The Ersatz Elevator

“‘Is the elevator out of order?’ Violet asked. ‘I’m very good with mechanical devices, and I’d be happy to take a look at it.’ ‘That’s a very kind and unusual offer,’ the doorman said. ‘But the elevator isn’t out of order. It’s just out. The neighborhood decided that elevators were out, so they had the elevator shut down. Stairs are in, though, so there’s still a way to get to the penthouse.’”

The door attendant saying Violet’s offer is “unusual” introduces the strangeness of Dark Street and its preoccupation with trends leaves it out of touch with the rest of the world. The building’s lack of elevators also foreshadows their significance later in the novel as the method through which the Baudelaires are trapped.

“‘I hope they hear me turning pages,’ Klaus said. ‘Maybe Mr. and Mrs. Squalor will have some interesting books to read.’ ‘Or maybe people will hear me using a wrench,’ Violet said. ‘I hope the Squalors have some tools they’d let me use for my inventing.’ ‘Crife!’ Sunny said, crawling carefully past one of the candles on the ground. Violet looked down at her and smiled. ‘I don’t think that will be a problem, Sunny,’ she said. ‘You usually find something or other to bite.’”

This passage introduces the children’s individual talents. Klaus’s gift for research and learning is reflected by his hopes for a library. Similarly, Violet wishes for tools because they will allow her to invent things, and Sunny’s wish for things to bite introduces her talent and foreshadows how she later bites her way up the elevator shaft to save her siblings.

“It was as if they were looking out on a tiny, tiny city, with matchboxes instead of buildings and bookmarks instead of streets. They could see tiny colored shapes that looked like various insects but were really all the cars and carriages in town, driving along the bookmarks until they reached the matchboxes where the tiny dots of people lived and worked. The Baudelaires could see the neighborhood where they had lived with their parents, and the parts of town where their friends had lived, and in a faint blue strip far, far away, the beach where they had received the terrible news that had begun all their misfortune.”

The description of how tiny everything in the city is from the penthouse’s height symbolizes how above everyone else Jerome and Esmé act and represents their focus on status. This excerpt also reminds readers of the events that preceded this installment in the series, reintroducing them to the layout of the city where the Baudelaires grew up and the terrible tragedy that took their parents and home.

“‘Actually, dear,’ Jerome said, ‘I was thinking that this year, perhaps we should give the money to another good cause. For instance, I was just reading about this family of seven. The mother and father lost their jobs, and now they’re so poor that they can’t even afford to live in a one-room apartment. We might send some of the auction money to people like them.’ ‘Don’t talk nonsense,’ Esmé said crossly. ‘If we give money to poor people, then they won’t be poor anymore.’”

Jerome’s suggestion to give the money to those who are worse off represents the differences between Jerome and Esmé and shows the reader that having wealth, by itself, is not indicative of being greedy. Esmé’s response is satire and represents her worldview that she is above others in terms of wealth and status.

“‘I don’t know how we’re going to wear these things,’ Violet said. ‘I don’t either,’ Klaus said. ‘And it’s all the worse knowing that we almost got presents we really want.’”

Klaus’s remark emphasizes how the Squalors rely on appearances, because when the truth is revealed about why the children received the suits, it’s even more discouraging to learn the true characters of the adults who have been charged to care for them. That the children feel compelled to try to wear ill-fitting clothing serves as a metaphor for their current ill-fitting placement with the Squalors.

“‘Esmé,’ Jerome said hesitantly. ‘How can we be sure this man is really who he says he is? The children do seem quite alarmed. Perhaps we should—’ ‘Perhaps we should listen to me,’ Esmé said, pointing one long-nailed finger at herself. ‘I am Esmé Gigi Geniveve Squalor, the city’s sixth most important financial advisor. I live on Dark Avenue, and I am unbelievably wealthy.’”

Jerome gives up on his own thoughts when Esmé inserts her perspective, providing more evidence that he is the wrong guardian for the children. Esmé’s logic for why everyone should listen to her speaks to the privilege her wealth makes her believe she has.

“A xenophobe is somebody who is afraid of people just because they come from a different country, which is a silly reason for fear. I would have thought that you three would be far too sensible to be xenophobes. After all, Violet, Galileo came from a country in Europe, and he invented the telescope. Would you be afraid of him?”

Jerome’s well-meaning defense of Olaf in disguise supports the narrative’s explanatory tone and the antics of the adults in the story. While appealing to Violet’s sense of respect, Jerome continues to avoid conflict and ignore the children’s concerns, and also inserts irony in the narrative in that the adult cannot perceive what the children know to be true.

“‘Well, then the doorman was wrong,’ Esmé said. ‘But let’s not have any more of this somniferous conversation. Jerome, put them right to bed.’ The Baudelaires looked at one another. They didn’t think the conversation was at all somniferous, a fancy word for something that is so boring it puts you to sleep. Despite their exhausting climb, the children did not feel the least bit tired when they were talking about Gunther’s whereabouts.”

