Inadequacy+of+language+to+express+ideas

In __Perfume: The Story of a Murderer__ by Patrick S ü skind, Grenouille’s senses are restricted to the realm of scent thus the extent of his vocabulary is measured by an accumulation of inanimate objects defined by specific odors. The idea of emotion and conventions of language are beyond Grenouille’s grasp; hence, spoken language is considered an inadequate form of expression. Grenouille’s detachment from emotion disguises his genius ability to detect scent and instead perceived as an insignificant outsider by society; however Grenouille’s inability to express himself as an individual through language is compensated by an alternate form of expression, the manipulation of human emotion which ultimately impels his desire to produce the perfect scent to indemnify for his lack of personal odor. ** I. Lack of Emotion ** Grenouille’s knowledge of terms is restricted to the scent of concrete objects thus he experiences difficulty defining emotion that eventually grow to be worthless; hence Grenouille considers language an inadequate form of expression. ** "[...] an autodidact possessed of a huge vocabulary of odors that enabled him to form at will great numbers of smelled sentences." (p.26) "He was less concerned with verbs, adjectives, and expletives. [...] he used only nouns, and essentially only nouns for concrete objects, plants, animals, human beings - and only then if the objects, plants, animals, or human beings would subdue him with a sudden attack of odor." (p.24) II. Misunderstood Genius **
 * __ Inadequacy of Language to Express Ideas __**
 * Introduction **
 * Grenouille’s extensive collection of scent is gathered through acquaintances with perfumers and the assembly of foreign scents from unfamiliar settings, the human scent in particular, as Grenouille persists on his journey to acquire the perfect scent.
 * Scent analogy emphasizes the significant interrelationship between scent and the impact it has on language. Similar process between acquiring words to form sentences and identification of a variety of scents and blending them together to create a perfume.
 * "at will great numbers” refers to accumulating large quantities of scents. Grenouille has freedom and opportunity (“at will”) to experiment and if an appropriate mixture of scents are blended together, a perfume is produced; however an error in the mixture is similar to a chaotic sentence comprised of an insignificant connection of words.
 * Comparison illustrates scent as a dominant form of expression because literary characteristics -– 'vocabulary of odors’ and ‘smelled sentences’ – classify scent as a language, where as the human language as an inadequate way of expression.
 * "less concerned with verbs, adjectives, and expletives” – The conventions of language signify an immense proportion of expressive language that primarily convey emotion. Grenouille’s negligence toward such terms thus demonstrates his lack of emotion and language as an inadequate form of communication.
 * 'only then […]' - disregarding tone conveys nouns and inanimate objects as insignificant. Grenouille is only concerned with their scent as a form of expression of self-worth. Grenouille would only concern himself with the object if possessed an alluring or unfamiliar scent; limited to these scents.
 * 'Human being’ is included within list of “concrete objects” to illustrate Grenouille’s perception of human beings as a tool rather than an alive individual; however in another sense, Grenouille communicates to the reader the importance of human beings as he categorizes humans in a separate category from common objects.
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"creative activity of Grenouille the wunderkind took place only inside him and could be perceived by no one other than himself." (p.26) "[Grenouille] learned to spell a bit and to write his own name, nothing more. His teacher considered him feebleminded." (p.27) "[Madame Gaillard] was convinced that, feebleminded or not, the lad had second sight.” (p.28) III. Isolation ** Grenouille’s incapability of understanding the consequence of his actions and distinguishing from actions that are perceived as appropriate from actions that are unsuitable stresses the differences between Grenouille and a society that has strong moral prospects, and thus Grenouille is cast as an outsider. ** "He saw nothing, he heard nothing, he felt nothing." (p.24) "he gave a scream as dreadful and loud as if he were being burned alive. The scream smashed through the walls of the purple salon, through the walls of the castle, and sped away from his heart across the ditches swamp and deserts, hurtled across the nocturnal landscape of his soul like a fire storm, howled its way out of his mouth." (p.134).
 * Grenouille’s genius ability to detect scent is misunderstood and compromised by his inability to express through language, thus he is disregarded by humanity **
 * Grenouille is classified as // the // child prodigy ('wunderkind'). This is first mention of Grenouille's supernatural abilities as a talent and characterized as a genius.
 * Grenouille’s ingenious gift is restricted to a domain unfamiliar to society; therefore he is the sole human capable of understanding a language comprised of scent. Hence, Grenouille is isolated from humanity due to communication barriers.
 * Grenouille's inexplicable gift for scent is his most powerful and prominent feature. Suskind uses diction primarily associated with sight to describe smell. Grenouille 'perceived' with his nose rather than eyes therefore, his nose sufficiently substitutes for language.
 * Feebleminded is used to describe a variety of mental disorders and commonly associated with idiot or moron. ‘Teacher’ emphasizes the importance of language as a dominant form of expression in society; however, Grenouille is perceived as an ‘idiot’ because of differences in expression. Grenouille expresses and identifies society through scent, whereas society defines Grenouille by his ability to express through language.
 * Ironically, Grenouille perceives himself as a genius; however, is unable to communicate himself as a genius to society.
 * Repetition of ‘feebleminded’ emphasize society’s distasteful outlook on Grenouille and insignificance of individual.
 * Madame Gaillard is unable to recognize Grenouille’s unusual discovery of money behind fireplace and prediction of thunderstorm as an indication of Grenouille’s genius ability to detect scent because the realm of scent is foreign to society and considered an exceptional form of expression understood only by Grenouille. Furthermore, Madame Gaillard is ‘convinced’ rather than certain. She is unfamiliar with Grenouille’s sense of smell thus lead to the pessimistic assumption that Grenouille signifies ‘death’ and ‘misfortune’ rather than a genius gift.
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 * Imagery portrays Grenouille as an inexistent entity. ‘Nothing’ is a concept of complete absence used to emphasize features meaningless to Grenouille including the lack of function through eyes, ears and sense which additionally demonstrates Grenouille’s dependence on scent as a dominant form of expression. Contrastingly humanity is largely dependent on a balance between senses thus Grenouille’s inability to express himself through language is perceived as an unintelligible characteristic and thus cast as an outsider by humanity.
 * Ironically, Grenouille experiences similarly distasteful perceptions toward human scent and remain in isolation. During his period of separation from humanity, Grenouille realizes his lack of personal odor.
 * Grenouille creates scents that powerfully manipulate human emotions instead of using language as a means of expressing himself. Grenouille influences society through different scents to better understand his character through a common language comprised of scent, and may alternate humanity’s perspective whenever he desires to.
 * However, due to the fact that scents can be artificially modified, one is unable to truly understand Grenouille's character.
 * In this scene, Grenouille produces a ‘dreadful’ scream signifying frustration and fear of lacking a personal odor; however, he is unable to express and associate these emotions with language thus produces an uncontrollable ‘howl’ which demonstrates an impression of an emotion and a remarkable turning point in the novel.
 * The closest association to emotion is the metaphorical comparison of a fire storm signifying range. The extent of an expressive description is the color ‘purple’; however, a majority of the description remains correlated to physical objects including the salon, wall of castle and landscape. The reader understands though, that Grenouille is expressing a true emotion from the ‘heart’ and ‘soul’.
 * Grenouille rarely experiences an emotion and his helpless attempt to convey his emotion through speech or sound emphasizes the immense impact of discovering his lack of personal odor. Other points in the novel where Grenouille experiences a burst of emotion is the fear of losing a scent or desire to produce the perfect scent.