Imagery In Perfume

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind contains a story based around olfactory sense. Scent is very important to the book, since it plays a role in the irony, character development, and imagery of the plot. Sükind uses the theme of scent to portray a message about the nature of identity. Throughout Perfume, Sükind expresses his belief that a sense of identity is important to have and should be searched for instead of following society using symbols, character development, and the outcome of his story
From the moment Jean-Baptiste Grenouille was born in fish guts, to the time he died doused in his master perfume, Grenouille seeked out scents. Scent is a very important symbol to Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. With scent, Grenouille …show more content…
While trying to create a human odor, Grenouille describes the scent, "...There was a basic perfumatory theme to the odor of humanity, a rather simple one, by the way: a sweaty oily, sour-cheese, quite richly repulsive basic theme that clung to all humans equally..."(Süskind 149). From this, one can see how he believed that most humans and humanity were repulsive and how it was easy it was for him to make the perfume for a generic human odor. This is caused from the way he was brought up and the people he met. Everyone he met either pushed him away or used him for their selfish needs. One can conclude that Süskind uses scent to represent identity and from Grenouille 's experience, most humans he met had foul identities. Second, Süskind uses the symbol of a tick to describe Grenouille and his need for an identity. Süskind uses a dark tone while describing Grenouille 's way of life by comparing him to a tick, “ He was as tough as a resistant bacterium and as content as a tick sitting quietly on a tree and living off a tiny drop of blood plundered years before… He was an abomination from the start. He decided in favor of life out of sheer spite and cheer malice.” …show more content…
From the beginning Grenouille lacked a scent and that showed how he was already alienating himself. Though throughout his childhood, he never had a figure to look up to and follow, instead he was constantly moving around. Additionally, the people who took care of him were never kind and showed no love towards him. After Grenouille recovered, the narrator brings Baldini’s intention to light, “He was after all only an apprentice, which was to say, a nobody. Strictly speaking, as Baldini explained to him--this was after he had overcome his initial joy at Grenouille 's resurrection--strictly speaking, he was less than a nobody.” (Süskind 106). This shows Baldini only used him for his selfish needs, and only concern when Grenouille was dying was how he would keep his business thriving. Because of this terrible treatment, Grenouille begins to believe that he his life had less value than other humans. When Grenouille finally finds someone who smells pure, it sparks his need for an identity. His idea for his identity began to grow when he found and killed the first girl with the beautiful scent. From taking someone’s life for his own need, he begins to see himself as higher than humans. In search of different ways to capture scents, he began to travel to Grasse. Grenouille noticed how much cleaner the air was without human’s corrupted scent. He hides in a cave and begins to manifest an identity for