Gothic Elements in “A Series of Unfortunate Events”. The novels vs. the Netflix TV series

Abstract

The Gothic emerged as a special literary genre undeniably fascinating the public through its catchy fiction sometimes synonymous with horror, flavoured with interesting characters and sensitive themes, bearing strong marks of the historical, cultural and social environments which produced it. Gradually, the genre infiltrated children’s literature as well, where it was initially received with controversial reactions, involving parents’ criticism and rejection, on the one hand, and children’s interest on the other, yet proving that the evolution of the genre is undeniable, expanding with works especially addressing non-adult readers. Furthermore, the screening of Gothic works increased the visibility of the genre especially among the young public who, in the last decades, has become less interested in reading. It appears that this intriguing fiction, with its surprising, often terrifying features, sparks even more interest for the fresh minds of children and teens. The adolescent becomes a specific literary target, having a typical role as a character, both in major canonical works of fiction and in esoteric texts, which targets a smaller audience, usually young, which serves as a subject to test the effect of how the Gothic literature influence them. The novel series entitled “A Series of Unfortunate Events” contains thirteen books written by the American writer Daniel Handler, known by the reader public under the penname of Lemony Snicket; it is one of the most intriguing and read, being translated into 41 languages and sold in more than 60 million copies. The books in the series have been classified in many ways, as belonging to the Gothic, to absurdist fiction, or being labelled as mystery, comedy drama and children’s fiction literature. Yet, as this paper attempts to prove, the series displays many characteristic tropes of Gothic fiction, hence it is best approached through the conventions of this genre. Centred on the hopeless story of three orphans, segmented in thirteen parts, full of symbols, mystery and terrifying fiction, the novel series encourages the adolescent to mature and break away with the inevitable fears all of us have. Their early age and lack of maturity, their sensitivity are tested to the extreme limit. More recently, the Netflix film series with the same name, developed by the novelist himself in collaboration with others, also received high attention from the TV public. In this context, I took up the challenge of identifying Gothic narrative elements, as well as highlighting differences between the first four novels and the first season of the film series and this thesis was accordingly developed