The Wide Window

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You may be looking for The Wide Window: Part One or Part Two.

The Wide Window is the third book in A Series of Unfortunate Events.

Plot Summary

The book begins with Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire sitting at Damocles Dock in the town of Lake Lachrymose, which lies next to the lake with the same name. Mr. Poe, the manager of their estate, arranges a taxi to drive the Baudelaires to the top of a high hill where their new home awaits. As the taxi pulls up to the hilltop, the orphans find themselves at a house at the edge of a cliff supported by metal stilts.

Inside, they find their new guardian waiting for them, Aunt Josephine Anwhistle. She is a clueless, yet peculiar woman who has practically every fear there could be. Within Aunt Josephine's house is a library filled only with grammar books and a large window (The Wide Window) at the far end of the room, which offers a spectacular view of Lake Lachrymose. It is here where Aunt Josephine recounts her tale of her last day on the shores of the lake with her husband, Ike Anwhistle, and how he met his end due to the carnivorous Lachrymose Leeches which have the ability to smell food on a human if he or she does not wait long enough before going into the water.

The following day, the children tell Aunt Josephine of Hurricane Herman's approach. While gathering supplies for the storm, they encounter Count Olaf at the grocery store, disguised as a sailor named Captain Sham. The three children attempt to warn their new guardian about Captain Sham's true identity, but Aunt Josephine does not believe them due to Sham's charm and use of a peg leg to hide his tattoo of an eye on his left ankle.

Later that evening, Aunt Josephine receives a phone call from Captain Sham, and she then sends the children away. After what seems like hours, the children are awakened by a loud crash. Upon searching the house for any trace of Aunt Josephine, the Baudelaires come to the library where they find a suicide note from their aunt and discover that the window had been smashed. Although filled with grammar mistakes the children know Aunt Josephine would never have made, the note says that Captain Sham is to be their new guardian. The children then conclude that Count Olaf is behind it and decide to call Mr. Poe.

Mr. Poe informs the children that like him or not, Captain Sham is to be their new guardian per Josephine's last will and testament written in the note. Captain Sham, upon hearing the news from Mr. Poe, offers to take he and the three children to lunch at a local restaurant, The Anxious Clown. Needing more time to find the truth behind Aunt Josephine's death and strangely written note, Violet decides to take drastic action and gives her siblings a peppermint, which the children are terribly allergic to. Almost immediately, the children break out in hives and their tongues swell, causing Mr. Poe to allow them to go back up to Aunt Josephine's house.

As they reach the hilltop, the effects of Hurricane Herman could already be felt, as rain had started to fall and the wind begins picking up. While Violet and Sunny attempt to take a baking soda bath to relieve their itchy hives, Klaus returns to the library to see if he could make out anything about Aunt Josephine's note. As his sisters return to his side, Klaus reveals that Aunt Josephine had purposefully written the note to hide a message reading "Curdled Cave". They conclude that Aunt Josephine is in fact not dead, merely hiding.

Upon this discovery, however, the hurricane had reached its peak. The children hurry to find a map to locate Curdled Cave and resolve to look under Aunt Josephine's bed; as she had told them she had hidden anything to do with Lake Lachrymose away after Ike died. After finding an atlas of Lake Lachrymose, a bolt of lightning strikes one of the many wooden supports holding Aunt Josephine's house up on the cliffside. After a narrow escape, the Baudelaires watch as the house is ripped from the side of the cliff and falls into the lake below.

