HUMOROUS NAMES IN
LEMONY SNICKET’S
A SERIES OF
UNFORTUNATE EVENTS
by Don L. F. Nilsen and
Alleen Pace Nilsen
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Don Nilsen as Count Olaf
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Tracey Flores’s Students as Count Olaf
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One: “The Bad Beginning”
• If you are interested in
stories with happy
endings, you would be
better off reading some
other book. In this
book, not only is there
no happy ending, there
is no happy beginning
and very few happy
things in the middle.
~~~Lemony Snicket
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Two: “The Reptile Room”
• Dramatic irony is a cruel
occurrence, one that is
almost always upsetting,
and I'm sorry to have it
appear in this story, but
Violet, Klaus, and Sunny
have such unfortunate lives,
that it was only a matter of
time before dramatic irony
would rear its ugly head.
~~~Lemony Snicket
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Three: “The Wide Window”
• Oftentimes, when
people are
miserable, they will
want to make other
people miserable,
too. But it never
helps.
~~~Lemony Snicket
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Four: “The Miserable Mill”
• If an optimist had his left
arm chewed off by an
alligator, he might say, in a
pleasant and hopeful voice,
"Well, this isn't too bad. I
don't have my left arm
anymore, but at least
nobody will ever ask me
whether I am right-handed or
left-handed," but most of us
would say something more
along the lines of, "Aaaaah!
My arm! My arm!"
~~~Lemony Snicket
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Five: “The Austere Academy”
• Assumptions are
dangerous things to
make, and like all
dangerous things to
make - bombs, for
instance, or strawberry
shortcake - if you make
even the tiniest mistake
you can find yourself in
terrible trouble.
~~~Lemony Snicket
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Six: “The Ersatz Elevator”
• To hear the phrase "our
only hope" always
makes one anxious,
because it means that if
the only hope doesn't
work, there is nothing
left, and that is never
pleasant to think about,
however true it might
be.
~~~Lemony Snicket
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Seven: “The Vile Village”
• The quoting of an
aphorism, like the
angry barking of a
dog or the smell of
overcooked
broccoli, rarely
indicates that
something helpful is
about to happen.
~~~Lemony Snicket
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Nine: “The Carnivorous
Carnival”
• "It doesn't take
courage to kill
someone," Klaus
said. "It takes a
severe lack of
moral stamina."
~~~Lemony Snicket
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Ten: “The Slippery Slope”
• Taking one's chances is
like taking a bath,
because sometimes you
end up feeling
comfortable and warm,
and sometimes there is
something terrible lurking
around that you cannot
see until it is too late and
you can do nothing else
but scream and cling to a
plastic duck.
• ~~~Lemony Snicket
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Eleven: “The Grim Grotto”
• Of course it is boring to read
about boring things, but it is
better to read about things
that make you yawn with
boredom than something
that will make you weep
uncontrollably, pound your
fists on the floor, and leave
tearstains all over your
pillowcase, sheets, and
boomerang collection.
• ~~~Lemony Snicket
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Twelve: “The Penultimate
Peril”
•
But the three siblings were not
born yesterday. Violet was born
more than fifteen years before
this particular Wednesday, and
Klaus was born approximately
two years after that, and even
Sunny who had just passed out
of babyhood, was not born
yesterday. Neither were you,
unless of course I am wrong, in
which case, welcome to the
world, little baby, and
congratulations on learning to
read so early in life.
•
~~~Lemony Snicket
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Thirteen: “The End”
• A moral compass appears
to be a delicate device,
and as people grow older
and venture out into the
world, it often becomes
more and more difficult to
figure out which direction
one’s moral compass is
pointing, so it is harder
and harder to figure out
the proper thing to do.
• ~~~Lemony Snicket
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Snow Scout Alphabet Pledge
• The Snow Scout Alphabet Pledge is a parody of the Boy Scout
pledge:
• A boy scout is clean.
• A boy scout is helpful.
• A boy scout is reverent….
• We’re going to make our own Snow Scout Alphabet pledge.
Alleen will be our Scout Master from A to Z.
• After Z take a big breath and make a long, airy sound, as if
imitating the wind.
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Snow Scout Alphabet Pledge
Snow Scouts are accomodating, basic, calm, darling, emblematic,
frisky, grinning, human, innocent, jumping, kept, limited, meek,
nap-loving, official, pretty, quarantined, recent, scheduled, tidy,
understandable, victorious, wholesome, xylophone, young, and
zippered—every morning, every afternoon, every night, and all
day long!*
*Take a big breath and make a long, airy sound, as if imitating the
wind.
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“Count Olaf” Anagrams
• Al Funcoot
• Flacutono (the foreman)
• Flacutono (the surgeon)
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MORT = DEATH
• Mort Main Mountains
• Le Petit Mort
• Mortuary Money Management Bank
• Memento Mori School Motto
• Other “mort” words…
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FORESHADOWING
• Hotel Denouement
• Mount Fraught
• Grim River
• Salmonella Café
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ALLITERATION
• Caligari Carnival, Domocles Dock,
Finite Forest, Fowl Fountain, Grim
Gorgonian Grotto, Lake Lachrymose
and Stricken Stream…
• Fickle Ferry, Hurricane Herman,
Lachrymose Leeches and Lousy Lane
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PUNS
• Operating Theaters
• Stiletto Heels
• Red Herrings
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ERSATZ
• The Ersatz Elevator
• Ersatz Rope (bedsheets for climbing up the elevator)
• Ersatz Guardian (Esme Squalor)
• You can imagine that Duncan and Isadora free
themselves from Count Olaf’s clutches…, “but such
imaginings will be ersatz, as are all imaginings.”
