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Chapter 6
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Bad Beginning, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Family and Parenthood
Surveillance, Supervision, and Guardianship
Children vs. Adults
Intelligence and Ethics
Summary
Analysis
Lemony Snicket says there are many types of books in the world because different people like to read different things. The one exception to this rule, he claims, is law books, because they are long and boring. This is why lawyers make lots of––because no one wants to read the books. However, the Baudelaire children are not reading law books to make money—they’re reading them to save themselves from Count Olaf’s schemes. Even so, the children have difficulty motivating themselves to read the law books in Justice Strauss’s library.
As it typical, Lemony Snicket begins Chapter 7 with another bait-and-switch quip. He suggests that every type of book exists because there are so many different interests in the world, but then he makes an exception: law books, which Violet and Klaus are reading to find out Count Olaf’s plans. Again, this highlights Snicket’s humor as a narrator. It also demonstrates his sympathy for the plight of the Baudelaire children––even down to the boring books they have to read.
Themes
Justice Strauss asks why the children are reading law books, and they respond that they are interested in careers in law. Justice Strauss offers to take Sunny outside to help her garden, and the older siblings agree. Justice Strauss mentions the play, and the children question whether she’s excited about it. Justice Strauss answers enthusiastically that she is, explaining that he’s always wanted to be in a play but has never gotten to. She asks if Violet and Klaus are excited, too, and they answer ambiguously. However, Judge Strauss is too distracted by her own excitement to notice their lack of enthusiasm.
Again, Violet and Klaus miss an opportunity to tell Justice Strauss about their predicament. Given their recent experience with Count Olaf, however, their reluctance to open up to her makes sense; the last time they told an adult about their problems, they made it worse. Thus, this scene illustrates the children’s gradual shift away from their dependence on adults. This time around, they plan to solve the problem themselves.
Themes
Violet and Klaus decide that Justice Strauss can’t help them, and they reiterate their need to find a legal way to stop the play from happening. They keep reading and speculating, but don’t find anything useful. Violet gets tired of reading and goes outside to garden, leaving Klaus alone inside and feeling hopeless. A member of the theatre troupe enters the library and asks what Klaus is reading. Klaus tells him, and the man warns Klaus, threateningly, not to return to the library until after the performance. Then he tells Klaus that the only reason Count Olaf has not killed him and his siblings is that he has not gotten their money yet—but that once he has it, there will be nothing stopping him.
In this passage, Klaus discovers how truly dangerous Count Olaf is. Though Klaus had always known Count Olaf to be mean and physically abusive, it is not until now that Klaus comes to terms with the extent of Olaf’s criminality: he not only wants to steal the children’s fortune, but he also wants to kill them. While frightening, this revelation confirms the children’s suspicions about Count Olaf’s intentions for the play. Though they do not know yet what he has planned, they do know he means them harm.
Themes
The man’s threat terrifies Klaus, who begins to shake all over. The man tells Klaus to be a little nicer because Count Olaf might leave Klaus to him to deal with. Then the man leaves to collect the other children from the backyard. Klaus is scared, but he frantically searches for a book that might help them. Right before the man returns with Violet and Sunny, Klaus sees a useful looking book and hides it in his shirt. As they walk out of the house, Klaus hopes that the book he is hiding will help them.
Separated from his siblings, Klaus is forced to act alone for the first time. In every other moment of crisis, Violet and Sunny have been there to support him and one another, but now he must act independently and take a risk for the sake of his siblings. As such, this is an important moment in Klaus’s character development, revealing the maturation he has undergone since his parents’ death. Like his siblings, he has learned to be independent.
Themes
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