The Characterization Of Grenouille In Patrick Suskind's Perfume

Throughout the novel Perfume written by Patrick Suskind, Grenouille is likened to a tick which helps represent his character. Grenouille is shown as a complicated character that since the beginning of the novel was seen as a genius “In the eighteenth-century France there lived a man who was one of the most gifted and abominable personage in an era that knew no lack of talent” (3). As the reader reads the novel they have high expectations for the protagonist Grenouille and it might seem impossible to make a connection with a murderer who is being named to be talented and as it develops the plot and the motives of his invention are revealed. Suskind choose the analogy of a tick to describe Grenouille’s character in which he was shown as a determined

His motives would not have been straight forward with another description because the reader wouldn’t understand Grenouille’s point of view with his obsession. As Grenouille delivered the leather to Baldini he said “I want to work for you, here in your business. It was not spoken as a request, but as a demand: not was it really spoken, but squeezed out, hissed out in reptile fashion”(Sunkind pg.71). He was a demanding person whose only purpose of living was his perfume and due to his determination he was able to make it possible. As Grenouille opens the perfume bottle he was being hypnotized by the smell “An even as he spoke, the air around him was saturated with the odor of Amor and Psyche. Odors have a power of persuasion stronger than that of words, appearances, emotions, or will. The persuasives power of an odor cannot be fended off.” Sunkind pg.(82). The analogy of a tick makes Grenouille a more comprehended character and his feature of desperation is shown. Grenouille is someone who had the need of making his concoction in order to survive such as ticks need blood for their survival. Grenouilles motives with the analogy of a tick are more comprehensive and might help the reader to not think of him as a obsessive and weird person but someone who went through many traumas throughout his life and has made him the person he

Perfume took place in the 18th century in which the author present many issues such as there economic status and the social classes. The 18th century is known as the enlightenment years and author strongly described its serious conditions that seems to contradict a person 's perception to that time period. Ticks may be seen as a symbolic features in the novel because they can carry diseases and may affect others when they sting. In the beginning the setting was described to be unappealing “People stink of sweat and unwashed clothes; from their mouths came the stench of rotting teeth, from their bellies that of onions, and from their bodies, if they were no longer very young, came the stench of rancid cheese and sour milk and tomorouse disease”(Sunkind pg.3). Ticks are symbolic because it’s able to resemble the existence of diseases and deaths that happened throughout the book and Grenouilles concoction is like a disease that is contagious and carries on through the people that smell it making them be unable to be incontrol of their bodies. Both diseases carried by ticks and the concoction are seen as toxins that are within the humans body and is uncontrollable. As Grenouille opened the perfume bottle the townspeople acted in a abnormal way “The ten thousand men and women, children and patriarchs assembled