Examining Grief Through "A Series of Unfortunate Events"
an elaborate metaphor for grief and mourning via Snicket
“A Series of Unfortunate Events” is just that, a snowball of events afflicting seemingly cursed children stemming from the death of their parents as recorded by Lemony Snicket — a fictional handyman of sorts on the run from the law among other objectives; most importantly, capturing the tales of the Baudelaire’s as a sort of reprobate narrator and unwilling participate in their misfortune — and pen name of Daniel Handler.
Despite all the fascinating and wonderful underhanded compliments you could deliver the Baudelaire children, this essay will instead focus on Snicket as the means of deliverance. Posing as an omniscient and all-seeing force, Snicket, forever portraying the unreliable narrator role, seems dutiful in his desire to relay the misfortune of three children; however, remains entirely powerless despite being the transcriber of dastardly deeds and maligned mitigator. Which, ultimately, begs the question, why didn’t Snicket step in at some point?
While at points it does seem that Snicket is relying on and collecting second hand information, his knowledge is too intimate, too exact to be that of a bystander and post-inhabitant. If the Netflix adaptation of the books are any indication, it seems that Snicket exist within the same temporal sphere, following closely at their heels. In this cabalistic world the children happen to fall within, every adult figure they are exposed to are completely incompetent with the exception of Olaf (more on this later) and Snicket. The latter is ashamedly and self-admittedly, a “coward” for his inaction, but even cowards make unlikely heroes when presented with the meekest of opportunity.
In what I believe to be a formally intricate and abundant metaphor for the author’s own grief, through Handler’s concoction of Snicket, he has created a grand, unraveling denouement of grief that transcends books meant for children. With the help of these made up children and their fictional, constant pitfalls, Handler, and Snicket, are processing grief ornamentally through the stories of the Baudelaire children as a coping mechanism and larger representation of loss.
Grief is defined as, “deep sorrow, especially that caused by someone’s death.” It is worth noting that the Baudelaire children are practically removed completely from the initial breadth of grief one would expect. There’s no tears on that beach, only the gray, somber morning hanging low over the heavy message Poe delivers them. Despite this, they do, in some capacity, travel through the stages of grief.
There’s certainly denial, which, admittedly is their foremost emotion: “She (Violet) understood the words he was saying but thought he (Mr. Poe) must be joking, playing a terrible joke on her and her brother and sister,“ (Book 1, pg. 8). But immediately proceeding, there’s emptiness rather than refutation — they seem to jump directly to acceptance, with hints of anger (largely as a result of Count Olaf) though consumed by a soft sadness that lacks definition other than they stopped doing what they love until confronted with the opportunity.
Sonny, the youngest, is the most damning piece of evidence here. She has four razor sharp teeth, which aid in their misadventures, and an insatiable need to chew, yet no actual need for nourishment despite being the Baudelaire that needs it more than either of the other two. Klaus, while largely intelligent in a book sense, his only flaw is being a child, for he lacks the wisdom to justify or frame the usefulness of his intelligence. Violet, the most practical of the three, is mechanically gifted, somehow understanding advanced physics and engineering by simply tying her hair back.
The children are so singularly written that one could argue, barring claims of intellectual informalities (autism, etc.), they are simply shells of people, or separate entities of a singular being. The children themselves aren’t even really that interesting, it is more so the events being superimposed onto them.
Combined with the age old tale of team work makes the dream work, they only seem to function, both socially and practically, as a unit. So what purpose do the children serve if not vessels of deliverance, a embodiment of different parts of the author, a means to an end? Snicket uses the vessel of the children to infantilize his own grief, because, in part, grief strips the bereaved of power, of rationale, the illusion that the world around us makes sense.
Sonny, representing a childish innocence that is often carried around disembodied, unnurtured, seeks nothing more than stimulation, distraction. She acts as a sort of echo of affirmation for both the children and Snicket, despite speaking utter nonsense. The fundamental human desire to forget, to be absent of responsibility, while also being forced to remain an integral part of the plot, scheme, the larger picture is planted by Snicket in the form of a baby experiencing a series of, perhaps, the most unfortunate events of any baby ever.
Perhaps in his adulthood, Klaus is a recluse, amongst libraries of books on various topics, eternally seeking an unfound answer to a question that is impossible to form. He represents the desire to seek answers, intelligible and tangible evidence for misfortune, the, ironically, emotional force that drives us to find reprieve from grief. It defies the analytic mind, which makes his plight all the more insufferable. Surprisingly, Snicket refrains from admitting religion in the series, but for Klaus, and thus himself, knowledge is the supreme being, that in which holds the answer.
The eldest is often moored as the fastening, of whom all cling to, and just as often, carries the largest burden, dragging along their own grief and all those who have attached alongside. Violet, the most practical of the children, often drags them out of the mud with her ingenuity, without ever boring, harrowing, or buckling. Her representation is less metaphorical as she shows and uses practicality to just get them to the next day. She expresses how intricate even the most mundane and simplistic of tasks can feel like trigonometry to the bereaved.
