Creation+and+destruction

Thesis: In Patrick's Suskind's novel __Perfume: A story of a Murderer__, the recurring theme of Creation and Destruction shows the cycle of rebirth and death of objects through Grenouille's grisly path to create the ultimate perfume, which eventually destroys other people's mind before consuming himself. the cycle of death of rebirth is prevalent in the age of enlightenment, where there was a surge of scientific ideas and theories. It also shows that the two words, though opposite in meaning are inevitably intertwined and one leads to another.

**__I CREATION THROUGH DESTRUCTION IN CRAFTS__**

In the book, the art of perfumery is a main focus and is highly detailed in the book. The process of creating perfumes and obtaining raw scents, requires raw materials, which consist usually of flowers and roots which are living organisms. Only through destroying them and breaking the organisms down to smaller parts can a perfumer capture the scent they emitted. This cycle of death and rebirth Through the destruction of the plants and roots, Grenouilled was able to create his own perfumes and grosteque experiments. Not only perfume making, most crafts also required raw materials to create new materials for example, leather tanning.

In Grenouille's early life as a leather tanner's helper, the narrator described the process of leather making which is quite similiar to perfume making in terms of obtaining raw materials and extracting the required parts. the cycle of rebirth is shown here when the narrator narrated "mummified hide carcasses-now tanned leather" (pg 32) this shows the cycle of the death of the animal to the rebirth of its hid after mummification which was then turned into tanned leather and used again instead of being disposed. The word mummified means perservation and in a sense means it is not truly dead. The birth of the tanned leather could only be created through the destruction of the animal, and cannot be created artificially in the age of enlightenment.  "Nothing was left from the scent of hundreds of thousands of blossoms except those three flacons." pg 177

From months of enflueurage and harvesting blossoms, Grenouille shows no remorse for destroying "hundres of thousands" of lives, even if they were plants. The fact that they only produced "three flacons" only foreshadows that Grenouille is willing to sacrifice lives in order to produce a bit of scent or to further his progress to create the ultimate perfume to control the world.

**__II CREATION OF ARTIFICIAL EMOTION THROUGH DESTRUCTION OF NATURAL EMOTIONS__**

The main point of perfumes was to create a false feeling, whether it be pleasure, nostalgia or comfort. Grenouille's journey to create the ultimate perfume there were time when he created senses to create a false emotion in and destroying their original emotion utterly, and through this Grenouille was able to bend people to his will.

"true, Baldini ranted on, railed and cursed, but with every breath his outward show of rage found less and less inner nourishment." pg 83 This the first perfume Grenouille has ever created, a replica of Amor and Psyche and the perfume immediately takes an effect on Baldini. What is ironic here is that Baldini, a master perfumer, has fallen victim to a perfume. The magnitude of Baldini's anger is emphasised with the repetition of hatred words such was ranted, railed and cursed, making the detetioration of the angry emotions that much more effective. The perfume has taken effect and Baldini's hatred start to wane, and because of the creation of that perfume, the natural emotion, which was hate was destroyed and an artificial emotion which counter acted against hate was created.  "For scent was a brother of breath. Toget her with breath it entered human beings, who could not defend themselves against it, not if they wanted to live. And scent entered into their very core, went directly into their hearts, and decided for good and all between affection and contempt, disgust and lust, love and hate. He who ruled scent ruled the hearts of men." pg 155  This phrase emphasises the effectiven e ss of perfume and its emotion destroying capabilities. the personification of scent as a "brother of breath" plays a role of destroying people's natural emot ions a s the <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">y " <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">could not defend themselves against it, not if they wanted to live." the end part which said "not if they wanted to live" further emphasised the f <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">ac <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">t <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">that the perfume is strong and that creation's purpose has lead to destruction of natural feelings. <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">The contrasting words "affection and contempt", "digust and lust", love and hate", emphasised the the ability of the creation, the perfume because by the positioning of the emotions, the author creates an image of an all controlling object, in this case the perfume, which was Grenouille's creation. <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">This phrase ties back to Grenouille's main objective of taking c <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">ont <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">rol of the world and its people through scent. therefore this perfume, this creation grants Grenouille the ability to destroy and create artificial emotions in order to bend men to his will. <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">

__III DESTRUCTION OF LIVES THROUGH CREATION OF PERFUME__ ** <span style="color: rgb(10, 12, 255);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> Throughout the story, Grenouille's life has been filled with contempt but that didn't destroy him. To get revenge on those humans that treated him cruelly, Grenouille went on a bloody path to create to a ultimate perfume, able to control the minds and feelings of normal mortals. <span style="color: rgb(29, 0, 255);"><span style="color: rgb(7, 0, 255);"> <span style="color: rgb(28, 0, 194);"><span style="color: rgb(13, 0, 214);"><span style="color: rgb(42, 5, 255);"><span style="color: rgb(40, 7, 207);"><span style="color: rgb(26, 0, 245);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">         <span style="color: rgb(29, 0, 255);"> "He fashioned grotesqueries, only to destroy them again immediately, like a child playing with blocks--inventive and destructive "pg 37
 * <span style="color: rgb(0, 2, 97);">

In this phrase, Grenouille is formulating new perfumes and only with one goal, which is to create the ultimate perfume. The destructiveness of his handiworks and the carefree-ness on how he handles the perfumes only foreshadowed how he was treat his victims later on, not as human beings but as objects. The word "grotesqueries" gives a hint that the ultimate perfume he made is not one to be shared or sold, but to use to contro, as the world "grotesqueries" have a negative connotation. It is ironic that the fact Grenouille creates something so potent, something so dangerous, that it even affects himself. In the end, it took him his whole life to make it, and it only took days for the ultimate perfume to consume his life. <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="color: rgb(20, 20, 20);"> <span style="color: rgb(18, 0, 245);">"Grenouille had produced over the last year by cold-oil enfleurage of their bodies, digestion of their hair and clothes, lavage, and distillation." pg210

When the story reaches near the climax, Grenouille has created his scents, but not for free, through the cost of many innocent lives of virgin girls. Again this shows the creation of objects only through the destruction of others, shows that creation and destruction are intertwined and one leads to the other. Though they both lead to each other in a cycle, the balance of trade is not always equal. To produce such a small amount of scent, required vast amounts of materials. It is ironic that a creation of so little scent required the destruction of so many lives, and that creation would also cause the destruction and distortion of other people's natural emotion. Though there is a cycle, the cost for creation, by far outweighs how much is created.