54 pages • 1 hour read
Patrick SüskindPerfume: The Story of a Murderer
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1985A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The Organic vs. the Crafted
Similar to considering nature vs. nurture when attempting to discern which aspects of Grenouille’s character are inborn and which are the result of years of abuse and neglect, the author focuses on the interplay between created and organic realities. On the one hand, there is something transcendent about the organic within the narrative, where those things which are “uncreated” have a special kind of power. People, first of all, are the most organic and are what Grenouille despises most of all. The organic is what Grenouille seeks to both capture and eliminate: destroying flowers for their scent, murdering animals to test his methods, and finally, murdering more than two dozen women in his ultimate pursuit of the perfect scent. The scents of the two girls—the girl with the plums, and Laure Richis—are, most purely, organic sources of attraction and hatred for Grenouille, who desires to possess and eliminate them simultaneously.
On the other hand, the crafted and created is most attractive to Grenouille as a final end. The organic—the flowers, the animals, the women—are merely means to a finely crafted and designed end. Grenouille is most at home with and most enjoys the process of creating a scent with his own power and out of his own genius. One could even say that Grenouille himself is a kind of pseudo-craft, as he proceeds to create himself in the image of the perfect citizen. Ultimately, he crafts perfumes that allow him to completely manipulate others to act precisely in the manner he wants them to.
Death of the Mentor
Every single mentor relationship that Grenouille develops results in the mentor’s death. His mother could be considered his first mentor, as life is dependent on mothers. His mother, though, is sentenced to death and executed for her choice to abandon him (and many previous children) in the fish market to die. With this, the first thing Grenouille learns in life is abandonment. Grimal, to whom he is sold upon leaving the orphanage, meets a swift death almost immediately after Grenouille leaves him to work for Baldini, drinking himself into a stupor and drowning in the river. While Grenouille enjoys a good working relationship with Baldini for the three years he spends there, Baldini meets his end the very night that Grenouille takes his leave when the bridge upon which his house and shop are built collapses, killing him and his wife together. Even Druot, who is a mentor in name alone, ends up paying the price for Grenouille’s crimes when he is accused of the murders after Grenouille’s escape.
In the classic hero’s journey, the hero gains insight, skills, or gifts from a mentor figure, allowing them to become independent and continue with their journey. Mentor figures also frequently die in heroes’ journeys, bolstering the hero’s commitment to their righteous cause. While each of Grenouille’s mentors teaches him useful skills like tanning or perfumery, they also influence Grenouille’s journey toward darkness and depravity: Grimal treats him as an object, buying, selling, and overworking him; Baldini takes credit for his work and uses him to rebuild his reputation; Druot lets him do all of the business’s work while he enjoys an idle life of pleasure. With this, their deaths also foreshadow Grenouille’s grisly demise, demonstrating that a life lived selfishly and inhumanely will result in a brutal, anonymous death.
Grenouille as Hunter
As a bit of narrative foreshadowing of Grenouille’s ultimate destiny, Grenouille is depicted as a hunter from the start, sniffing at the priest who holds him. When he finally achieves a modicum of freedom from Grimal, he is portrayed almost like a hunting dog: “The days of his hibernation were over[…] He caught the scent of morning. He was seized with an urge to hunt. The greatest preserve for odors in all the world stood open before him: the city of Paris” (34). Paris is likened to a hunting preserve, specifically laid out for the hunter, and Grenouille is portrayed with vocabulary more befitting a beast, catching the scent of his prey.
As Grenouille becomes more familiar with the city, he “expanded his hunting grounds” (37). Grenouille also becomes a more refined hunter over time. At first, he is indiscriminate: “The goal of the hunt was simply to possess everything the world could offer in the way of odors, and his only condition was that the odors be new ones” (38). However, as time goes on, he becomes much more discerning. When he decides to capture the scent of the Laure Richis, for instance, he refines his hunting techniques with animals, then “very gradually and with utmost caution, he went to work on human beings” (193). Grenouille hunts for his work and sport, killing 24 girls before finally pursuing Laure Richis. He is the ultimate hunter by this time, tracing her to another town by scent alone. In portraying Grenouille as a predator stalking his prey, Suskind emphasizes his depravity and cultivated lack of humanity.
