The Reptile Room

Klaus Baudelaire, at age 12, is the middle Baudelaire sibling. He is intelligent and resourceful like his older sister, but his strongest area of intelligence differs from hers. Klaus is especially interested in reading books and doing research, which means he has an incredible volume of information in his memory, as well as the ability to find new information quickly. The fact that Klaus and Violet have different strengths benefits them immensely, allowing one to think of solutions when the other is struggling. They both contribute to problems in different ways and can solve them when working together.

To get rid of Count Olaf and expose him as Uncle Monty’s murderer, while Violet seeks evidence of Count Olaf’s murder weapons, Klaus rapidly reads information about the snake that supposedly killed Uncle Monty. As in the first book in the series, Klaus manages to find key information that saves the day. His forcefulness and willingness to interrupt adults also help Violet as they present their final evidence.

Sunny Baudelaire is the youngest Baudelaire sibling, a baby whose exact age is not specified. Violet and Klaus are both especially well-informed, wise, responsible, and independent for their ages, but Sunny’s abilities are so advanced as to seem cartoonish, often providing comic relief while also making valuable contributions to the siblings’ survival efforts. Sunny is loving, friendly, and excitable, but she also loves biting things (including evil people) and playing tricks on adults. Because of these characteristics, she often creates diversions while her siblings solve problems, like in this novel when she pretends to be struggling against the Incredibly Deadly Viper, who is actually friendly and not deadly at all (unbeknownst to Mr. Poe). This distraction allows Violet time to obtain evidence to expose Count Olaf.

Sunny’s capacity to communicate depends mainly on Lemony Snicket, who roughly translates her baby talk into English. The translations suggest that Sunny seems to understand everything her siblings and other adults say. Despite being the youngest sibling, Sunny does not necessarily seem more vulnerable than her older siblings. Her bite is powerful, and she prefers hard foods like raw carrots and can cut through rope. In the end, she uses her teeth to tear the false arm off Dr. Lucafont, who she alone has apparently recognized as Count Olaf’s minion.

Lemony Snicket is the pen name under which A Series of Unfortunate Events is published; the author’s real name is Daniel Handler. Lemony Snicket is also the name of the novel’s narrator, creating the metafictional illusion that the narrator is close to the events in the novel and that the events in the novel are real. However, for the most part, Snicket functions as an external narrator rather than an internal narrator, meaning he is not present in the main plot of this novel. He continually interjects with commentary on the story, warnings about how sad it is, definitions of words, lessons on literary devices, allusions to other stories, foreshadowing, spoilers, and exposition of the novel’s morals. All of these interjections contribute to the metafictional elements of the text while allowing the series to serve a pedagogical function for young readers. Students can benefit from reading the series by learning about literary devices like symbolism, dramatic irony, foreshadowing, and figurative language as well as how to use context clues to discern the meaning of vocabulary words.

Like many narrators from the Victorian period, Snicket also directly addresses the reader as “you” throughout the text. This heightens the metafictional illusion and makes it seem like the reader is almost part of the story. Some narrative theorists argue that readers really are part of texts since the text doesn’t mean much until someone reads it: The writer and reader make meaning together, rather than the writer making meaning alone. The reader participates in solving mysteries but also, in this case, is constantly warned to put the book down and “please read something else,” as the fake blurb on the back cover says. This technique also creates humor; although the Baudelaires do encounter great misfortune, these books are not truly traumatic to read, and there is comic relief throughout.

Mr. Poe, a friend of the Baudelaires’ deceased parents, is responsible for finding the children’s new guardian and ensuring their well-being. Mr. Poe is a banker and always has a cough. He is kind and wants to help, but he is usually oblivious to problems and easily deceived by appearances. He fails to listen to the children until it’s too late, not taking them seriously and dismissing them as confused, distraught, lying, or rude (especially when he perceives them as interrupting). Mr. Poe is the primary character who illustrates the motif of oblivious adults. In a society where adults often fail to take children seriously, it’s easy for the Baudelaires’ concerns to be overlooked.

