Children vs. Adults Theme Analysis

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.

One of the things Violet, Klaus, and Sunny really liked about their parents was that they didn’t send their children away when they had company over, but allowed them to join the adults at the dinner table and participate in the conversation as long as they helped clear the table.

“Perished,” Mr. Poe said, means ‘killed.’”

“We know what the word ‘perished’ means, Klaus said crossly. He did know what the word “perished” meant, but he was still having trouble understanding what exactly it was that Mr. Poe had said. It seemed to him that Mr. Poe must somehow have misspoken.

“But our parents never mentioned Count Olaf to us. Just how is he related to us, exactly?”

Mr. Poe sighed and looked down at Sunny, who was biting a fork and listening closely. “He is either a third cousin four time removed, or a fourth cousin three times removed. He is not your closest relative on the family tree, but he is the closest geographically.”

I hate it here, Violet! I hate this house! I hate our room! I hate having to do all these chores, and I hate Count Olaf!”

“I hate it too,” Violet said, and Klaus looked at his older sister with relief. Sometimes, just saying you hate something, and having someone agree with you, can make you feel better about a terrible situation. “I hate everything about our lives right now, Klaus,” she said, “but we have to keep our chin up.” This was an expression the children’s father had used, and it meant “try to stay cheerful.”

“You’re right,” Klaus said. “But it is very difficult to keep one’s chin up when Count Olaf keeps shoving it down.”

“Goodness,” Justice Strauss said. “Cooking dinner for an entire theatre troupe seems like a lot to ask of children.”

“Count Olaf give us a lot of responsibility,” Violet said. What she wanted to say was, “Count Olaf is an evil man,” but she was well mannered.

“I can’t tell you how much we appreciate this,” Violet said, carefully. With their kind parents dead and Count Olaf treating them to abominably, the three children were not used to kindness from adults and weren’t sure if they were expected to do anything back. “Tomorrow, before we use your library again, Klaus and I would be more than happy to do household chores for you. Sunny isn’t really old enough to work, but I’m sure we could find some way she could help you.”

“Come on, friends,” Count Olaf said to his comrades. “We’ll be late for our own performance.”

“If I know you, Olaf,” said the man with the hook-hands, “you’ll figure out a way to get at that Baudelaire money.”

“We’ll see,” Count Olaf said, but his eyes were shining bright as if he already had an idea.

“Whatever Count Olaf has done,” Mr. Poe said, glancing down at one of his papers and circling a number, “he has acted in loco parentis, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Your money will be well protected by myself and by the bank, but Count Olaf’s parenting techniques are his own business. Now, I hate to usher you out posthaste, but I have very much work to do.”

The children just sat there, stunned. Mr. Poe looked up, and cleared his throat. “Posthaste,” he said, “means––”

“––means you’ll do nothing to help us,” Violet finished for him. She was shaking with anger and frustration”

It is very useful, when one is young, to learn the difference between “literally” and “figuratively.” If something happens literally, it actually happens; if something happens figuratively, it feels like it’s happening.

“I wish we knew something more about inheritance law,” Klaus said. “I’ll bet Count Olaf has cooked up some plan to get our money, but I don’t know what it could be.”

“I guess we could ask Mr. Poe about it,” Violet said doubtfully, as Klaus stood beside her and dried the dishes. “He knows all those Latin legal phrases.”

“But Mr. Poe would probably call Count Olaf again, and then he’d know we were on to him,” Klaus pointed out. “Maybe we should try to talk to Justice Strauss. She’s a judge, so she must know all about the law.”

“But she’s also Olaf’s neighbor,” Violet replied, “and she might tell him that we had asked.”

“The word ‘nuptial,’” Klaus said, “means ‘relating to marriage.”

“I know what the word means,” Count Olaf growled. “Where did you get that book.”

“From Justice Strauss’s library,” Klaus said. “But that’s not important. What’s important is that I have found out your plan.”

The really frightening thing about Count Olaf, she realized, was that he was very smart after all. He wasn’t merely an unsavory drunken brute, but an unsavory, clever drunken brute.

As she worked, she remembered something her parents had said to her when Klaus was born, and again when they brought Sunny home from the hospital. “You are the eldest Baudelaire child,” they had said, kindly but firmly. “And as the eldest, it will always be your responsibility to look after your younger siblings. Promise us that you will always watch out for them and make sure they don’t get into trouble.” Violet remembered her promise, and thought of Klaus whose bruised face still looked sore, and Sunny, dangling from the top of the flower like a flag, and began working even faster. Even though Count Olaf was of course the cause of all this misery, Violet as though she had broken her promise to her parents, and vowed to make it right.

I am certain that over the course of your own life, you have noticed that people’s rooms reflect their personalities. In my room, for instance, I have gathered a collection of objects that are important to me, including a dusty accordion on which I can play a few sad songs, a large bundle of notes on the activities of the Baudelaire orphans, and a blurry photograph, taken a very long time ago, of a woman whose name is Beatrice. These are items that are very precious and dear to me.

To Violet, Klaus, and Sunny, it seemed that Mr. Poe and the law had made the incorrect decision to take them away from the possibility of a happy life with Justice Strauss and toward an unknown fate with some unknown relative. They didn’t understand it, but like so many unfortunate events in life, just because you don’t understand it doesn’t mean it isn’t so.