Perfume Suskind Sparknotes

In his novel, Perfume, Suskind, a German author mocking French culture, places Grenouille in the care of Madame Gaillard, a widow who runs an orphanage outside of Paris, for the majority of his childhood. Suskind satirizes French culture through Grenouille’s lack of positive experience at the orphanage, emphasizing the ignorance and greed that plagued their society.
To start, Susskind introduces Madame Gaillard, one of the greediest people Grenouille encounters throughout his entire life. “Even when it was a matter of life and death” (p 9), Madame Gaillard only spent half of her fees on the children keeping the other half for herself, is ironic because if those children died due to her greed invalidating her compassion, she would lose the
income that they provided, therefore making the point mute. Having the only significant parent figure in Grenouille’s life indifferent toward a child’s death and refusing to pay more to keep them alive helps Susskind reveal the greed in society. Suskind displays the ignorance of the people in France, especially the women, because if Madame Gaillard was smart she would adapt to the times, and in hard times her focus would revolve around keeping the children alive and well, so she would not lose her sources of income. That way when prices went back down she could possibly make more money to spend on “her own private and sheltered death” (p 13), an overall unrealistic hope for her retirement. Instead Suskind molds Madame Gaillard’s character to closely resemble the French government during the time of the novel. The monarchy in France paid very little attention to the changing wills of the people during the Enlightenment period, choosing to focus on their own greedy ambitions, which inevitably lead to the French revolution and the down fall of the French monarchy. Susskind makes this connection to further satirize the French culture in both the cases of Madame Gaillard and the French monarchy, ultimately conveying how their stubbornness leads to their untimely demise. If both Madame Gaillard and the French government willingly adapted to the people under their responsibilities, Madame Gaillard would make enough money to fulfill her dreams of death and the French revolution may not necessarily have been needed change the government to fit the “rapid transformation of all social, moral, and transcendental affairs” (p 13).
In old French society, it was very easy to be a bad mother, because if one were not the perfect mother, then they were the worst.
Since Madame Gaillard took in children that were not her own, she was not seen as a mother figure even though she cared for children. Without the label of mother, Madame Gaillard managed to mistreat the children under “her ward” (p 12) without care or scrutiny from the outside world. Madame Gaillard’s title as a care giver to many children, not mother, should not have allowed Madame Gaillard to get away with the lack of care and her indifference towards the state of the children’s’ wellbeing and continued to run an orphanage full of neglected children. Suskind emphasizes the neglect the children receive to further introduce the ignorance of French society. Whom should have had something to say about the woman raising the next generation, treating her wards as animals who would endure whatever happened to them during hard times, just because she refused to spend a penny more. The societies indifference to Gaillard’s methods of raising their children helps Susskind emphasize their ignorance and greed. If the people were not ignorant and understood that the harsh environment Gaillard creates a lasting negative effect on the children, the next generation of French society, the adults may put the children in a more stable, warm home that they required. However, due to their greed the parents and adults became indifferent to the treatment of the
children because Madame Gaillard’s orphanage was cheap and never raised prices even “in hard times” (p. 9), which meant that it was the easiest and most logical place to send children with ease because of its low price to keep their children, despite its lack of the nurturing environment children need. Suskind’s portrayal of the children’s harsh experience at Madame Gaillard’s orphanage resembles that of the peasants of France during the Enlightenment. He highlights the fact that Madame Gaillard refused to give her children anything more during hard times, to parallel her actions to that of the French government, who also refused to feed its starving subjects, emphasizing the ignorance of the French during the Age of Enlightenment.
A person’s childhood largely contributes to the shaping of one’s adulthood, because people tend to model themselves after the significant figures in their lives as Grenouille did to Madame Gaillard.
Growing up in the hostile environment of Madame Gaillard’s orphanage negatively affected every child who lived there, but especially Grenouille. However, the rest of the children had each other to rely on when they needed somebody. In contrast, Grenouille relied on no one for the most part because, his only genuine human interaction was with Madame Gaillard herself, although she could not really be considered human as she did not have a bone of compassion in her body, the only thing she cared about was achieving her dreams of retirement. Madame Gaillard would take in any stray child “as long as someone paid for them…” (p. 9), her only compassion toward the children under her care focused around the source of income they provided, not their well-being. Driven by her life’s desires, she and cared very little for the affect she had on those around her, Grenouille adopts this idealology from her, he cares very little for the effects that his quest for the ultimate perfume has on others around him, and an overall distaste for people in general. All of this seemed the normal way to treat others to Grenouille, because growing up he received that same cold distance between himself and humanity from Madame Gaillard and the orphans. This helps Suskind emphasize the greed in society
because if Madame Gaillard regarded the children under her ward as more than merely a source of income, and shown some sort of compassion towards them, Grenouille would not copy the same cold and uncaring feelings towards the effect he creates on those around him, instead feeling something other than his own greed. Madame Gaillard’s lack of compassion toward the children under her care very closely resembles that of the Monarchy in 18th century France. Leading up to the French revolution, the King of France at the time heavily taxed his subjects, with no regard to the state of their wellbeing, and spent the royal funds on building large palaces and throwing lavish parties that there was no money for. Suskind drew this connection to further satirize the French government during the Age of Enlightenment, the author successfully characterizes Madame Gaillard as a greedy elderly woman, similar to how the people viewed the French monarchy during the Age of Enlightenment.
Madame Gaillard’s orphanage in Patrick Suskind’s Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, serves as a parallel to the many issues seen in France during the age of enlightenment, a time of supposed change and progress for French society. Madame Gaillard’s stubbornness and refusal to alter herself and her ways of running the orphanage parallel the refusal of the French government to adapt itself to the ideals of the Age of Enlightenment, emphasizing their ignorance as seen through the French Revolution and Madame Gaillard’s dream coming to an abrupt halt. Suskind’s portrayal of French society satirizes their culture making them appear ignorant to the changing tides. However, as an outsider to French culture and a German author writing during the period directly following World War Two writing about 18th century France, his work accurately highlights the underlying issues of their society.