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“A Series of Unfortunate Events,” written by Daniel Handler under the pen name Lemony Snicket, and appearing from 1999 to 2006, tells the story of the Baudelaire orphans, Violet, Klaus...
Jan 13, 2017 · Netflix ’s take on the modern children’s classic Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events is, indeed, the kind of rare beast which manages to buck the rules; functioning as a...
- Clarisse Loughrey
- Book One: The Bad Beginning
- Book Two: The Reptile Room
- Book Three: The Wide Window
- Book Four: The Miserable Mill
Lemony Snicket is a reference to Pinocchio.
Mr. Snicket, acting in the role of a depressed investigator with more ties to the Baudelaire orphans than he’s letting on, is one of the series’s most important if detached characters. If the name sounds familiar, it’s because it is — remember a certain conscience-obsessed insect from Disney’s Pinocchio, Jiminy Cricket?
Beatrice References Dante.
Each of the 13 books is dedicated by Snicket to the mysterious Beatrice, a reference to Italian poet Dante’s muse who appears in both The Divine Comedy and La Vita Nuova, portrayed as the woman the author could never have. For Snicket, Beatrice’s identity is gradually hinted at as the book series progresses, eventually resulting in a huge revelation. At the start, we’re just left with the feeling that Beatrice is the one who got away, thanks to his tongue-in-cheek dedications like “dearest, d...
Briny Beach is a Nod to Lewis Carroll.
The Bad Beginning begins (badly) with the Baudelaire children spending a gloomy day at Briny Beach before learning from Mr. Poe that their “beloved parents have perished in a terrible fire.” The name of their location is taken from Lewis Carroll’s poem “The Walrus and the Carpenter”: “‘O Oysters, come and walk with us!’ / The Walrus did beseech. / ‘A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk, / Along the briny beach.’
Montgomery Montgomery is part Monty Python, part Nabokov.
The Baudelaires’ second guardian Uncle Monty, played in the Netflix series by Aasif Mandvhi and previously by Billy Connolly, is one of the more lovable characters in the series and a highly regarded herpetologist, or reptile researcher. The combination of a man named Monty working with a bunch of pythons makes for one of my favorite allusions in the series, a nod to famous 1960s British comedy series Monty Python’s Flying Circus. As for the repetitiveness of the character’s name, it’s possib...
Stephano is a reference to Shakespeare’s last play.
The Reptile Room features Count Olaf in one of the many disguises he dons in the series in order to trick the Baudelaire’s guardians into giving them the children’s inheritance, this time as Uncle Monty’s Italian assistant Stephano. This name is pulled from Shakespeare’s The Tempest, the alcoholic butler character regarded by Caliban as a father figure. In keeping with this, Uncle Monty tells the children that they will be sailing on a ship called the Prospero, a reference to The Tempest’s pr...
Virginian Woolfsnake is a reference to Mrs. Dalloway herself.
As in every Snicket installment, there’s a softball thrown to readers, and the reptile Uncle Monty names after English author Virginia Woolfis it this time around. Also in this book: the symbology of horseradish and Sunnys cryptic exclamation of “Ackroid!” not as a reference to SNL alum Dan but Agatha Christie’s 1926 novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.
Aunt Josephine and deceased husband Ike are based on Kafka.
This is a fun one. Aunt Josephine is the Baudelaires’ third guardian — afraid of everything, obsessed with grammar, and lives in a house perched precariously on the edge of a cliff. Played by Alfre Woodard in the Netflix series and previously by Meryl Streep, her name requires a little context from the epilogue to The Reptile Room, in which Snicket details to his editor to pick up a manuscript at Cafe Kafka, an oblique reference to German Metamorphosis author Franz Kafka. Stay with me. One of...
Captain Sham is, well, a sham.
Count Olaf plays dress-up as a peg-legged suitor to Aunt Josephine named Captain Sham in The Wide Window, and the reference is an easy one — what’s more of a sham than a terrible disguise?
Damocles Dock is a reference to an ancient Greek legend.
At the bottom of the steep hill that Aunt Josephines precarious home is balanced on is Damocles Dock, a nod to ancient Greek figure Damocles. A servant to King Dionysius, Damocles is allowed to sit in the king’s throne as a sword looms above his head, leaving “sword of Damocles” phrase to invoke a feeling of impending doom in popular culture. It’s used in a similar way by Snicket’s artistic collaborator Brett Helquist, illustrating the siblings sitting with a sword dangling over the titular d...
Dr. Georgina Orwell and Evil Hypnosis are a reference to 1984.
Unlike its predecessors, Count Olaf has a partner in crime in The Miserable Mill, in which the Baudelaires are shipped off to work at a lumber factory and Klaus is brainwashed by an evil optometrist under the guise of getting his glasses repaired. Very normal. The master behind this scheme is Dr. Georgina Orwell, a pretty transparent nod to English author George Orwell, most famous for his sprawling dystopian works Animal Farm and 1984, and the concept of Big Brother watching and manipulating...
The Mill is a metaphor for the Industrial Revolution.
The Lucky Smells Lumber Mill is where the majority of the action takes place in The Miserable Mill and appears to be Snicket’s take on the Industrial Revolution in Englandin the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries — poor workers are exploited (the Baudelaires are paid in coupons), put in danger by unwatched machinery (there’s a pretty dangerous incident with a logging machine), and is owned and operated by tyrannical owners and foremen.
Charles and Phil are a reference to the British monarchy.
In keeping with the British Industrial Revolution theme, the coworkers that the Baudelaires get on with the best are Charles and Phil, named for two twentieth century members of the royal family. Like their namesakes, both are sweet, if a little thick.
Jan 19, 2017 · Lemony Snicket Spends 'Unfortunate Events’ Mocking Netflix. It's the streaming show that hates streaming culture. by Ryan Britt. Jan. 19, 2017. When author Daniel Handler spoke to Inverse...
- Ryan Britt
Narrator Lemony Snicket (Patrick Warburton), who wanders in and out of scenes like a melancholy Rod Serling, begins the series with a long, odd disclaimer that is part comedy, part tragedy.
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (also simply known as A Series of Unfortunate Events) is a 2004 American black comedy adventure film directed by Brad Silberling from a screenplay by Robert Gordon, based on the first three novels of the book series A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning (1999), The Reptile Room (1999 ...
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Jan 13, 2017 · However, a big-screen version of Lemony Snicket's (the pen name of American novelist Daniel Handler) A Series of Unfortunate Events didn't exactly catch on. Despite generally...
