Analysis Of Patrick Süskind's Perfume

“If you had to give up one of your senses, which would it be? Most people would choose the sense of smell or taste; no one ever chooses sight or hearing” (Maitland 84). As humans, we often fail to recognize the enchanting power smell holds. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, was set in 18th century France, where living in the midst of filth and degradation was commonplace. As Patrick Süskind, a contemporary German writer, tells the story of Grenouille, a boy without a scent who becomes a psychopath with an extraordinary gift, we learn that the sense of smell is truly influential. Through intense imagery, Süskind’s Perfume conveys to the reader how essential and captivating the sense of smell truly is.
In Perfume, scent is portrayed supernaturally. …show more content…
Grenouille was born with no personal scent, allows him to know to some extent the underlying power of scent, but just like the masses, he too is affected by scent. One sniff of the girl in Paris leads him to throw away all sense and take life away from this young girl. He sees her sweat as a fresh sea breeze, the tallow of her hair as nut oil, her genitals as water lilies, and her skin as apricot blossoms. To him, her scent was so rich, magical, and harmonious that everything else is meaningless (41). He acts irrationally and it is the beginning of his demise. Scent is so manipulative even Grenouille, the man who thinks he is insusceptible to its effects, does not know that while he surrounds himself with scent, it permeates his every being. Lack of scent causes his body to break out in hundreds of erupting pus-filled blisters (100); and when Baldini instilled in him hope to chase this scent yet again, he sucks fluids back into himself and the erupting blisters began to dry out as he becomes well again. Just like the masses, Grenouille more than desires scent. He obsesses, he stalks, and he captures. Just like the masses, he murders. Just like the masses, he is illusioned by the appeal of …show more content…
It can elicit emotions and vivid memories. For example, the smell of cookies can elicit a childhood memory of baking cookies with your mother, or how the smell of fresh dew in the morning could remind you of the fresh air on a farm in the country. Like a male moth that can smell a female more than two miles away, Grenouille’s sense of smell leads him through the dark. He is well aware that “odors have a power of persuasion stronger than that of words, appearances, emotions, or will, that the persuasive power of an odor cannot be fended off, that it enters into us like breath into our lungs, it fills us up, imbues us totally, and there is no remedy for it” (Süskind