Comparing Baudelaire's The Dog And The Scent-Bottle

11) In “The Dog and the Scent-Bottle” (12), Baudelaire utilizes symbolism to communicate his discontentment with the general population, more particularly with its incapacity to treasure and respect the finer things in life in the result of the ever-changing cycle of the Modern Age. In the prose poem, the narrator gives a dog a whiff of “an excellent perfume purchased from the best perfumer in the city,” which speak on behalf of the lavishness and high culture that Paris offers to the public. The dog, representing the public, inches toward the bottle anxiously, tail wagging, before “recoiling in terror” and barking “by way of reproach” at the perfume, depicting the public as uncultured, ignorant and unappreciative of such privileges. This can correlate with the idea that people are becoming more distasteful to what is truly important from lack of morals, brought on by modern simplistic values.
12) I agree with Baudelaire's assessment of the modern human condition where the only reason we don't kill is because we are cowards and won't go out and commit slaughters. In the last stanza of the poem, Baudelaire points out, that it is not only him and the people he speaks of in the poem but also us …show more content…
than the heart of a mortal)." All he sees now is the disarray of the city's remaking, from platform to broken columns. Baudelaire at that point juxtaposes the unadulterated however overturned picture of a white swan with the dull, broken picture of the city. The swan asks the sky for rain yet gets no answer. The speaker constrains himself to grasp the new city yet can't overlook the hopeless figure of the swan and also the destiny of Andromache, who was seized not long after her significant other's