This world has been exposed to the concepts of many monsters, such as mythical creatures and mythic humanoids. These monsters' goal is to either protect or kill with purpose,and there exists the concept of one monster that murders innocents , with the purpose of creating scents. In the novel Perfume by Patrick Süskind, the author portrays this monster as Grenouille. Süskind has this character that intentionally murders many people for their scent, regardless of their age, or maturity. Grenouille is a monster as he misuses the power of scent to escape worldly problems and attract love. He bears a grudge against of humanity that not only affects characters from young girls to his own mother. Grenouille is portrayed as a monster because he is the cause of death for most characters in the novel, misuses the power of scent, and hates humanity.
Grenouille was the prime cause of death in the novel due to his upbringing at the hands of his caretakers. He murders 24 women and uses them in order to create the perfect perfume. "He loved this waiting [...] [and] loved it with the twenty-four other girls"( 218). Grenouille, while in extracting the scent of the girl' Laure, says he was used to the waiting time of the extraction. He claims that murdering these women was a pleasant experience and feels no guilt. Since the day Grenouille was born he had been murdering people directly and indirectly but Süskind adds a death in the beginning of the novel that foreshadows all that followed. "Unexpectedly, the infant under the gutting table begins to squall[...]since she confesses openly admitting that she would definitely have let the thing perish,[...]she had[...]later[been]decapitated " (1). Grenouille, less than an hour old, murders hi...
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...nouille obtains the love he never had at his moment of death, yet could not experience it as everyone devoured him into non-existence. Grenouille proved himself a monster as he was in seven years of solitude, saw himself as God, and killed himself, leaving his life in vain.
In the Süskind's novel, Perfume, Grenouille is seen as a monster. Grenouille was the agent of all deaths including the 24 women, his mother, and all his caretakers. He abused the power of scent and smell ,and had a detestation for all forms of life. He is a monster because of his actions, thoughts and behaviour. It was society that made him into this beast because they all saw him as something different yet, all he truly ever wanted was love, something he was forever denied.
Works Cited
Süskind, Patrick. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. New York: A.A. Knopf,
1986. Print.
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