The Wide Window

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death and death by suicide.

Lake Lachrymose functions as a symbol of the danger and anguish waiting for the Baudelaires. Early in the novel, the lake plays an important role in establishing the novel’s mock-gothic atmosphere. “Lachrymose” is an unlikely and humorous name for a body of water, but the word also implies that excessive sorrow is part of the Baudelaire children’s very environment. Lemony Snicket’s descriptions of the lake stress its darkness and depth over and over, and the lake features sites like the “Wicked Whirlpool” and the “Rancorous Rocks” (149). It is the location of Curdled Cave, which is a terrifying vision with “jagged rocks all over it like teeth in the mouth of a shark” and twisted rock formations inside that look like “moldy milk” (152). Lake Lachrymose has already been the site of tragedy: Josephine’s husband, Ike, died there. The manner of his death is in keeping with the lake’s mock-gothic nature, as Ike was, comically and improbably, killed by vicious carnivorous leeches. In Chapter 2, the Baudelaires look down at the lake from the library window and feel a foreboding that “misfortune would soon befall them” (35).