound among others in the countryside. In Singapore, groups moving through the trees belong to the visual description of the island. Across these moments, Monkeys are not given speech or individual motives; the narrative conveys them through movement, noise, and position in the landscape.

India: Railway and Overland Route

On the railway journey across India, the train passes through extensive countryside and forests. The narration notes that animals flee at the locomotive’s noise, and describes Elephants watching the train as it goes by. This places Monkeys within a broader account of wildlife encountering a new, forceful means of travel. Their presence helps make the railway’s passage legible not only as movement between places but as an intrusion of sound and speed into inhabited natural terrain.

The overland crossing of Bundelcund gives the animals a more active, comic moment. As the travelers ride on Kiouni, Monkeys hurry from their path, making gestures that convulse Passepartout with laughter. The episode briefly redirects attention from the practical difficulty of the route to the encounter between the travelers and the animals. Their retreat shows a response to the approaching party; Passepartout’s amusement, in turn, shows how he interprets that response. The scene gives Monkeys an action of their own, even as it remains filtered through the travelers’ passage and the servant’s reaction.

Night Sounds and Singapore

During a halt in a ruined bungalow, the travelers sleep while the guide watches Kiouni. The night is not entirely silent: occasional panther growls and Monkey chatter break it, but nothing disturbs the sleepers, and the more formidable animals make no hostile demonstration against those inside. Monkeys therefore contribute to the scene’s account of a countryside inhabited beyond the travelers’ immediate view. Their presence is audible rather than seen, and their calls help define the setting without turning the halt into a new danger or delaying the journey.

In Singapore, Monkeys appear in a different relation to the travelers. As Phileas Fogg and Aouda ride through the island, bands move among the trees as part of a setting described through its palms, clove trees, pepper plants, ferns, and nutmeg trees. The account places the animals within a richly vegetated landscape, rather than presenting them as obstacles to travel. After the drive, Fogg and Aouda return to town and re-embark; the animals remain part of the island scene they have passed through, not participants in the travelers’ decisions.

Narrative Role

The recurring appearances of Monkeys connect distinct stages of the journey without making the animals into a plot device. In India, the railway and the elephant route bring them into the travelers’ path; in Singapore, they form part of a tropical environment observed during a carriage ride. The difference between fleeing, chattering, and moving through trees gives each appearance a distinct circumstance, while their collective presentation keeps the focus on travel and setting rather than individual animal histories.

These episodes also show how the narrative distributes attention. Monkeys are noticed when their movement intersects with the route, when their calls enter the travelers’ night, or when the narration surveys Singapore’s vegetation. Their presence is thus more than a repeated decorative label: their actions and sounds register that the landscapes traversed are not empty backdrops. Yet the account remains centered on human passage. The animals are encountered in fleeting glimpses, and the narrative records neither a change in their condition nor a consequence for them beyond the immediate response to the travelers.