The Invention of Hugo Cabret

“‘Ghosts…’ the old man muttered to himself. ‘I knew they would find me here eventually.’ He closed the notebook.”

Georges makes this comment when he spots the drawing of the automaton—a machine Georges himself created—in Hugo’s notebook. Georges’s comment on ghosts is initially presented as a throwaway comment, or baseless superstition. By the novel's end, however, it is clear that this moment—and, indeed, Georges’s daily life within the station, surrounded by the sound of shoe heels—reminds Georges of his past and his loss. This early comment about ghosts foreshadows the sadness Georges feels, and the ghosts he references are memories of his life as a magician and filmmaker.

“From the very first moment his father had told him about it, the mechanical man had become the center of Hugo’s life.”

This passage demonstrates the automaton's importance to Hugo. It is his only connection to his dead father. Initially, Hugo’s fascination with the automaton is based on his love for clockworks, mechanisms, and magic. Later in the novel, the automaton symbolizes Hugo’s father and Hugo’s desire for a better life after his uncle's disappearance. What starts out as a simple point of interest becomes Hugo’s main reason for living.

“Some magicians started off as clock makers. They used their knowledge of machines to build these automata to amaze their audiences. The sole purpose of the machines was to fill people with wonder, and they succeeded. No one in the audience could figure out how these mysterious figures danced or wrote or sang. It was as if the magicians had created artificial life, but the secret was always in the clockworks.”

While Hugo loves working with clocks, especially in his father’s shop, he finds a true passion in magic, which forms the basis of the theme Invention, Technology, and Magic. This passage is a flashback of Hugo’s father teaching him about