Mr. Poe’s name is an allusion to Edgar Allan Poe, a gothic writer of fiction and poetry who wrote prior to and during the Victorian time period, although he was American and not British, so his work is not classified as “Victorian gothic.” Allusions are references to other literary works or authors that are meant to contribute to the mood or tone of the present text by drawing the reader’s attention to other familiar texts. Some of Poe’s most famous works include “The Fall of the House of Usher” (1839), “The Raven” (1845), “The Tell-Tale Heart” (1843), “Annabel Lee” (1849), and “The Premature Burial” (1844). Recurring themes and motifs in his work include premature death, being buried alive, illness, grief, loss, and tragedy. Mr. Poe’s name is therefore meant to let the reader know that these motifs and themes will also be present in this series, perhaps particularly due to Mr. Poe’s obliviousness.

Uncle Monty, or Dr. Montgomery Montgomery, is the Baudelaire children’s new guardian in The Reptile Room. He is a distant relative they’ve never met before, so the children are anxious when they arrive at his intimidating home, which is surrounded by snake-shaped hedges. However, Uncle Monty is exceptionally kind and attentive, which is a pleasant surprise, especially after the children’s experiences with Count Olaf as their last guardian. Uncle Monty is also smart and quirky, like the Baudelaires, making it easy for them to respect and get along with him beyond basic pleasantries.

Uncle Monty’s occupation as a herpetologist is highly symbolic because snakes can be both dangerous and harmless, depending on one’s knowledge about the snake. Ironically, despite Monty’s insistence that it’s safe for him to work with even deadly or poisonous snakes because he takes the proper safety precautions, snake venom ends up being what kills him. However, Monty wasn’t exactly wrong about the danger level of his particular profession; a snake, at least a literal snake, was not responsible. Instead, Monty was too trusting of the metaphorical “snake” Count Olaf, who is the real culprit behind Monty’s murder, which he accomplished using a syringe and vial of snake venom. Monty’s downfall was similar to the obliviousness of Mr. Poe, namely that he failed to listen to the children, assuming that the children could not possibly have to say something more important than his adult concerns.

Even though Uncle Monty tragically dies, the children are thankful for the transformative (if brief) time they spent with him. Violet remarks at one point that after her parents’ death, she never thought she would heal, but with Uncle Monty, she was able to enjoy life again. The other siblings agree that Uncle Monty was brilliant in terms of his intelligence as well as how he “lit up” their lives with joy. After the first novel, the children had trouble trusting anyone else besides themselves, but after their experience with Uncle Monty, they at least see the potential for happy times with other people, even if the menace of Count Olaf still lurks somewhere out there.

Count Olaf is the main villain throughout A Series of Unfortunate Events, including in The Reptile Room. In The Bad Beginning, Mr. Poe selects Count Olaf, supposedly a distant relative, to care for the Baudelaire children after their parents’ death. Count Olaf is an actor, albeit not a great one, though he is incredibly pompous and loves bragging. He wants to be rich and famous, but he is also cruel, abusive, greedy, and violent. He doesn’t actually care for the children at all but is after the fortune their parents left for them to inherit when Violet reaches adulthood. Although legal ramifications prevent him from murdering the children outright, or at least from murdering all three of them at once, Count Olaf will do anything to secure the fortune, even if it means harming or killing others. Count Olaf also leads a theater group of other actors who serve as his minions and assist in his various evil plots to steal the fortune and commit other crimes. In the first book, Count Olaf has a unibrow, a shaved face, and a tattoo of an eyeball on his ankle.

Count Olaf’s plot to marry Violet and gain early access to the fortune fails in the first book, but he returns in The Reptile Room, this time wearing a disguise and posing as “Stephano,” a new assistant to Dr. Montgomery. This character is one of several alter egos that Count Olaf creates throughout the series, each time managing to trick all the adults around, albeit never the Baudelaires. The ease with which Count Olaf repeatedly finds the Baudelaire children, fools the adults, and nearly pulls off his plan highlights The Vulnerability of Children.