Perfume

Subconscious Thoughts;How dreams tie into PerfumeWorld Literature AssignmentJake Callizo00782 Ms. PereiraModesto High School Modesto, California, USAMay 25,2012 |

In Perfume: a story of Murder written by Patrick Suskind, the main character Grenouille is an extremely mental and obscure man. His extraordinary sense of smell leads him to be a bizarre and peculiar person. The subconscious thoughts and dreams Grenouille conjures immensely help the plot develop; it adds another side of the novel. Thriving and devouring off the scent of women and objects lead the way of the creation of his dreams. Conjuring himself as the master of a lavish purple castle and an array of imaginary servants who served him his book of scents, “They are carrying the book of odors on an invisible tray, and in their white-gloved, invisible hands they are carrying those precious bottles, they set them down, ever so carefully, they bow, and they disappear. (129)” Grenouille used these dreams as a way to evoke the past scents he smelled. Every smell he “drinks” reminds him of a life altering scent, “… A scent from the year 1752, sniffed up in spring, before sunrise of the Pont-Royal, his nose directed to the west, from where a light breeze bore the blended odors of sea and forest and a touch of the tarry smell of the barges tied up at the bank. (129)” These smells launch Grenouille out of the dark cave he is in and to a whole new place where it reminds him of the freedom he once had, instead of the new prison he has chosen to be sentenced to. These scents Grenouille protects are his favorites. Grenouille completely throws himself into the consumption of these scents so much he is on an almost high, “He was now scent-logged. His arms and legs grew heavier and heavier as they pressed into the cushions. His mind was wonderfully fogged. But it was not yet the end of his debauch. (130)”. The scents he delves into encourage him to go out and capture more.

Before Grenouille enters his oasis of a Purple castle, he first creates his own world as if he is God. Being God Grenouille has control over everything inside of his cave, “And Grenouille rose up---as noted---and shook the sleep from his limbs. He stood up, the great innermost Grenouille. Like a giant he planted himself, in all his glory and grandeur, splendid to look upon---damn shame that no one saw him! ---and looked about him, proud and majestic. (126)” Suskind uses this passage as a criticism of the Enlightenment. Perfume The story of a Murder as a whole is a satirical piece of work on the Enlightenment. The Age of Enlightenment, or simply the Enlightenment was a cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe and America, whose purpose was to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted science and intellectual interchange and opposed superstition. We see multiple examples in the novel of Suskind and his poking at the Enlightenment, to name one “fluidum letale Taillade” was an outrageous attempt to make something more important and highly impossible. When Grenouille is inside of his thoughts he is completely unaware of the happenings outside of his thoughts, “Meanwhile war raged in the world outside, a world war. Men fought in Silesia and Saxony, in Hanover and the Low Countries, in Bohemia and Pomerania. The king’s troops died in Hesse and Westphalia, on the Balearic Islands, in India, on the Mississippi and in Canada, if they had not already succumbed to typhoid on the journey. (132)”. From this quote we see that Suskind highly opposes the idea of war. He disagreed with the reason France entered the war, “… France of its colonial empire, and all the warring nations of so much money that they finally decided, with heavy hearts, to end it. (132)”. Grenouille spends seven years of his life inside that cave alone with all of his thoughts to himself. Seven is an extremely important in Catholicism faith. Going back to Suskind satire work he implements Grenouille in the role of God during the creation of the world. It is derived from the book of Genesis 1 in which God creates the world. Suskind directly repeats this important part of the bible, “And when he saw that it was good and that the whole earth was saturated with his divine Grenouille seeds, then Grenouille the Great let descend a shower of rectified spirit, soft and steady, and everywhere and overall the seed began to germinate and sprout, bringing forth shoots to gladden his heart. (126)”. The seven years Grenouille was in the cave was just like the seven days it took God to create the earth. Also in the Catholicism faith seven stands for the Seven Pillars of the House of Wisdom. But also the seven deadly sins: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride which are extremely frowned upon. is a classification of objectionable vices that have been used since early Christian times ``to educate and instruct Christians concerning fallen humanity's tendency to sin.