World Literature Assignment 2B

A creative piece on the abstract nature and judgement of

Grenouille in Patrick Suskinds Perfume

Yuan Zhe (Tim) Feng

Candidate #: 0148-009
Mountain Secondary School
School Number: 0148
English A1 HL
May 2012
Word Count:1480

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Statement of Intent:

Patrick Suskinds Perfume chronicles the journey of a gifted and abominable

personage(Suskind, 1), Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, through his life in search for a personal
identity through his incredible ability of scent. Multiple literary devices and styles are used by
Suskind to depict the epic of the bizarre, scentless protagonist. In this creative piece, Ive
attempted to use Suskinds omniscient, third person narrative voice, extended and vivid
descriptions, metaphors, as well as incorporating thematic values to help further develop the
character of Grenouille.
Grenouille is a character infatuated with scent since his eventful upbringing. He was
born on the most putrid spot in the whole kingdom on one of the hottest days of the
year(Suskind, 4), to an unmarried mother who attempted to commit infanticide but was then
caught and executed. It must be noted that since Suskind was German, and the setting of
Perfume was in France. Given the general distain which the Germans and the French have for
one another, the setting of the largest city in France, Paris, is described by Suskind in Perfume
as the stench being the foulest. Grenouille possesses an extraordinary olfactory sense, which
contradicts the fact that he has no smell of his own. It presents the irony that the man with the
most powerful gift in the olfactory world actually entitles himself to no place in the olfactory
world, signifying an absence of individual identity.(Adams) Therefore, his quest is to capture
all scents in the world which inspired love and become the greatest perfumer of all
time(Suskind, 44) with the hope that the scent he creates will present himself with an identity.
In order to capture the scents, he extract(s) and blend(s) the corporeal scent of young virginal
women he murders.(Adams) Suskind uses an omniscient, third person view in order to

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separate the reader from Grenouille. Grenouilles perceptions are distorted by the power of his
olfactory sense, and therefore his perceptions cannot genuinely define his character nor can
they provide an insight on the society.
The irony presented in this passage alludes to the many ironies which Suskind uses in
Perfume to illustrate the inaccuracy of human judgement. Suskinds view on the Enlightenment
thinking contributes greatly to the portrayal of judgement in this novel. The novel itself has
been described as an indictment of Enlightenment rationality, contradicting the
Enlightenment idea that actions are guided by reason, logic and science instead of supernatural
powers. This is evident through the portrayal of Richis, who is the father of one of Grenouilles
victims. Richis tries to prevent the murder of his daughter through great depth in analysis of the
murderer, and arrives very near the truth, which is that the murderer is trying to reproduce
absolute beauty not of human, but of divine origin; however, Richis only considers the
reasonable and logical explanation, that the beauty of the visual rather than the olfactory,
leading to Suskind describing him as an enlgihtented thinker who did not shrink from
blasphemous conclusions.(Suskind, 203) This is a commentary by Suskind on how the
Enlightenment thinking causes a fundamental misunderstanding, if not a perversion, of the
creative process.(Adams) Similarily, in this passage, Grenouille relies so heavily on his olfactory
sense that his creative process is only based on scent and nothing else. As a result, his
judgement regarding the origin of the scent is inaccurate.
Grenouille is frequently referred to by Suskind as an insect, specifically the tick. The tick
is an insect which waits often prolonged periods of time for a victim to land upon and draw

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blood. In parallel, when Grenouille encounters the plum girl, who carried a scent described by
Grenouille as being the higher principle and pure beauty(Suskind, 42), he slowly
approached the girl, closer and closer, stepped under the overhanging roof, and halted one
step behind her. (Suskind, 42) He possesses the same parasitic characteristics, (living)
encapsulated in himself and (waiting) for better times, giving the world nothing but his
dung.(Suskind, 22)
Grenouilles actions are often purely guided by the dominance of his olfactory sense. His
sense of smell is so strong that he did not need to see, as the scent led him firmly.(Suskind,
40) However, this creates a dependence of Grenouille on his smell to perceive the world.
Grenouilles perception of the plum girl, whom he describes as never in all his life seen
anything so beautiful, is only limited to scent. When he strangles the girl due his extreme
infatuation with her scent, he did not look at her, and (kept) his eyes closed tight, because
his one concern was to not lose the least trace of her scent.(Suskind, 42) By the end of the
day, he could no longer recall how the girlhad looked, not her face, not her body.(Suskind,
44)The beauty which Grenouille describes is not physical or aesthetic beauty, but instead
olfactory beauty. In Grenouilles world, the identity of a person is determined by his/her scent.
However, in the real world, this does not and cannot represent ones identity, because scent
itself is not enough to determine the personalities and finer nuances of an entity on the level of
sophistication of a human.

