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 1-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2, Chapter 1 Summary: “The Signature”
Hugo believes the automaton’s drawing is a message from his father but questions what it means. He and Isabelle watch the mechanical man as he signs the name “Georges Méliès” on the picture. Isabelle becomes angry—that is her godfather’s full name—and accuses Hugo of stealing the machine from Georges. Hugo argues that the automaton was his father’s because it’s in his notebook. The children fight over the picture, ripping it in half. Isabelle takes her half and leaves; Hugo follows after putting his half in his pocket. It’s late, and the kids run through the empty train station and streets until they reach Isabelle’s apartment. Isabelle tries to close the door before Hugo can enter, accidentally slamming his fingers in the door. She lets Hugo inside and introduces him to her godmother, Jeanne. Hugo and Isabelle show the picture to Jeanne, whose eyes fill will tears. She asks where they got it; Hugo tells her the origin of the automaton and how he fixed it, and Isabelle confesses to stealing the key from Jeanne. Hugo takes both halves of the picture, as Jeanne says they must never speak of this again because she wants to protect Georges.
Part 2, Chapter 2 Summary: “The Armoire”
Jeanne, Hugo, and Isabelle hear Georges enter the apartment. Jeanne tells the children to hide in her bedroom until she can sneak Hugo out. She glances at the armoire before she leaves; once she’s gone, Hugo and Isabelle move to the armoire, and Isabelle picks the lock. Hugo points out a false panel, so Isabelle removes it to find a hidden box. She pulls it out, but the chair she’s standing on breaks, and she falls to the floor, dropping the box. It hits Isabelle’s foot and breaks, injuring Isabelle’s foot and scattering hundreds of pictures across the room, all of which Georges Méliès drew. Also in the box is a cape covered with moons and stars. Isabelle’s godparents burst in, and Jeanne orders Hugo to lock everything back up in the armoire. Georges becomes upset and falls upon the drawings, tearing them up and yelling, “How could this be mine? I am not an artist! I am nothing! […] A shell! A windup toy!” (298). Distracted by Jeanne ordering him to stop, Georges pauses and allows Hugo and Isabelle to pick up the pictures and lock them in the armoire. Georges puts his head in his hands and cries, muttering to himself. Jeanne comforts him as she puts him to bed and waits for him to fall asleep.
Part 2, Chapter 3 Summary: “The Plan”
Hugo helps Isabelle to the kitchen, where they both ice their wounds. Jeanne sits with them and begins to cry. Isabelle asks about the pictures, but Jeanne says she doesn’t want Isabelle to see Hugo again. He may stay the night but must leave in the morning. Jeanne and Isabelle go to bed. Hugo searches Georges’s coat and finds his keys to the toy booth. He then goes to the station and searches the booth for clues but finds none. However, he finds the blue mechanical mouse he broke and fixed, wondering why Georges has kept it. Hugo also thinks about how well Georges’s toy parts fit so well with the automaton.
Hugo returns to his apartment and hides the automaton. He realizes he can’t work on the station’s clocks because of his injured right hand; he’s afraid the Station Inspector will notice and discover Hugo’s ruse. Hugo tries to do his rounds the next morning, but he can barely wind and oil the clocks. When the bookstore opens, he asks the bookseller if he has books about the first films ever made. The bookseller looks but finds nothing; he suggests that Hugo try the Film Academy’s library.
Part 2, Chapter 4 Summary: “The Invention of Dreams”
Hugo takes the subway to the Film Academy and asks the woman sitting at the lobby desk to use the library. She tells him that he is “too small and too dirty, and [he] must be accompanied by an adult” (338). Hugo hears his name and sees Etienne. He tells Etienne he’s sorry Etienne got fired, but Etienne explains that he was starting classes at the academy and found work in the offices there, so everything worked out. Etienne takes Hugo to the library and helps him find the book he needs. Hugo looks through the book until he finds the picture of the man in the moon with the rocket in his eye. He learns it’s from the Georges Méliès film A Trip to the Moon, his father’s favorite movie. He also learns that Georges was a magician who became a filmmaker and owned a theatre in Paris. Georges changed how films are made, but he is believed dead, and all of his movies are lost. Hugo tells Etienne that Georges Méliès is Isabelle’s godfather.
Part 2, Chapters 1-4 Analysis
Thievery plays a large role in this section. Hugo steals toys from Georges’s toy booth for parts to fix the automaton. He also steals to survive after being abandoned by his uncle, though he dislikes it and only steals necessities. Georges and Isabelle are quick accuse Hugo of further acts of thievery; in the last section, Georges accused Hugo of breaking into his home and stealing the notebook, and in this one, Isabelle accuses Hugo of stealing her godfather’s automaton. This is hypocritical, as Isabelle stole the key to the automaton from her godmother, Jeanne—who likely kept it tucked away to shield Georges from reminders of his past. Isabelle’s and Hugo’s thefts tie them together through the automaton; in turn, their thievery exposes Papa Georges as George Méliès, explaining the mystery behind the automaton’s drawing. Thus, stealing plays a pivotal role in the novel, helping the plot move forward while adding depth and complexity to the story and the characters.
While Selznick resolves some of the mystery surrounding Georges in this section, he also adds tension to the plot. Isabelle and Hugo discover her godfather is Georges Méliès, a famous magician and filmmaker, which completes the links between Invention, Technology, and Magic. Yet as they uncover this information, further mysteries emerge. They learn he created the automaton and its drawing, that he drew the hundreds of drawings hidden in the armoire, yet they don’t know how or why he drew them, nor why they upset him. Jeanne refuses to explain, only insisting that she has to protect her husband and telling the children to forget everything they’ve seen and heard. Later, Hugo learns that Georges was a famous filmmaker whose techniques had a major impact on the movie industry, but he also learns that Georges is presumed dead. All of these are signs that Georges is still struggling to Overcome Loss; this is further illustrated by Georges’s refusal to explain anything about his magic tricks to Hugo, despite the fact that he quietly performs them for Hugo’s entertainment.
The inclusion of real-life magician and filmmaker Georges Méliès demonstrates why the novel constitutes historical fiction, among other genres. Not only does Selznick use Georges Méliès’ name and the setting in which Méliès lived, but he also uses illustrations and references films Méliès actually created. Selznick incorporates these images into the automaton’s drawing, the book about early filmmaking, and the pictures Isabelle and Hugo find in the armoire. Even the automaton itself is a direct connection between the novel and Méliès’s work, as Méliès created a film called Gugusse et l'Automate (Gugusse and the Automaton) about a clown and an automaton in 1897. Using these materials and references adds historical depth to the novel while showing readers Méliès’s artistic abilities and talents. These historical references also strengthen Selznick’s credibility as a writer and illustrator as he pays homage to an artist who profoundly impacted the film industry.
Finally, the connection between Hugo and Georges is solidified in this section. When the automaton—activated by Isabelle’s necklace—draws a picture from Hugo’s father’s favorite movie, then signs it in Georges’s name, it becomes clear that the abandoned automaton must have once belonged to Georges. At the beginning of the book, when Georges saw the drawing in Hugo’s notebook, he was recognizing a machine that he himself had built. The final piece of the puzzle is the revelation that Georges was Hugo’s father’s favorite filmmaker. Through The Power of Family, Hugo and Georges were connected even before they knew of each other, and Hugo’s father is the one who inadvertently brought them together via the automaton. This connection has set them both on the path to overcoming the pain of their pasts and foreshadows Georges’s adoption of Hugo at the end of the novel.
