Not so unfortunate: carnivalisation, metafiction & the elements of grotesque realism in The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket

Abstract

As the harbinger in Lemony Snicket’s children’s novel series, A Series of Unfortunate Events, The Bad Beginning unfolds subversively from the outset. This woeful tale is a far cry from what we traditionally expect to be a story written for children. Klaus, Violet and Sunny, the orphaned protagonists of the story, are literally the ‘magnets for misfortune’. As they experience the tragic events, the Baudelaires’ talents and abilities are constantly put to the test. A series of unfortunate events, this essay argues, leads to a fortunate and spiritual insight in the Baudelaires that underlines a sense of connectedness in the children who go through traumatic calamities, a spiritual sense that deals with both the bright and dark sides of the events. To substantiate this argument, Mikhail Bakhtin’s carnivalisation and degradation are utilised to shed a different and, of course, a spiritual shade of light on the seeming unfortunate events. Hierarchies are reversed and grotesque imageries reinforce degradation. This degradation, however, sparks off a new genesis in the life of the Baudelaires. Turning to the metafictional side of the novel and its conflicting relations with didacticism, this essay verifies the claim that Lemony Snicket provokes children into a critical reading of their own choice. Ultimately, the essay examines the mentioned Bakhtinian elements to gain a richer understanding of the melancholic narrative of the Baudelaires in the context of an upside down genre. This is when a tragic tale is read like a fairy tale.

Keywords:

• Lemony Snicket
• metafiction
• connectedness
• carnivalisation
• spiritual reading

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the anonymous reviewers of IJCS for their insightful comments. I also wish to thank Dr Amir Ali Nojoumian for opening the doors to children’s literature for me. I am immensely grateful to Dr Stephanie Polsky for encouraging me to write with both humbleness and determination.