The children then hurry to the docks to find Fickle Ferry shut down due to the hurricane. Needing to get across Lake Lachrymose to Curdled Cave, the children decide to take a sailboat from Captian Sham. The gates to the docks are locked, however, and the keys are in the hand of the sleeping henchmen of indeterminant gender inside a shack by the gate. While Klaus and Violet attempt to make a plan, Sunny goes in to steal the keys from the Enormous Androgynous Person and succeeds. After a few moments, however, the henchman comes lumbering out the door and grabs Violet and Sunny while Klaus is fumbling with the keys trying to open the gate. The obese henchman then picks up Klaus with his mouth and begins walking back to the shack. However, he trips over the atlas of Lake Lachyrmose and this gives the Baudelaires enough time to escape and steal a sailboat. They sail out through Hurricane Herman to Curdled Cave where they find Aunt Josephine. She tells the children that Count Olaf made her write the note, but instead of killing herself, left the message and threw a footstool through the window to give the appearance that she'd commited suicide. The Baudelaires try to convince her to sail with them back to town to tell Mr. Poe what had happened, but she refuses. Klaus points out to her that the cave is for sale, and realtors would surely come to see it. This is enough for Josephine to agree, her fear of realtors overpowering her fear of Count Olaf.

After sailing to the center of the vast lake, they are attacked by the Lachrymose Leeches. Aunt Josephine had regretted to point out that she had eaten a banana shortly before the children had arrived, causing the leeches to attack due to the scent of food. The leeches immediately begin to eat away at the boat attempting to get to Josephine. Violet creates a signal to help catch the attention of another boat to rescue them from the swarming leeches. The signal does attract the attention of one sailor on the water, Count Olaf. He allows the children and their aunt aboard his sailboat, just as theirs sinks from the leeches onslaught. Josephine then pleads with Olaf to allow her to live and that she will go far away and let him keep the Baudelaires. When Aunt Josephine corrects a slip of grammar on Olaf's part, he throws her into the water and sails the boat back to the dock, leaving Josephine to fend for herself against the leeches.

When they arrive back at the docks, Mr. Poe is just fixing to hand the children over to Captain Sham when Sunny bites into his fake wooden leg breaking it in half, revealing his tattoo and real leg beneath. Olaf then locks the gates to Damocles Dock and once again escapes with his assistant and leaves the Baudelaire children searching for someone else to care for them.

Introduced Characters

Reappearing Characters

Mentioned Characters

Josephine's Letter

All mistakes are in bold:

Violet, Klaus, and Sunny-

By the time you read this note, my life will be at it's end. My heart is as cold as ike, and I find life inbearable. I know your children may not understand the sad life of a dowadger, or what would have leaded me to this desperate akt, but please know that I am much happier this way. As my last will and testament, I leave you in the care of Captain Sham, a kind and honorable men. Please think of me kindly even though I'd done this terrible thing.

-Your Aunt Josephine

The mistakes spell out "Curdled Cave"

Dear Reader: A Letter From Lemony Snicket

Dear Reader,

If you have not read anything about the Baudelaire orphans, then before you read even one more sentence, you should know this: Violet, Klaus, and Sunny are kindhearted and quick-witted, but their lives, I am sorry to say, are filled with bad luck and misery. All of the stories about these three children are unhappy and wretched, and the one you are holding may be the worst of them all.

If you haven't got the stomach for a story that includes a hurricane, a signaling device, hungry leeches, cold cucumber soup, a horrible villain, and a doll named Pretty Penny, then this book will probably fill you with despair.

I will continue to record these tragic tales, for that is what I do. You, however, should decide for yourself whether you can possibly endure this miserable story.

With all due respect,

Beatrice Dedication

For Beatrice–

I would much prefer it if you were alive and well.

Foreshadowing

Final Picture

In the final picture, Mr. Poe can be seen clutching at a closed gate, watching as Count Olaf and the Enormous Androgynous Person escape. On the side of a building in the picture hangs a sign in the shape of a pair of glasses with a pair of squinting eyes, referencing Dr. Orwell's Office in The Miserable Mill.

Letter to the Editor

To My Kind Editor,

I am writing to you from the Paltryville Town Hall, where I have convinced the mayor to allow me inside the eye-shaped office of Dr. Orwell in order to further investigate what happened to the Baudelaire orphans while they were living in the area.

Next Friday, a black jeep will be in the northwest corner of the parking lot of the Orion Observatory. Break into it. In the glove compartment, you should find my description of this frightening chapter in the Baudelaires' lives, entitled THE MISERABLE MILL, as well as some information on hypnosis, a surgical mask, and sixty-eight sticks of gum. I have also included the blueprint of the pincher machine, which I believe Mr. Helquist will find useful for his illustrations.

