55 pages • 1 hour read
Brian SelznickThe Invention of Hugo Cabret
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2007A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 2, Chapters 9-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2, Chapter 9 Summary: “The Ghost in the Station”
Hugo rushes to the train station and goes to the café for more ice for his injured hand. He also takes a bottle of milk but stops when he overhears the café owner, Madame Emile, talking to the newspaper vendor, Monsieur Frick, about the police finding a man at the bottom of the Seine. Madame Emile says the body is that of the station’s Timekeeper—Hugo’s Uncle Claude—and mentions that the station’s clocks are still working despite his absence. Hugo drops the ice and bottle, drawing their attention. They chase after him, knowing that someone has been stealing from them and correctly assuming it was Hugo. Hugo races through the crowd and into the vent in the wall.
Hugo takes the automaton from its hiding place in his room and covers it with fabric. He struggles to lift the machine because of his injured hand. Hugo hears a knock on the door, and the Station Inspector, Madame Emile, and Monsieur Frick burst into the room. When the Station Inspector grabs his arm, Hugo drops the automaton, and it crashes to the floor. The man and woman leave when they learn they are in the Timekeeper’s apartment, as they believe it’s haunted. The Station Inspector looks at the automaton and then around the room, asking Hugo where Uncle Claude is. When the Station Inspector loosens his grip on Hugo’s arm, Hugo escapes, running through the tunnels behind the station walls. He leaves through the air vent and goes into the crowded station. Hugo then bumps into someone and falls, and Madame Emile and Monsieur Frick grab him. The Station Inspector tells Hugo he’s going to prison.
Part 2, Chapter 10 Summary: “A Train Arrives in the Station”
The three adults lead Hugo to the Station Inspector’s office and throw him into the cell Hugo has long feared. The Station Inspector calls the police after Madame Emile and Monsieur Frick leave. Eventually, two officers arrive, and when the Station Inspector opens the cell, Hugo slips between them and runs back into the station. The crowd disorients him, and he trips and falls into the path of an oncoming train. Seconds before the train hits Hugo, the Station Inspector pulls him to safety. Hugo passes out. When he wakes, Hugo sees the cape covered with moons and stars. Georges is holding Hugo’s head in his lap, and Isabelle offers him a cup of water. Georges encourages Hugo to tell the Station Inspector about Uncle Claude’s disappearance and about how he’s been taking care of the clocks. The Station Inspector laughs at the idea of a boy taking care of the clocks and asks about the machine he saw in Hugo’s room, accusing Hugo of stealing it. Georges defends Hugo, saying the automaton belongs to him. He then takes Isabelle and Hugo home.
Part 2, Chapter 11 Summary: “The Magician”
Six months later, Hugo puts on his tuxedo, noting how grown up he looks. He now has a room at the Méliès’ apartment, made possible by some money the French Film Academy gave Georges. Hugo’s room has a workbench filled with mechanical creations, a desk for schoolwork, and shelves covered with books and souvenirs. In one corner stands the automaton, which Georges and Hugo have fully restored.
Hugo, Georges, Isabelle, Jeanne, and Etienne go to a celebration of Georges’s life and work at the Film Academy. Georges wonders if they still have his old painting of Prometheus, and Hugo realizes it’s the same painting he noticed on his first trip in Part 2, Chapter 4, which he admired but didn’t recognize. Georges tells Hugo and Isabelle that Prometheus’s story had a happy ending: “His chains were broken, and he was finally set free” (494).
René Tabard is the event host and announces that Georges is in attendance and that not all of his films are gone. Hugo, Isabelle, and Etienne have searched diligently, he explains, for any surviving pieces of Georges’s work and uncovered over 80 films. The lights go out, and the theatre plays Georges’s movies for the first time in over a decade, the last of which is A Trip to the Moon. At the film’s conclusion, Georges goes to the podium and addresses the audience “as [they] truly are: wizards, mermaids, travelers, adventurers, and magicians […] the true dreamers” (506). Then, he goes to Hugo and calls him Professor Alcofrisbas, after a character in many of Georges’s films. The professor is a magician, and Georges sees Hugo as the embodiment of this character.
