A God Amongst Men: A Study in how Religious Parallels in Süskind’s ‘Perfume’ Foreshadow Grenouille’s Downfall.
Pip sits down to read while violent tumults of rain and furious gusts of wind blow over his small town. “So furious had been the gusts” that “trees had been torn up, and sails of windmills carried away.” From the coast stories of “shipwreck and death” come in. (Dickens 334) Charles Dicken’s Pip sees this storm strip apart his town in the midst of his story. The dark and vehement tone the weather sets, juxtaposed with Pip’s easy going disposition up to that point in the novel, foreshadow Pip’s angst to come. This foreshadowing motif is brought back later in the novel when Pip meets the convict, who gave him his fortune, for the second time on a night wrought with storm. This foreshadowing is synonymous with the kind used in Patrick Süskind’s Perfume in that it eventually spells out the main character’s downfall. In Perfume Grenouille’s downfall is foreshadowed through the motif of Christ parallels. The Christ parallels find their introduction, not in the beginning …show more content…
Süskind shows what appears at first to be a difference between Grenouille and those who are religious. They retreat into solitude in search of “some divine message that they hope then speedily to broadcast among mankind.” (Süskind 123) However immediately following this Süskind uses the narrator to show that Grenouille wants “not a cranny left into which he had not thrown a seed of fragrance.” This is Grenouille’s “divine message.” Comparatively, Christ’s divine message, that he was the son of God, leads to Christs crucifixion in front of thousands of onlookers. Süskind follows this by showing us that whatever satisfaction Grenouille may get from accomplishing his ultimate goal will be lost as “all the works once finished” “begins to bore [him].” (Süskind
Pip sits down to read while violent tumults of rain and furious gusts of wind blow over his small town. “So furious had been the gusts” that “trees had been torn up, and sails of windmills carried away.” From the coast stories of “shipwreck and death” come in. (Dickens 334) Charles Dicken’s Pip sees this storm strip apart his town in the midst of his story. The dark and vehement tone the weather sets, juxtaposed with Pip’s easy going disposition up to that point in the novel, foreshadow Pip’s angst to come. This foreshadowing motif is brought back later in the novel when Pip meets the convict, who gave him his fortune, for the second time on a night wrought with storm. This foreshadowing is synonymous with the kind used in Patrick Süskind’s Perfume in that it eventually spells out the main character’s downfall. In Perfume Grenouille’s downfall is foreshadowed through the motif of Christ parallels. The Christ parallels find their introduction, not in the beginning …show more content…
Süskind shows what appears at first to be a difference between Grenouille and those who are religious. They retreat into solitude in search of “some divine message that they hope then speedily to broadcast among mankind.” (Süskind 123) However immediately following this Süskind uses the narrator to show that Grenouille wants “not a cranny left into which he had not thrown a seed of fragrance.” This is Grenouille’s “divine message.” Comparatively, Christ’s divine message, that he was the son of God, leads to Christs crucifixion in front of thousands of onlookers. Süskind follows this by showing us that whatever satisfaction Grenouille may get from accomplishing his ultimate goal will be lost as “all the works once finished” “begins to bore [him].” (Süskind