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REPETITIONS OF V.F.D.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Valley of Four Drafts
Veiled Facial Disguises
Verbal Fridge Dialogue
Verdant Flammable Devices
Verse Fluctuation Declaration
Versed Furtive Disclosure
Vertical Flame Diversion
Very Fresh Dill
Village of Fowl Devotees
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• Voice Fakery Disguises
• Volatile Fungus Deportation
• Voluntary Fish Domestication
• Volunteer Factual Dispatch
• Volunteers Fighting Diseases
• Very Fancy Doilies
• Volunteer Fire Department
• Very Fine Delivery!
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In Conclusion, here are some
smart allusions
• History: Isadora Duncan, Ghengis
Kahn, Nero
• Literature: Baudelaire, Dante, Elliot,
Guest, Orwell, Melville, Nabokov, Poe,
Salinger
• Mythology: Medusa
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And here are are some other
rhetorical devices:
Acronyming: VFD: Verbal Fridge Dialogue, Village of Fowl
Devotees,
Alliteration: Briny Beach, Caligary Carnival, Curdled Cave,
Daedalus Dock
Count Olaf’s Disguises: Al Funcoot, Staphano, Captain Sham,
Foreman Flacutono, Coach Genghis, Gunther, Detective Dupin,
Mattathias, Surgeon Flacutono
Ersatz: Elevator, Rope, Guadrian, Imaginings
Gothic and Death References: Grim River, Hotel Denouement,
Memento Mori, Mortmain Mountains, Salmonella Cafe
Puns: Operating Theatres, Stiletto Heels
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Some Baudelaire Guardians
and Some Baudelaire Locations
• Baudelaire Guardians: Count Olaf, Dr. Montgomery
Montgomery (Uncle Monty), Aunt Josephine, Sir, Jerome and
Esme Squalor, Village of Fowl Devotees (Hector), Dewey
Denouement
• Baudelaire Locations: Count Olaf’s house, Uncle Monty’s
house, Lake Lachrymose, Prufrock Preparatory School, 667
Dark Avenue Penthouse, Village of Fowl Devotees, Heimlich
Hospital, Caligary Carnival, Mortmain Mountains, Queequeg
Submarine, Hotel Denouement
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Klaus’s Research
Sunny’s Bites
and Violet’s Inventions
Klaus’s Research: grammar books, gum and log scraper, Village
of Fowl Devotees Rules, Madam Lulu’s library, V.F.D. Library
Sunny’s Bites: Edgar Poe’s shoes, hoked-handed man’s fake
arms, Count Olaf’s wooden leg, Dr. Orwell’s sword, staples,
wall of the elevator, eye of the Fowl Fountain, file cabinets, ivy
on the roller coaster, Judge Strauss’s hand, canned food,
kitchen table
Violet’s Inventions: Grappling Hook, lock pick noise making
device, noisy shoes, rope, paperclip and ribbon keychain, ice
shoes, drag chute
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Recycling
Intertextuality
and Smart Allusions
• Dr. Georgina Orwell
• Medusoid Mycelium Mushrooms
• Esmé & Jerome Squalor’s Penthouse at 667 Dark Avenue
• J. D. Salinger’s Short Story: “To Esmé with Love and Squalor”
• Violet’s Name from T. S. Eliot’s “The Violet Hours”
• The Austere Academy = Prufrock Preparatory School
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• Vice Principal Nero
• Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire = Claus and Sunny
Von Bulow = Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867)
• Isadora and Duncan Quagmire = Isadora Duncan
(1877-1927)
• The Queequeg Submarine Herman Melville Team
and the Ahab Memorial Hospital
• vs. The Edgar A. Guest Team
• The Hostile Hospital = The Heimlich Hospital
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• Patients include: Emma Bovary, Clarissa Dalloway,
Orlando, and Sappho
• Edgar Allan Poe: Mr. Poe, The Nevermore Tree, and
the Murder of Crows
• Count Olaf = Captain Sham = Surgeon Flacatouno =
Al Funcoot = Coach Ghengis
• Mort = Mort Main Mountains = Le Petit Mort =
Mortuary Money Management = Memento Mori
• Hotel Denouement, Mount Fraught, Grim River and
Salmonella Café
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Dedications to Beatrice
• To Beatrice—Darling, Dearest, Dead…
• For Beatrice—You’ll always be in my heart, in my
mind, and in your grave.
• For Beatrice—When we were together I felt
breathless. Now you are.
• For Beatrice—Our love broke my heart, and stopped
yours.
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• For Beatrice—When we met, my life began. Soon afterwards,
yours ended.
• For Beatrice—Summer without you is as cold as winter. Winter
without you is even colder.
• To Beatrice—My love flew like a butterfly,
Until death swooped down like a bat.
As the poet Emma Montana McEllroy said:
“That’s the end of that.”
• For Beatrice—When we met, you were pretty, and I was lonely.
Now, I’m pretty lonely.
• For Beatrice—Dead women tell no tales. Sad men write them
down.
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Beatrice in Dante’s Divine Comedy
• At age 9, Dante Aligieri met Beatrice Portinari, and
fell in love.
• They greeted each other on the street for 16 years.
• Dante was promised to another woman, Gemma.
• In 1290, at age 25, Beatrice died.
• Dante took refuge in writing to and about Beatrice.
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• Dante dedicated his Divine Comedy to
Beatrice, who in the novel served as his
guide through Paradise.
• With Gemma, he had a daughter named
Antonia
• She became a nun, and took the name
of Sister Beatrice.
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WEB SITES
LEMONY SNICKET:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ej3hAZ1QnqA
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