However, Snicket can only portray so much about his own grief through the expression of children. In one of the more fascinating and timely admonishments of real-life reflections, particularly those children would have no idea about, Snicket is adept, adamant even. Most notably his views on the state of journalism and the overarching insufficiencies of the foster system.
The former highlights the perils of sensationalism, with Poe’s wife willing to die for the headline and her (and his) incessant worrying about the optics. She’s painted as this insatiable, almost monster, predatory figure, and makes her living off the expense of the Baudelaires. In fact, this sensationalism directly affects Snicket as the news forecasts his death and crimes, again a confirmation that this is his story told through the lens of the Baudelaires.
Additionally, Poe’s incompetence is (somehow) long withstood and unquestioned by anyone really, not even the singular law authority in Judge Strauss bothered to step in. The children’s care, and as such, the foster system, was, is, long-winded, erratic, vague, and eventually, ambiguous. Just as those who age out of the foster system, the ultimate fate of the children are left up in the air, with no conclusion or parental guidance.
The caricatures Snicket creates of these failures of these systems are so absurd they seem unbelievably heretical, but, when assuming these caricatures through the eyes of children, their importance becomes magnified. (However true these observations can be, it feels icky to have the only black characters, as seen in the show at least, be the pedestal in which incompetency — savagery, even, if we look at the description of Poe’s children in Book 1 — is heralded) So, as absurdist as the incompetencies appear, they aren’t without reason, for they connect the children and the only other singularly competent being.
Olaf being, seemingly, the only other competent adult, despite reveling exclusively in terrorism, is damning. That’s what makes his treachery even more wicked as his singular competency continues to be deflected and refracted, twisted into another scheme for the Baudelaire fortune. The phrasing here is important — the children’s inheritance, presumably, a very large sum of money — is often referred to, exclusively, as their “fortune.” Olaf seeks to rob them of fortune, forever, threatening even the lives of the children.
Taking into account his skulking frame, the deep sense of foreboding the children feel in his presence, along with that damning all-seeing eye, his competency is unheralded in a universe so incompetent, it’s almost deific. And as he follows them, immediately in the aftermath of the fire that took the lives of their parents, the children are presented with the physical embodiment of death itself.
Wherever Olaf skulks, in pursuit of said fortune, death, particularly to the adults the Baudelaire’s fall in with, follows suit. From his alleged involvement to the Baudelaire parents death, the poisoning of Dr. Montgomery, both the framing of and literal death of Josephine, both of Snicket’s siblings, several minor characters, and potentially a slew of unnamed characters and bystanders, particularly with Medusiod Mycelium and the Hotel Denouement fire, the latter a persistent cause of death that rears its head to inflict as much pain as possible.
Lastly, most characters are unwilling to see Olaf as anything or anyone beyond his initial purview in the first book, with the ironic exception of the children who are a direct victim of his treachery. And, as Snicket explains in the aftermath of the deaths of the children’s parents: “If you have ever lost someone very important to you, then you already know how it feels, and if you haven’t, you cannot possible imagine it,” (Book 1, pg. 11). It seems each of the other characters, with the notable exception of the other Snickets and the Quagmires, are unable to detect Olaf and, are thus, unafflicted, at least due to omission, by death.
Those afflicted by death are cursed to recognize it, in all its forms, as it constantly chases them, their fortune, and thus Olaf with ease. No amount of ornamental theatrics or schemes escapes the wiles of those most potently afflicted, particularly Snicket, who not only grieves through the portrayal of the children, but mourns their misery. He is cognizant of his own grief and yet it burdens him so, still lurking in the shadows, following his every move, just as he did the children, and Olaf them.
Snicket is blunt, often spoiling the plot with an effervescent warning that misery is to follow, constantly prefacing even the slightest of positive emotion as a precursor to melancholy. He superimposes these moments with his own vignettes that often delve into his own woes and provide a larger picture moment that the children’s jejune worldview lacks. As entertaining it can be to tell a story of any kind, it is impossible to not leave bits and pieces of yourself tucked neatly within.
In what turns out to be a long, elaborate personification of grief in the form of a children’s book, Snicket, a, equally elaborate creation and pen name of Handler, breaks down the effects of death, and reflections of himself, down to bare bones, in an unheralded form of intimacy that has garnered national acclaim and become beloved by the generation that grew up on his work. Perhaps that’s what attracted us to this series of unfortunate events — a love for the macabre and the desire to process grief in a world that so adamantly numbs and denies it, just as the other stupid, little characters in this world.
I mourn the person I was before swarmed with grief, ever so suddenly, and eventually, in occasional waves. That’s the entire point in one sentence. Rereading “A Series of Unfortunate Events” as an adult, now with the wisdom and hindsight that Snicket does over the children, it feels so evergreen and equally as obvious. I realize now that what I found so intriguing as a child was the blueprint of what grief was and how it can be processed for I, fortunately, didn’t have to find out for years to come. That missing piece of comprehension came into clearer view when I watched the show as an older teenager, and the elaborate metaphor for grief became quite simple, and thus, beautiful.