Remember, you are my last hope that the tales of the Baudelaire orphans can finally be told to the general public.

With all due respect,

Lemony Snicket

Word Definitions

Dowager- a fancy word for "widow"
Hives―“be covered in red, itchy rashes for a few hours.”
Surreptitiously―a word which here means “while Aunt Josephine wasn’t looking.”

Real-World Allusions

Main Article: References and allusions in Lemony Snicket's works

Name Allusions

Snicket's endnote in The Reptile Room mentions the Café Kafka, a reference to the Austrian-Hungarian author, Franz Kafka. One of Kafka's short stories, "Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk," features Josephine, the only mouse that can sing. The Baudelaires' Aunt Josephine is rather mouse-like as she is "timid as a mouse." In Kafka's story, Josephine's music sounds like whistling if heard from the wrong angle, which may be a reference to Isaac Anwhistle's ability to whistle with crackers in his mouth. When his nickname, "Ike," is combined with his last name, "Anwistle," the result sounds like the statement "I can whistle."
The names Ike and Josephine may also refer to Hurricane Ike and Hurricane Josephine.
The name of the storm featured in the book is "Hurricane Herman," which may be a reference to Herman Melville.

Setting Allusions

The name for Damocles Dock, presumably alludes to the legendary Greek figure Damocles who had a sword dangling over his head. Note that in the picture in the front of The Wide Window, it shows the Baudelaire children can be seen standing on Damocles dock. In the archway at the entrance to the dock is a sword dangling over their heads.
Lachrymose (Lake Lachrymose) means "given to or causing tears."

Plot Allusions

The Baudelaire orphans' allergies to peppermints may be a nod to their tendencies to misfortune. In the Victorian art of flower arranging, peppermint symbolizes "cordiality, warmth of feeling." Thus, their allergy to peppermints could represent the absence of "cordiality" and "warmth of feeling" in their lives.^[1]

Illustrations

The hint to the next book, The Miserable Mill.

Book Editions

Several editions of The Wide Window have been published. Some of these include foreign editions or re-prints such as: The Wide Window (US), The Wide Window (UK), The Wide Window (UK Paperback), The Wide Window Or, Disappearance! and Ouragan Sur Le Lac.

The Wide Window (UK)

The Wide Window (UK) was released on June 9, 2003 by Egmont Books Ltd. It features a black cover, different fonts and a purple spine. Brett Helquist's illustration is also different. On each of the UK versions, between the coloured spine and the black cover there are narrow images depicting a reference to each books content. The Wide Window features a row of waves. This is repeated on the back cover.

The Wide Window (UK Paperback)

This is a paperback version of The Wide Window released in the UK by Egmont Books in 2010. It has Lemony Snicket written on the top with A Series of Unfortunate Events written below it in an eye shape.

The Wide Window Or, Disappearance!

The Wide Window Or, Disappearance! is a paperback re-release of The Wide Window, designed to mimic Victorian penny dreadfuls. It was released on September 4, 2007, by HarperCollins. The book includes seven new illustrations, and the third part of a serial supplement entitled The Cornucopian Cavalcade, which features a 13-part comic by Michael Kupperman entitled The Spoily Brats, an advice column written by Lemony Snicket, and, as in The Bad Beginning or, Orphans! and The Reptile Room or, Murder!, (the final) part of a story by Stephen Leacock entitled Q: A Psychic Pstory of the Psupernatural.

Ouragan Sur Le Lac

Ouragan Sur Le Lac is a French edition of The Wide Window, published by Nathan Poche. Much different from other editions, the Nathan Poche one is almost completely black. It features only the title of the book, a small picture of the Baudelaire children and a white illustration of a lifebuoy ==

Sources

↑ The Bad Beginning: Rare Edition Author's Notes

[REAN-1] The Bad Beginning: Rare Edition Author's Notes

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