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Creative Portion:
The olfactory mist wandered around Grenouille, covering him with the power of
inconspicuousness. Grenouille was no longer an entity without a smell, nor something that conjured fear
into those around him; he now merely embodied something that is negligible and entitles itself to no
significant role - a fly amidst a repulsive Paris food market smelling of souring milk and rotting meat.
No one noticed the abhorrently smelling scent manifested by the tick, as it was neither distinct
nor was it subtle or nonexistent. He smelled his way around town, seeking for any glimpses of aweinspiring beings. Others were only befuddled at Grenouille; he protruded his nose, enlarged and
contracted his nostrils, face bent forward directing his every move-no disdain, no disgust. None felt the
need to inquire Grenouille on his peculiar behaviour in broad daylight.
He traveled seamlessly in the crowds, the center of all the olfactory concoction. He panted, out
of breath in the thick air. Beyond the rancid smell of sweat and cheese of the people, the tumulous
amounts of trash, the moist and pungent smell of animal excrement, the occasionally floral smell of
jasmine and daisy, there was nothing, nothing at all. Even amongst the mess, all was dull and without
character, and failed to derive any interest at all, boring Grenouille to the point that he did not want to
endure the moronic and monotonous interactions, even if they were purely scent.
He walked outside of town, hoping a heavenly scent would soon reach him; here the olfactory
chaos was less severe. His shoes were worn to the brim of existence, his toes squeezed through at the
tear on the front. The coarse gravel slowly cut and bruised Grenouilles thin layer of skin, the dried and
scaly layer that lacks any form of hygiene; but that was the last thing he could care for. His main priority
was to find that the ever elusive scent of love he so ambitiously desired, and harness the scent for all its
worth.

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As he passed a stable, a warm breeze carried to Grenouille a rather mesmerizing scent. He
ignored all the commonplace scents of horse manure, and the smell of leaf and bark in the forest nearby
that came along with the breeze, and simply focused on the high note midst the orchestra of bass. The
scent smelled of cooked olives and freshly picked flowers, with a slight hint of various aged but delicate
spices. It was a scent that was comparable to the plum girl, perhaps a few years older, but yet came
nowhere close to rivalling it. It was a youthful yet mature scent, but also carried so much potential that
even Grenouille himself did not have the slightest idea when this scent could ever peak. It would be his
lifes biggest regret to prematurely harvest a scent that could have surpassed that of the plum girl. The
time needed for the scent to completely reach its peak might be past Grenouilles lifetime; he wouldnt
dare to wait that long.
Grenouille simply stood outside the stable house for ten minutes or so, unmoving and indecisive.
People continuously walked by, without any question or attention towards Grenouille. They brushed
past him as if he existed as part of nature itself, and simply were oblivious that Grenouille had stood
outside the entrance to the stable house without a sound or movement.
The sun neared the end of its run, and Grenouille too headed back. He only had the slightest
recollection of the days occurrences. As Grenouille walked away, the door to the stable house opened.
An old hag, looking about in her late sixties, walked out with a bucket of full of water which she hauls
into the horses trough.

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Bibliography
S skind Patrick Perfume: the Story of a Murderer. Trans. John E. Woods. Camberwell, Vic.:
Penguin, 2003. Print
Adams, Jeffrey. "Narcissism and Creativity in the Postmodern Era: The Case of Patrick
Suskind's Das Parfum." Germanic Review. 75.4 (2000): 259. Print.