The conflicting understandings of Olaf’s whereabouts foreshadows the discovery of the ersatz elevator, as well as Olaf’s hideout and plan to smuggle away the Quagmire triplets. The vocabulary used also offers Snicket an opportunity to define it for the reader and to show how the children are too concerned with Olaf to be tired, despite just having climbed all the steps to the penthouse.

“‘Oh!’ Violet cried suddenly. ‘Hansel and Gretel means Hansel and Gretel—you know, those two dim-witted children in that fairy tale.’ ‘Of course,’ Klaus said. ‘That brother and sister who insist on wandering around the woods by themselves.’”

Violet and Klaus’s response to Sunny’s suggestion of Hansel and Gretel is humorous and ironic, in that they think Hansel and Gretel are “dim-witted” because they wandered into the woods alone and got captured by a witch. Their circumstances are similar in that they’re lost in an apartment entrapped by adults who hope to gain from the children’s misfortune.

“‘I’m here all day and all night, and I haven’t seen him leave. I promise you that Gunther never walked out of this door.’ ‘When do you sleep?’ Klaus asked. ‘I drink a lot of coffee,’ the doorman answered. ‘It just doesn’t make any sense,’ Violet said. ‘Sure it does,’ the doorman said. ‘Coffee contains caffeine, which is a chemical stimulant. Stimulants keep people awake.’”

This conversation illustrates the narrative’s use of a red herring. The doorman comes across as a harmless and overly dedicated to his work, which is why the children don’t suspect him as Olaf’s associate during the In Auction.

“‘Oh, and magenta wallpaper!’ Esmé said, as the Baudelaires and the Squalors finished a dinner of in foods washed down with parsley soda, which tasted even nastier than it sounds. ‘And triangular picture frames, and very fancy doilies, and garbage cans with letters of the alphabet stenciled all over them, and—.’”

These lines of Esmé’s dialogue sneak in a clue that the V.F.D. box is a red herring. The V.F.D. box holds very fancy doilies, one of the many objects Esmé casually mentions here, and foreshadowing her involvement with Count Olaf.

“‘Are you ready?’ Klaus asked finally. ‘No,’ Sunny answered. ‘Me neither,’ Violet said, ‘but if we wait until we’re ready we’ll be waiting for the rest of our lives. Let’s go.’”

This critical turning point sees the children take matters into their own hands and go in search of Olaf, rather than waiting for him to make a move. Violet’s dialogue speaks to the true meaning of courage and the impact of Bravery Inspired by Trustworthiness.

“The climb back up the secret passageway was much more tiring but a lot less terrifying, simply because they knew what they would find at the other end of their ersatz rope. On the way down the elevator shaft, the Baudelaires had no idea what would be waiting for them at the bottom of such a dark and cavernous journey, but Violet, Klaus, and Sunny knew that all seventy-one bedrooms of the Squalor penthouse would be at the top.”

Violet has devised a plan to rescue their friends, and where the descent into the shaft was characterized by several paragraphs of fearful emotion, the climb back up is summarized in one paragraph, outlining the difference between knowing one’s destination. The elevator shaft represents the unknown for the Baudelaires and how they’re quickly approaching the truth of their circumstances.

“Waiting rooms, as I’m sure you know, are small rooms with plenty of chairs for waiting, as well as piles of old, dull magazines to read and some vapid paintings—the word ‘vapid’ here means ‘usually containing horses in a field or puppies in a basket’—while you endure the boredom that doctors and dentists inflict on their patients before bringing them in to poke them and prod them and do all the miserable things that such people are paid to do. It is very rare to have a waiting room in someone’s home, because even a home as enormous as the Squalors’ does not contain a doctor’s or dentist’s office, and also because waiting rooms are so uninteresting that you would never want one in the place where you live.”

This passage from the narrator comes while the Baudelaires wait for the fire pokers to get hot enough to melt the bars of the Quagmires’ cage, adding to the narrative’s humorous tone. By interrupting the novel’s action to discuss waiting rooms, the text ironically makes the reader wait for what’s to come, adding to the suspense of the plot.

“One of the greatest myths in the world—and the phrase ‘greatest myths’ is just a fancy way of saying ‘big fat lies’—is that troublesome things get less and less troublesome if you do them more and more. People say this myth when they are teaching children to ride bicycles, for instance, as though falling off a bicycle and skinning your knee is less troublesome the fourteenth time you do it than it is the first time.”

The narrator points out the contrast between the way adults explain things to children versus the reality of the way things really are, continuing the humorous tone of the narrative. This passage also serves to illustrate the bravery and determination with which the Baudelaires return to the elevator to rescue their friends, regardless of the physical challenge.

“A good library will never be too neat, or too dusty, because somebody will always be in it, taking books off the shelves and staying up late reading them. Even libraries that were not to the Baudelaires’ taste—Aunt Josephine’s library, for instance, only contained books on grammar—were comfortable places to be in, because the owners of the library used them so much. But the Squalor library was as neat and as dusty as could be. All of the dull books on what was in and what was out sat on the shelves in tidy rows, with layers of dust on top of them as if they hadn’t been disturbed since they’d first been placed there. It made the Baudelaire sisters a little sad to see all those books sitting in the library unread and unnoticed, like stray dogs or lost children that nobody wanted to take home.”

