Metanarration and the Reassessment of Narrative Information in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events

Abstract

Abstract: Notwithstanding that scholarly discussions generally commend the deployment of metafictive techniques in children's literature, metafiction's subversive edge is blunted in those children's books that depict the solace offered by books as the panacea for all the conflicts within a given narrative. That said, as Joe Sutliff Sanders contends, it is possible for a children's book to highlight the salvific power of books while encouraging close reading. In A Series of Unfortunate Events (1999–2006), written by Daniel Handler using the pseudonym Lemony Snicket, the defamiliarized relationship between metanarrative signifiers and their referents induces readers to adopt a critical approach toward Snicket's story. Drawing on Gerald Prince's theory of metanarrative signs, the present study explores the ways in which Handler's exploitation of metanarrative space destabilizes the narrative methods incorporated in his own story, thereby propelling readers to consider forming a more interrogative relationship with books and fictional narratives.