In The Wide Window, the Baudelaire children are sent off to live with a timid, grammar-obsessed distant relative in a house precariously situated on the side of a cliff, above a lake infested with carnivorous leeches.

This instalment has a particularly melancholy tone, which is embodied in particular in the great use of ominous language in the place names — Lake Lachrymose, the Curdled Cave, the Fickle Ferry — and in the caretaker Aunt Josephine, who, like the Baudelaires, has suffered a terrible bereavement in the death of her husband, and is subsequently frightened of meeting harm through everything from the doormat to the oven. Since her husband was eaten alive by the lachrymose leeches, she has a particular fear of the lake, which she used to love. She tries to engage with the children and give them toys and grammar lessons, but although well-meaning is not really able to relate to them.

Josephine’s character encapsulates the complexities of the messaging well: although well-meaning and a sympathetic character, her portrayal as a grammar stickler and sort of fuddy-duddy is negative, despite similar intellectual traits otherwise being framed positively throughout the series. I think the author respects intellectualism, but only if it’s used in creative and intrepid ways — someone as prescriptive and patronising as Aunt Josephine is too much of a bore to be a quirky intellectual, as opposed to a character like Klaus, who is bookish but constantly applies his learning to new endeavours. The book sends the message that Josephine’s narrow, restricted, fearful existence is not the best way to live life; certain risks always have to be taken just to get through the day. Ultimately, although Aunt Josephine, like Mr. Poe, cares about the children to some extent, she lacks the instinct and courage to preserve the children’s safety in the face of danger, so ultimately they are left to fend for themselves once again.