Around the world in eighty days

by

Umar Ranginwala

Draft: 1
Initiator: Monica Korde
Chapters: 1 to 3
Criteria A: Content
Criteria C: Style and language usage
Ra0onal
This is a crea0ve task is in the form of a Play Script based on the book ‘Around the World In Eighty Days’ by
Jules Verne. The novel was studied in class and the task aHempts to transfigure the narra0ve structure of
selected chapters into a script form to be adapted for a stage play. It was wriHen with a serious tone and
hopes to address an intellectual audience of teenagers. The purpose of this script is to help make people
understand the around the world in eighty days well, because we live in a world of visuals, especially the
teenagers, they tend to understand things which are visual. Teenagers find it hard to comprehend texts or
novels. They will understand movies and play without any difficul0es.

In my crea0ve piece I tried to use modern language, stage direc0ons and visual words with phrase like "A
row of symmetrical houses, then focus on one house which is unique; a voice coming from it" and "(remov‐
ing a silver watch from his pocket) Twenty‐two minutes aSer eleven". I tried as well to use a highly devel‐
oped level of vocabulary with word choices like “non‐superfluous and "converse" finally I tried to use dia‐
logues, emo0ons, stage direc0ons like one might see in a formal play script with the use of structure and
format like

"What are yo crazy! Don't believe in this newspapers, they just want to fill up their papers, you people are
not aware about the obstacles" and “and unconven0onal stage direc0ons" Using these elements I feel I
reached my purpose set out in the task.

This task addresses the topic of Literature and its Genres and specially addresses the topic of Narra0ve
structures, characterisa0on, the language and context when the novel was wriHen. To keep the text type
authen0c like a play script, I chose to use conven0onal format features such as using courier fonts, script
cover page, and the emo0ons before a dialogue, to best express what I learned from the topics we studied
in this unit and how I feel about them.
Script
Characters

Phileas Fogg: Aged 40, is a gentleman. He is a man who is non-

superfluous, he flows his own principle. He is so exact that
he is never in hurry.

Passepatout: A cheerful soul, who is loyal and honest.

Andrew Stuart: Club member

John Sullivan: Club member

Thomas Flanagan: Club member

Gauthier Ralph: Club member

Scene 1

(A row of symmetrical houses, then focus on one house which is unique; a

voice coming from it.)

(Inside the house, show clock, 11 and half past)

Fogg: (shaving)

(door opens)

Frost: I am extremely sorry for being late. Here is you're saving water

Fogg: (examining the water) Apart from being late, you also made a huge
mistake. Frost this shaving-water is eighty-four degree Fahrenheit in-
stead of eighty-six. Post an advertisement in the news paper quoting
‘Wanted a Manservant who is trustworthy, honest for a gentleman of most
pacific habits’.

(blackout)

Scene 2
Fogg:(sitting on an armchair and observing the complicated clock which
indicated the hours, the minutes, the seconds, the days, the months, and
the years)

(Door opens, frost enters)

Frost: The new servant

(A young man of thirty advanced and bowed.)

Fogg: You are frenchman, I believe, and your name is John

Newcomer: Jean, if monsieur pleases, Jean Passepartout, a surname which

has clung to me because I have an ordinary aptness for going out of one
business into another. I believe I’m honest, monsieur, but, to be out-
spoken, I’ve had several trades. I’ve been an traveling singer, a cir-
cus-rider, when I used to vault like Leotard, and dance on a rope like
Blondin. Then I got to be a professor of gymnastics, so as to make bet-
ter use of my talents; and then I was a sergeant fireman at Paris, and
assisted at many a big fire. But I resigned from France five years ago,
and, wishing to taste the sweets of domestic life, took service as a
valet here in England. Finding myself out of place, and hearing that
Monsieur Phileas Fogg was the most exact and settled gentleman in the
United Kingdom, I have come to monsieur in the hope of living with him a
tranquil life, and forgetting even the name of Passepartou.

Fogg: Passepartout suites me, you are well recommended to me; I hear a
good report of you. You know my conditions?

Passepartout: Oui, monsieur

Fogg: Good! What time is it?

Passepartout: (removing a silver watch from his pocket) Twenty-two min-

utes after eleven,

Fogg:(referring his watch) You are too slow!

