Phileas Fogg–Passepartout relationship

Phileas Fogg and Passepartout’s relationship moves from the order of master and servant to a bond made unmistakable by danger: when Passepartout is captured by the Sioux raiders, Fogg risks his life and fortune to bring him back. The rescue overturns the journey’s governing priority of punctuality, while the aftermath shows the loyalty running in both directions—Passepartout’s gratitude and guilt, and Fogg’s refusal to blame him.

A relationship shaped by routine

Fogg and Passepartout travel as master and servant, but the evidence gives that arrangement sharply contrasting temperaments. At sea, Fogg preserves his accustomed composure even as the Mongolia rolls in rough weather. He takes his meals and plays whist, showing no outward sign that the conditions might interrupt the journey. In Bombay, the contrast appears in his exact departure routine: after leaving Passepartout errands and instructing him to be at the station at eight, Fogg walks to the passport office with a step described as keeping time to the second. His refusal to spend time seeing the city’s landmarks makes the schedule, rather than sightseeing, the immediate framework of their travels.

Passepartout’s presence in Yokohama supplies a different view of travel. He goes ashore without a settled plan, wanders through the streets, and feels alone among the mixed crowds. These scenes do not make Fogg’s inner feelings explicit, but they establish the distance the journey can place between master and servant: Fogg’s movement is governed by appointments and the route ahead, while Passepartout may find himself acting without direction or companionship. Their relationship is therefore tested not only by shared travel but by the moments when the two are separated.

The choice to rescue Passepartout

The decisive rupture in their routine comes after the Sioux attack on the train. Passepartout is missing, and Fogg faces a choice between continuing toward his destination and going back for his servant. Aouda’s silent look helps bring the decision into focus; Fogg understands it and answers that he will find Passepartout living or dead. He immediately adds that they must not lose time if Passepartout is to be found alive.

Fogg does not treat the rescue as a private favor or a negotiable delay. When he says he will go alone, he explains that he cannot leave Passepartout to perish, especially when Passepartout is the person to whom everyone present owes his life. The captain and others join the effort. Before leaving with the sergeant and his squad, Fogg entrusts his carpet-bag to Aouda and promises the soldiers five thousand dollars if they save the prisoners. The offer makes the stakes material as well as personal: Fogg commits a substantial sum, and the rescue itself takes precedence over protecting his remaining resources or preserving the schedule.

This decision marks a change in what the journey’s timetable can command. Fogg has repeatedly appeared indifferent to interruptions and exact in his observance of time; here, the missing servant makes continued travel without a search unacceptable. His composure remains, but its meaning changes. It no longer signifies merely that no incident can divert him: it accompanies a deliberate willingness to risk fortune and life for Passepartout.

Gratitude, loyalty, and guilt

The rescue remains central to Passepartout even as the party continues onward. During the passage across the snow by sledge, he remembers that Fogg risked both his fortune and his life to save him. He feels a strong impulse to take Fix’s hand because Fix had procured the sledge, but holds back. The comparison does not diminish what Fogg did. Passepartout identifies the rescue as a sacrifice he will never forget, giving the relationship a lasting measure beyond the immediate danger.

Later, when the wager seems irretrievably lost, Passepartout’s loyalty turns inward as accusation. He believes he caused the disaster and reproaches himself for not warning Fogg about Fix’s plans. In his view, that warning might have prevented Fogg from giving Fix passage to Liverpool. His distress is bound to his sense of responsibility: he does not simply grieve the outcome but imagines that his own silence helped bring it about.

Fogg refuses that account of blame. When Passepartout breaks down and calls out that it was his fault, Fogg answers, “I blame no one,” and tells him to go. The reply is spare, like Fogg’s usual manner, but it declines to make Passepartout carry responsibility for the apparent disaster. Their positions have reversed from the rescue scene: there Fogg acted to recover Passepartout; here Passepartout is the one overwhelmed by guilt, and Fogg’s response is to release him from accusation rather than demand an explanation.

The journey’s final reckoning

The wager’s outcome gives their relationship a concrete final expression. Fogg wins twenty thousand pounds, but the journey has cost nearly nineteen thousand, leaving a much smaller pecuniary gain than the prize suggests. His object, the narrative makes clear, was victory rather than profit. From the remaining thousand pounds, he gives shares to Passepartout and Fix, harboring no grudge against the detective. The distribution places his servant among those with whom he chooses to divide the proceeds, even after the delays, danger, and apparent defeat.

The closing account retains Fogg’s exactness: he deducts Passepartout’s share the cost of the gas that burned in his room for 1,920 hours, kept alight for the sake of regularity. The detail preserves the familiar master who accounts for every expense, but it also sits beside the rescue and the division of the remaining money. Fogg can insist on the gas bill and still have risked everything to recover Passepartout; precision does not cancel attachment. Their relationship ends not with a declaration, but in this combination of practical accounting, forgiveness, remembered sacrifice, and shared gain.