Part 2, Chapter 12 Summary: “Winding it Up”
Hugo narrates this final chapter, explaining that the automaton truly did save his life. He has built a new machine, which tells the story of Georges and his family through the writing and illustration of the novel.
Part 2, Chapters 9-12 Analysis
These culminating chapters follow the novel’s climax and resolution. While Hugo and Isabelle have uncovered the mystery behind Georges’s identity and Georges has shown a willingness to heal from the past, Hugo’s living situation and future are still undecided. His return to the train station results in his arrest by the Station Inspector, a fear Selznick mentioned early in the novel. Hugo attempts to run, but he is unsuccessful and seems doomed to go to an orphanage—or prison, as the Station Inspector threatens. However, Georges comes to the station to defend Hugo, rescuing Hugo from a dire, lonely fate. This moment—and Georges’s later adoption of Hugo—shows how closely Georges and Hugo have bonded throughout the novel. Readers also get a glimpse of Hugo’s new life six months after Georges saves him from arrest. They see he has a room of his own at the Méliès’ apartment, is back in school, and has a new family to keep him safe and secure. This image of Hugo’s new life demonstrates that Hugo’s central conflict is resolved; he has a family and hope for the future, which means he is well on his way to Overcoming Loss.
This final section emphasizes The Power of Family. The search for a familial connection drives almost everything Hugo does, including stealing. His greatest desire is to fix his father’s automaton, which he believes will write a message that will help restore his life to one of peace, joy, and connection. When the automaton reveals a picture from one of Georges’s movies, Hugo doesn’t understand what the drawing means or how it could help him get his life back. The novel’s climax proves that the automaton was indeed the key to restoring Hugo’s life; the drawing led him to uncover Georges’s true identity, and it’s Georges who offers Hugo a new family. Hugo’s perseverance is rewarded with security, happiness, and love within the Mélièses family.
In Part 2, Chapter 6, Isabelle reads Hugo the story of Prometheus. Hugo does not know it then, but a painting he noticed at the Film Academy in Part 2, Chapter 4 also featured Prometheus—and is Georges’s work, no less. Initially, Hugo fixates on Prometheus’s punishment, comparing himself to the Greek hero and wondering when he, too, will face punishment for his well-intentioned crimes. This “punishment” occurs in Part 2, Chapter 9, when Hugo is finally caught stealing; however, he is spared long-term consequences when Georges’s comes to his aid. Selznick rounds out this motif when Georges mentions his old Prometheus painting in Part 2, Chapter 11, telling Isabelle and Hugo that Prometheus—like Hugo—was rescued and granted a happy ending.
The book’s concluding chapters poignantly illustrate the theme of Invention, Technology, and Magic. In the penultimate chapter, Georges calls Hugo “Professor Alcofrisbas” after a character who appears in many of his movies. He sees a lot of similarities between Hugo and the professor, so calling Hugo by that name shows his affection for Hugo and proves that their bond has strengthened even further. However, this name also occurs at the novel’s beginning, as Professor Alcofrisbas writes the introduction. When Hugo narrates the novel’s final chapter, he explains that he is now a magician named Professor Alcofrisbas, neatly tying the beginning and end of the story together. Further, Hugo’s use of the name illustrates his respect for Georges and the life he has provided for the boy, which allowed Hugo to fulfill his childhood dream of becoming a magician. Lastly, Hugo—that is, Professor Alcofrisbas—explains that the novel itself was written by an automaton: one that Hugo invented himself, for the purpose of telling his, and Georges’s, story. The final words cement the links between machinery and magic: “The complicated machinery inside my automaton can produce one hundred and fifty-eight different pictures, and it can write, letter by letter, an entire book, twenty-six thousand one hundred and fifty-nine words. These words” (511).
