Why Does Suskind use an Untrustworthy Narrator?

Suskind creates a narrator with a kaleidoscopic view. The narrator morphs from a gossiper, to reader’s friend, to historian, journalist, and ultimately an accomplice to the murders. With many different personas why does the reader still trust him? There are many sides to the storyteller of Perfume, and the reader may realize too late that there seems to be a fine line between friends to accomplice to murderer.

Generally, readers trust narrators. Narrators tell the reader what they know via their limited point of view. Therefore, the reader finds trust in what the narrator is saying because they do not know information that the narrator does not know. There is no competing point of view; instead, there is the shared intimacy of an experience. However, in some aspects of Perfume the reader does find that he or she knows something the narrator seems to not know. This creates a shiver of a doubt which Suskind intensifies as the novel progresses. By having a kaleidoscopic narrator, the reader is constantly asking questions about who the narrator is now, and if we can trust him. Suskind’s technique increases skepticism, independent thought and critical thinking for the reader.

The first persona the narrator displays after being a storyteller is that of a friend. He does this by using an inclusive pronoun: “Or rather, so it seems to us, he had totally dispensed with them just to go on living - from the very start,” (21). This is the first instance when the reader gets included in the story. Until this point, Suskind has been using the third person narrative and here it switches to the first person. By doing this, the reader feels as if he or she has been put into a pact with the narrator and is now a part of the story. This makes t...

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...rator essentially being Grenouille. Suskind’s use of the pronoun “I” within the final chapters of the novel shows this, as well when reflecting on the entire novel as a whole the reader can see that there have been many resemblances between Grenouille and the narrator.

The narrator in Suskind’s Perfume has many different personas, similar to a kaleidoscopic view. The narrator transforms from a friend, to gossiper, to reader’s friend, to historian, journalist, an accomplice and eventually the reader learns that the narrator fundamentally is Grenouille. These changes are made progressively throughout the novel, which causes the reader to be too distracted with the storyline to realize that the narrator in Perfume is very untrustworthy.

Works Cited

Suskind, Patrick. Perfume, The Story of a Murderer. Trans. John E. Woods. New York: Vintage

Books, 2001, Print.