The Invention of Hugo Cabret

While the notebook represents the key to a new future for Hugo, the automaton represents the actualization of that future. Hugo believes the mechanical man's message will tell him how to find happiness again. He puts all of his hope for a better future into the machine, growing obsessed with fixing it. While trying to get the notebook back from Georges, Hugo learns that his talent with machinery is all he needs to fix the automaton. Ultimately, the automaton leads Hugo to a new family—when its drawing exposes Georges’s identity, Hugo discovers deeper ties to the old man, with whom he already shared several passions and talents. This culminates in Hugo’s creation of an automaton of his own, which, according to grown-up Hugo, wrote the novel. Georges’s automaton is last seen in young Hugo’s new room, set aside but still treasured.

For Georges, the automaton represents healing and redemption. It was his most prized possession, the one thing he couldn’t bring himself to sell, which is why he donated it to a museum instead. This allowed Hugo’s father to discover it, which eventually led to Hugo attempting to repair it—ironically, with the parts from toys from Georges’s booth. His decision to donate the automaton ultimately leads to his meeting with Hugo, which eventually enables both of them to heal from their past traumas.

When Isabelle and Hugo turn the automaton’s heart-shaped key, the mechanical man draws a picture from one of Georges’s most famous movies, a stark reminder of what Georges once had but has since lost. When they show the drawing to Georges, it profoundly impacts him, bringing him out of the fog he’s been living in for so long. Instead of reacting with anger as he has in the past, Georges takes the picture and tells his story of being a famous filmmaker and falling into poverty and obscurity. This moment initiates Georges’s healing and eventually leads to Georges adopting Hugo. Because the automaton exposes his identity as Georges Méliès, Georges finally embraces his past. He no longer fights any memories or associations with it, and he permits his beloved movies back into his life.

Selznick includes numerous references to and images of clocks in the novel, and these images function on two levels: the literal and the metaphorical. On a literal level, Hugo is surrounded by clocks from birth. Not only does he “come from a long line of horologists” (125), but Hugo’s father also worked on clocks and owned his own shop. Hugo grew up around clocks and was taught to appreciate the science behind them. Hugo also enjoyed tinkering with the machinery in his father’s shop, so he learned how clocks work and how to fix them from a young age. After his father’s death, Hugo went to the train station to work as Uncle Claude’s apprentice. Again, Hugo is surrounded by clocks, tending to them morning and night. After his uncle’s disappearance, Hugo manages the clocks by himself, proving his innate ability. This skill easily translates to his work with Georges’s toys when he works to repay his debt to Georges for the toys he stole. Georges recognizes Hugo’s talent with machinery, further illustrating the key role clocks have played in Hugo’s life. This talent also lends itself to Hugo (and Georges’s) skills with magic tricks, emphasizing the theme of Invention, Technology, and Magic. Hugo’s father explains how horologists could use their skills to become magicians; Georges, too, left his family career to pursue magic before becoming a filmmaker. Hugo recognizes that the dexterity he gained from working on clocks and machinery lends itself well to sleight of hand, and he uses this trick to steal Isabelle’s necklace from her neck once he recognizes it as the key to the automaton. His work with clocks lends itself to his work on the automaton, and leads to him becoming a magician in adulthood.

On a metaphorical level, Selznick uses clocks and their machinery to represent how Hugo’s brain works and how the world functions. There are several instances where Selznick describes Hugo’s thought process using clockwork and machinery. He says Hugo “often imagined his own head was filled with cogs and gears like a machine, and he felt a connection with whatever machinery he touched” (126). A few pages later, the “steady rhythm of the clock lulled Hugo to sleep” (139), demonstrating the comfort Hugo finds in clocks and how they can ease his mind when stressed. Selznick’s description of Hugo’s brain as a clock not only creates a meaningful image, it also illustrates the importance of clocks, both to the plot and to Hugo.

Further, Selznick compares life itself to clocks and machines. When Isabelle and Hugo are in the glass clocks overlooking the city, Hugo tells her how he sees the world as a large machine with a purpose and all the parts it needs to achieve that purpose. He then connects that to Isabelle and himself, saying they must also have a purpose, since they exist in the world. They only have to figure out what it is. At the novel’s end, Selznick describes Hugo finding a new family with clocks: “In that moment, the machinery of the world lined up. Somewhere, a clock struck midnight, and Hugo’s future seemed to fall perfectly into place” (507). This final image illustrates how all of the clocks in Hugo’s life have led him to this moment of joining Georges’s family.