Mr. Snicket's Mock-Gothic Caricature (A Phrase Which Here Means 'Imitative Parody') : Part III

The excessively verdant and dark landscapes that permeate gothic literatures are present in ASOUE, but modified to suit a modern story. Instead of gothic architecture, the structures and buildings that figure in ASOUE are usually vast and maze-like, or dilapidated and horrifying. Since the fire, the Baudelaires live in an assortment of places, from the Aunt Josephine's house perched precariously on the mountaintop, to the disgusting habitat of Olaf himself, where they slept on old curtains and a refrigerator box. Consider Heimlich Hospital--one-half finished and gleaming, the other half bare and still. In particular, the Baudelaires’ stay at Prufrock Prepatory School and Dark Ave. illustrate the stifling atmosphere of the gothic aesthetic. Prufrock Prep looks like a depressed architect designed it, with its grey tombstone- (or thumb-, as Mr. Poe suggests) shaped buildings. Even worse, the motto of the school is "Memento Mori", a aptly bleak greeting to the orphans upon arriving. One good thing about Prufrock Prep is there is where the Baudelaires meet Isadora and Duncan Quagmire, whose mansion, parents, and third triplet perished in a fire. Like the Quagmires before them, the Baudelaires are forced to live in the Orphans Shack, a hut dripping with fungus and overrun by snapping crabs. The five orphans become fast friends, becoming somewhat less alienated by the cruelty of bully Carmelita Spats and the incompetence of the school authorities. When Olaf's plot against the Baudelaires threatens to expel them from the school and into his own arms, the Quagmires come up with a plan to stand in for their friends. Unavoidably, Duncan and Isadora are caught and kidnapped by Olaf.

The Baudelaires are briefly reunited with the Quagmires in The Ersatz Elevator. Dark Ave. is densely shaded street, with a canopy of tall trees overhead. The Squalors' seventy-one-room penthouse at 667 Dark Ave. is so monstrous in size that the Baudelaires resort to using breadcrumbs to find their way through the apartment. It is here that the orphans must daily trudge up and down endless flights of stairs ('elevators are out'), and where they discover a false elevator shaft where Olaf and Esme have the Quagmires cloistered in a cage. When the Baudelaires unwittingly approach Esme with this information, she reveals her allegiance with Olaf and pushes them down the dark and seemingly bottomless shaft. 667 Dark Ave. is inextricable from the Snicket/Baudelaire mystery; the Baudelaires discover a secret tunnel leading from the elevator shaft to the ashy remnants of their old mansion. Who built the tunnel, and why? The answer may be part of a conspiracy that links the Snickets, the Baudelaires, and the Quagmires.

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