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The Shape Shifting Storyteller in Lemony Snicket's a Series Of Johan Kullenbok ENGK01 Literary Seminar HT 2010 English Studies The Centre for Languages and Literature Lund University Supervisor: Anna Lindhé The Shape Shifting Storyteller in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events Table of contents Introduction 1 Plot background 2 Narratological concepts 3 Story-time now VS narration now 3 Narrator and the various types of narrator roles 3 Lemony Snicket as a narrator 5 Lemony Snicket as a character 15 Conclusion 18 Bibliography 19 Introduction “If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book” (1). These are the opening words of Lemony Snicket’s The Bad Beginning, the first novel of thirteen in his book series for children, A Series of Unfortunate Events. This opening line sets the tone of the series as dark and ominous and gives the reader an idea of what to expect of A Series of Unfortunate Events as it follows the misadventures of the three Baudelaire orphans while travelling between different guardians after the death of their parents. The author of the series, Lemony Snicket, is a pseudonym used by Daniel Handler. Handler uses Snicket in order to participate in the same world that the Baudelaires inhabit. The opening sentence cited above, despite from being rather gloomy, also introduces the ironic tone employed by the narrator throughout the series. The first novel in the series, The Bad Beginning1, also introduces the narrator, Lemony Snicket, as a classic didactic narrator who takes every opportunity to explain difficult words and inform the reader of proper moral behaviour. However, in combination with the ironic playfulness and the fact that the explanations given are sometimes more humorous than they are correct, Snicket is immediately set apart from the traditional didactic narrator role of much children’s literature. The conflicting image of the narrator (as both sincere and humorous at the same time) is further complicated as Snicket himself steps down from the role of narrator and becomes a character in the story. As he relates and reacts to the events occurring around the Baudelaires, the reader’s perception of Snicket as a reliable author is questioned and the line between character and narrator becomes blurred. The aim of this essay is to explore the shifting identity of the narrator of A Series of Unfortunate Events as the narrator changes back and forth from narrator to character. Using the appropriate narratological tools and concepts, such as ‘author’, ‘narrator’, ‘narration’ and ‘story-time’, this essay will show how the double identity of the narrator is characterized and how this affects the reader’s image of the narrator. A brief description of the series along with a discussion of the narratorial concepts will form the first part of the essay. A study of Snicket as narrator, his narrative style, how he narrates on two levels and his narratological features will follow and part three 1 Hereafter cited as TBB 1 will focus on Snicket as a character in the novels/series and how that affects his role as a narrator. Plot background After their house is burnt down and their parents killed in the fire, the Baudelaire siblings, Violet (fourteen years old), Klaus (a little older than twelve) and Sunny (an infant), become orphans. Due to legal reasons they are sent away to a distant relative, Count Olaf. The Count mistreats the children and tries to steal their fortune (which they will inherit when Violet becomes of age) by marrying Violet. When his attempts are foiled he flees, but in his escape he threatens that he will try and steal their fortune again. In the following six novels, The Reptile Room (1999), The Wide Window (2000), The Miserable Mill (2000), The Austere Academy (2000), The Ersatz Elevator (2001) and The Vile Village (2001), a pattern is repeated: The Baudelaires are sent to stay at different relatives who act as their guardians. They soon realise that Count Olaf has followed them and, while in disguise, tries to kidnap them from their current guardian. When the Baudelaires recognize Count Olaf they try to warn the adults around them, but no one believes that the person in disguise is Count Olaf. This, almost always, results in murder and/or other heinous crimes. The next five novels The Hostile Hospital (2003), The Carnivorous Carnival (2003), The Slippery Slope (2004), The Grim Grotto (2004) and The Penultimate Peril (2005), book eight to book twelve, all follow another pattern. The Hostile Hospital marks the start of this new pattern, in which the Baudelaires are no longer sent to stay with a guardian, but on the run accused of arson and murder. They still encounter more or less friendly persons who act as their guardians, even though they are not legally appointed guardians, as opposed to the guardians of the first seven novels who are legally appointed. Still on their trail, Count Olaf manages to foil every stable situation the Baudelaires find themselves in. It all culminates in the second-to-last instalment, The Penultimate Peril (2005), where nearly all of the surviving characters, both supporting and main characters from the previous novels, gather at a hotel. As the novel closes the hotel is burned to the ground and the Baudelaires leave together with Count Olaf. 2 The final novel, simply called The End (2006), is set on a remote island far away from where the rest of the story has been taking place. Most questions raised by the novels are answered and the story of the Baudelaire orphans comes to its end. Narratological concepts This section will deal with the narratological concepts that will be used to investigate and discuss Lemony Snicket’s role as a narrator. Story-time now VS narration now In her dissertation, Narratorial Commentary in the Novels of George Eliot, Sara Håkansson describes different views on narrative in relation to time. A distinction is made between the ‘now’ of the story and the ‘now’ of the narrator. Håkansson refers to A. A. Mendilow who calls this ‘story-time now’ (that is the ‘now’ of the story) and ‘narration now’ (which is the ‘now’ of the discourse) (Håkansson, 19-20). The narrator and the reader occupy the same space in time, and are both observing the story, which can be paused by the narrator in order to comment on events. Håkansson writes: “Accordingly, narratorial commentary […] occurs when the narrator halts story-time now, taking the reader into a narration-now sphere where he or she is invited into communication with the narrator” (20). This space, which Håkansson calls a narration- now sphere, is an ideal place for a didactic (teaching) narrator to explain and communicate his teachings, since it gives the reader a stronger feeling of participation. Switching from story-time now to narration now also switches the focus of the narrator so that the reader is now in focus as opposed to the main characters. Many of the narrative elements that Lemony Snicket uses in A Series of Unfortunate Events occur outside of the ordinary story time. It will be shown that when Snicket comments on behaviour or explains hard words, he pauses story time and takes the reader (and himself) into a narration-now sphere in order to communicate his teachings more effectively. Narrator and the various types of narrator roles The two most common types of narrators are the first person narrator and the third person narrator. In a first person narration, the narrator is a character in the story that 3 experiences the events. Suzanne Keen writes in Narrative Form that “[…] the experiencing self is also the protagonist, or the central character” (36). However, a first person narrator does not have to be either the protagonist nor the central character, but can in fact also be a “[…] minor character who observes the action from the side” (Griffith, 38). Griffith further states that “[…]the [first person] narration is restricted to what one character says he or she observes” (Griffith, 38). This means that the reader cannot completely trust the first person narrator, since he or she is subjective and may choose what to tell and what to leave out. To complicate this a bit, Keen states that “[t]he use of pronoun alone does not make a first-person narration. Instead, first-person narration […] indicates those narratives in which the narrator is also a character, where the narrator and characters coexist in the story world, and the narrator refers to himself or herself as ‘I’” (Keen, 36). Unlike the first person narrator, the third person narrator is most often not a character in the story or part of the action, but rather someone who watches the events from the outside. It is possible to divide third person narration into two types, the objective third person narrator and the omniscient third person narrator. The objective third person narrator only describes what can be seen by the naked eye and can also be referred to as third person dramatic narrator, since the narrator can only narrate things that are audible or visible, much like if the narrator was watching a drama on stage. (Griffith, 38) The third person omniscient narrator, on the other hand, is able to see much more than the objective narrator. The omniscient narrator is able to enter the minds of the characters and can thus relate thoughts and feelings to the reader. What makes A Series of Unfortunate Events special is that it combines a third person narrator with a first person narrator in the same person. As will be seen below, Lemony Snicket is a third person omniscient narrator who, at times, is part of the action and thus a character as well as a first person narrator.
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