Onomastic Sarcasm, Cynicism and Mock Condescension in Lemony Snicket

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Onomastic Sarcasm, Cynicism and Mock
Condescension in Lemony Snickets Series of
Unfortunate Events (by Daniel Handler)

• by Don L. F. Nilsen and
• Alleen Pace Nilsen

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2016 Newtflix SeriesLemony Snickets Series of
Unfortunate Events

• http//www.bing.com/videos/search?qyoutubenetlix
  seriesofunfortunateeventstrailerviewdetail
  mid0A80CF96B628EF96F0AC0A80CF96B628EF96F0ACFORM
  VIRE

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Don Nilsen as Count Olaf
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Tracey Floress 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 ones 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.
• Were 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
  zipperedevery 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

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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 Olafs 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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Smart Allusions from History in the Lemony
Snicket BooksIsadora Duncan, Ghengis Kahn and
Nero
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Smart Allusions from LiteratureCharles
Baudelaire Dante Alligieri
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T. S. Eliot and Edgar A. Guest
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George Orwell and Herman Melville
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Vladimir Nabokov
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Edgar Allan Poe and J. D. Salinger
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A Smart Alllusion from MythologyMedussa
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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 Olafs Disguises Al Funcoot, Staphano,
  Captain Sham, Foreman Flacutono, Coach Genghis,
  Gunther, Detective Dupin, Mattathias, Surgeon
  Flacutono
• Ersatz Elevator, Rope, Guardian, 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 Guardiansand 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 Olafs house, Uncle
  Montys 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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Klauss ResearchSunnys Bites and Violets
Inventions

• Klauss Research grammar books, gum and log
  scraper, Village of Fowl Devotees Rules, Madam
  Lulus library, V.F.D. Library
• Sunnys Bites Edgar Poes shoes, hooked-handed
  mans fake arms, Count Olafs wooden leg, Dr.
  Orwells sword, staples, wall of the elevator,
  eye of the Fowl Fountain, file cabinets, ivy on
  the roller coaster, Judge Strausss hand, canned
  food, kitchen table
• Violets Inventions Grappling Hook, lock pick
  noise making device, noisy shoes, rope, paperclip
  and ribbon keychain, ice shoes, drag chute

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RecyclingIntertextualityand Smart Allusions

• Dr. Georgina Orwell
• Medusoid Mycelium Mushrooms
• Esmé Jerome Squalors Penthouse at 667 Dark
  Avenue
• J. D. Salingers Short Story To Esmé with Love
  and Squalor
• Violets Name from T. S. Eliots 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 BeatriceDarling, Dearest, Dead
• For BeatriceYoull always be in my heart, in my
  mind, and in your grave.
• For BeatriceWhen we were together I felt
  breathless. Now you are.
• For BeatriceOur love broke my heart, and stopped
  yours.

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• For BeatriceWhen we met, my life began. Soon
  afterwards, yours ended.
• For BeatriceSummer without you is as cold as
  winter. Winter without you is even colder.
• To BeatriceMy love flew like a butterfly,
• Until death swooped down like a bat.
• As the poet Emma Montana McEllroy said
• Thats the end of that.
• For BeatriceWhen we met, you were pretty, and I
  was lonely. Now, Im pretty lonely.
• For BeatriceDead women tell no tales. Sad men
  write them down.

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Beatrice in Dantes 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 SITE

• LEMONY SNICKET
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vej3hAZ1QnqA