This passage offers a glimpse into the children’s past, as well as observations on how the penthouse is not like a real home. Aunt Josephine was one of the Baudelaires’ previous guardians, and the comparison to her library brings the disuse of the penthouse library into prominence while also reminding readers of the Baudelaires’ past adventures.

“Sometimes words are not enough. There are some circumstances so utterly wretched that I cannot describe them in sentences or paragraphs or even a whole series of books, and the terror and woe that the Baudelaire orphans felt after Esmé pushed them into the elevator shaft is one of those most dreadful circumstances that can be represented only with two pages of utter blackness. I have no words for the profound horror the children felt as they tumbled down into the darkness. I can think of no sentence that can convey how loudly they screamed, or how cold the air was as it whooshed around them while they fell. And there is no paragraph I could possibly type that would enable you to imagine how frightened the Baudelaires were as they plunged toward certain doom.”

Prior to Esmé’s pushing the Baudelaires into the elevator shaft, there were, as Snicket describes, two pages of nothing but solid black, and the presence of these pages in conjunction with this paragraph call to the emotional experience of stories. The narration incorporates humor to offset the jarring darkness and warns the reader of what’s to come, increasing the novel’s suspense.

“‘In the myth of Hercules, he’s trapped between two monsters named Scylla and Charybdis, just like we’re trapped between the sliding doors and the floor. But he got out of the trap by turning them into whirlpools.’ ‘Glaucus,’ Sunny said, which meant something like ‘But we can’t do that.’ ‘I know,’ Klaus said glumly. ‘Myths are often entertaining, but they’re never very helpful.’”

Sunny’s response adds humor and irony into the siblings’ situation as they determine how to escape from their trap. Glaucus is a figure from Greek myth, also known as Pontius, who jumped into the sea after eating a magical herb that turned him into a fish-like creature and became a sea god of prophesy. It is unclear if Sunny knows this, suggesting that the use of Glaucus’s name here is a nod between Snicket and the reader.

“If the Baudelaires had been able to choose a French expression that would be waiting for them at the end of the hallway, they might have chosen one that meant ‘By the time the three children rounded the last dark corner of the corridor, the police had captured Gunther and rescued the Quagmire triplets,’ or at least ‘The Baudelaires were delighted to see that the hallway led straight to Veblen Hall, where the In Auction was taking place.’ But the end of the hallway proved to be as mysterious and worrisome as the rest of it.”

Similar to how Snicket defines words throughout the book, this section is another version of wordplay that calls to how the use of different languages both creates barriers and breaks down walls. Regardless of what language the Baudelaires might speak, their thoughts are the same—they are hoping that they will find good fortune at the end of the underground tunnel.

“The small wooden box is one of my most prized possessions, because when the lock is opened according to the code, a small silver key may be found inside, and this key fits the lock on one of my other most prized possessions, which is a slightly larger wooden box given to me by a woman whom my grandfather always refused to speak about. Inside this slightly larger wooden box is a roll of parchment, a word which here means ‘some very old paper printed with a map of the city at the time when the Baudelaire orphans lived in it.’”

This passage also offers additional context into Snicket’s identity and life. His description of sleepless nights suggests his life holds much strife and that he is haunted by the events that have befallen the Baudelaire children.

“Several years before the Baudelaires were born, Veblen Hall won the prestigious Door Prize, an award given each year to the city’s best-constructed opening, and if you ever find yourself standing in front of Veblen Hall, as the Baudelaire orphans did that morning, you will immediately see why the committee awarded the shiny pink trophy to the door’s polished wooden planks, its exquisite brass hinges and its gorgeous, shiny doorknob, fashioned out of the world’s second-finest crystal.”

Snicket pokes fun at the phrase “door prize,” which typically means a prize that is randomly awarded to someone who attends an event. Snicket makes the phrase literal here by having it awarded to a prestigious and lavish door, which additionally offers context to the In Auction. Like Dark Street, Veblen Hall is a place for the rich as seen by the description of its door and, later, its decorative insides.

“‘Please, Lot #48,’ Gunther announced. His shiny eyes regarded the crowd from behind his monocle, but he did not appear to spot the Baudelaires. ‘Is large statue of fish, painted red, please. Very big, very in. Big enough to sleep inside this fish, if you are in the mood, please. Who bid?’”

Snicket introduces the fish statue that hints at what it is slowly so that the statue is not immediately obvious as a red herring literary device. Olaf’s comment that the fish is big enough to sleep in is another clue that the Quagmire triplets are inside and rendered unconscious.

“But your imaginings would be ersatz, as all imaginings are. They are as untrue as the ersatz auctioneer who found the Baudelaires at the Squalors’ penthouse, and the ersatz elevator outside their front door and the ersatz guardian who pushed them down the deep pit of the elevator shaft.”

Snicket’s use of “ersatz” so many times in this passage drives home the meaning of the word, as well as how many things in the story it applies to. Far from just the elevator shaft, the auctioneer (Olaf) and the Baudelaires’ guardians are also false, meaning their entire adventure has been spoiled by falsehoods.