Around the World in Eighty Days

Around the World in Eighty Days is an early example of science fiction, or speculative fiction that deals with futuristic concepts and scientific advancements in technology such as space travel and time travel. Science fiction may include scientific descriptions of unusual locales, such as in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, another of Verne’s novels in the series of Extraordinary Voyages. Alongside H. G. Wells and Johannes Kepler, Verne is sometimes referred to as a father of science fiction. His technological descriptions of steamers and locomotive technology are stylized to romanticize advancements in technology, which is a trope of early science fiction. For example, Verne writes that “the locomotive, guided by an English engineer and fed with English coal, thr[ows] out its smoke upon cotton, coffee, nutmeg, cloves and pepper plantations, while the steam curl[s] in spirals around groups of palm trees” (62). Descriptions such as this one blend scientific elements with artful language. This blend serves Verne’s vision of scientific fiction, an early form of science fiction, as a literary style that celebrates and explores science and technology.

Though Around the World in Eighty Days is more appropriately viewed as detailed travel fiction, it is sometimes referred to as soft science fiction with a focus on the geographic locales that Phileas and Passepartout visit throughout their journey. The novel’s characteristics as travel fiction include its precision and thoroughness of description. For example, the narrator takes care in detailing railway routes:

the general route of the Great Indian Peninsula Railway [….] leaving Bombay, it passes through Salcette, crossing the continent opposite Tannah, [as it] goes over the chain of the Western Ghauts, runs thence northeast as far as Burhampoor meeting the Ganges at Benares, then departs from the river a little (53).

Most chapters include similarly detailed descriptions, which together provide a geographic educational element to the fiction. Importantly, though, the novel focuses on the reaction of people to the technology that enables modern travel. Verne illustrates the human reaction to scientific advancements, a common trope of the science fiction genre. For example, London society’s response to the wager demonstrates the inconceivable speed of the journey that Phileas proposes. Phileas and his party are the first to accomplish such a voyage, proving the advancements in technology are capable of incredible feats.