Passepartout: Pardon me, monsieur, it is impossible

Fogg: You are four minutes too slow. No matter; it’s enough to mention
the error. Now from this moment, twenty-nine minutes after eleven, a.m.,
this Wednesday, 2nd October, you are in my service, Frost explain
Passepartout his duties and then you are fired. I am proceeding to the
reform club and will return when the clock shows its eleven o’clock pm.

Passepartout: (talking to himself) I see, my master is a non-superfluous

man, very precise about everything. He is noble yet very much detached
from the community; when was the last time he actually converse with
people except of short sentences of necessity. Did he ever go to some-
where which is not the Reform or his house? He is so exact that he is
never in a hurry. He never took one step too many, He was the most de-
liberate person in the world, yet always reached his destination at the
exact moment. Looks like it is a mystery that only time will solve.

(black out)

In the reform club

(Andrew Stuart, John Sullivan, Gauthier Ralph, Thomas Flanagan are sit-
ing with Fogg)

Flanagan: A bank robbery in the bank of England?

Stuart: Oh, the bank will lose the money

Ralph: But on the other hand we must hope that we find out who the rob-
ber is, expert detectives have been sent to all the main ports of Ameri-
ca and the continent, and he’ll be a intelligent fellow if he slips
through their fingers.

Stuart: But do we have a description of the robber?

Ralph: For your information he is not a robber at all

Stuart: what, the guy goes of with fifty-five thousand pounds and you
say he is not a robber.

Thomas: Perhaps he is a gold man

Ralph: The daily Telegraph says that he is a gentlemen

Stuart: The chances are in favour of the thief

Ralph: (contradicting) but Where can he fly to, no place is safe for him

Stuart: Oh, I don't know, the world is big enough

Fogg: (in a low tone) It was once

Stuart: What do you mean ‘once’ are you trying to insinuate that the
world has grown smaller.

Ralph: Absolutely, I concur with Mr. Fogg. The world has grown smaller,
since a man can now go round it ten times more faster than a hundred
years in the past. Due to this the search for this thief will be more
likely to succeed

Stuart: You have a bizarre way, Ralph of proving that the world bass
grown smaller, just because you can go around it in three months

Fogg: In precisely eighty days

Sullivan: Yes friends he is right. Here is the estimate made by the Dai-
ly Telegraph.

From London to Suez via Mont Cenis and

Brindisi, by rail and steamboats ................. 7 days
From Suez to Bombay, by steamer .................... 13
From Bombay to Calcutta, by rail ................... 3
From Calcutta to Hong Kong, by steamer ............. 13
From Hong Kong to Yokohama (Japan), by steamer ..... 6
From Yokohama to San Francisco, by steamer ......... 22
From San Francisco to New York, by rail ............. 7 ‘
From New York to London, by steamer and rail ........ 9
Total ............................................ 80 days.

Stuart: What are yo crazy! Don't believe in this newspapers, they just
want to fill up their papers, you people are not aware about the obsta-
cles: bad weather, contrary winds, shipwrecks, railway accidents, and so
on you will face during the trip which will be delay your trip

Fogg: All obstacles included

Stuart: Well, Make it then

Fogg: I will

Stuart: When?

Fogg: At once. Only I warn you that I shall do it at your expense

Stuart: Heaven preserve me! But I would wager four thousand pounds that
such a journey, made under these conditions, is impossible
Fogg:I have a deposit of twenty-thousand at Baring’s which I will will-
ingly risk upon it.

Sullivan: Twenty thousand pounds!!! twenty thousands, which you would

lose by a signal accidental delay

Fogg: The foreseen does not exist

Sullivan: Are you joking?

Fogg: A true Englishman doesn’t joke when he is talking about so serious

a thing as a wager. Solemnly, I will bet twenty thousand pounds against
anyone who wishes that I will make the tour of the world in eighty days
or less; in nineteen hundred and twenty hours, or a hundred and fifteen
thousand two hundred minutes. Do you accept?

Stuart, Fallentin, Sullivan, Flanagan and Ralph: Yes we accept

Fogg: Good, the train leaves for Dover at a quarter before nine, and I
will take that train.

Stuart: This very evening

Fogg: Yeah, This very evening, as today is Wednesday, the 2nd of Octo-
ber, I shall be due in London in this very room of the reform Club, on
Saturday, the 21st of December, at a quarter before 9 p.m, or else the
twenty-thousand pounds, now deposited in my name at Baring’s, will be-
long to you, in fact and in right, gentlemen. Here is a cheque for the
amount

(black out)

THE END

Words:1628

Rationale: 345