Outsider+isolation

 In Patrick Suskind’s novel __Perfume: The Story of a Murderer__, as a child lacking both human scent and paternal care, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille was naturally considered an outsider in a society strongly influenced by religion and superstitions, but with his growing obsession for the perfect scent, Grenouille later chose to live a life of isolation to pursue his ambitious, ingenious goals and detach himself from the indifferent society which he deeply hated. However, after his seven long years alone in the mountains, the shocking realization of his own lack of personal scent ironically drove Grenouille back into humanity as he attempted to make a scent for himself. **//The shift between Grenouille being forced to be isolated, then later his decision to isolate himself to achieve goals, and finally his decision to rejoin humanity reveals Grenouille’s ironic loathe and love for humanity. //**   “A strange, cold creature lay there on his knees, a hostile animal, and were he not a man by nature prudent, God-fearing, and given to reason, in the rush of nausea he would have hurled it like a spider from him.... He wanted to get rid of the thing, as quickly as possible, right away if possible, immediately if possible” (17).  ·  Despite showing early signs of sympathy and love for the child Grenouille when he accepted the child from the wet nurse Jeanne Bussie, who was determined to disconnect herself from the baby “possessed by the devil” (10), Father Terrier later also showed a sense of nausea towards Grenouille as the child “seemed to be smelling right through his skins” (17). ·  Questioning the human status of the child, Father Terrier feared the child’s piercing nose which exposed his tender emotions and filthiest thoughts. Father Terrier, a religious man of love and charity, ironically wanted to dispose of the young child because his religious disguise was uncovered by Grenouille’s nose and furthermore, the immorality of humanity in general was exposed to the child’s nose.  “Security, attention, tenderness, love – or whatever all those things are called that children are said to require – were totally dispensable for the young Grenouille.” (21). + “The tick, which makes itself extra small and inconspicuous so that no one will see it and step on it. The lonely tick, which wrapped up in itself, huddles in its tree, blind, deaf, and dumb, and simply sniffs, sniffs all year long, for miles around, for the blood of some passing animal that it could never reach on its own power” (21-22). ·  Grenouille and the tick both showed qualities of persistence and unobtrusiveness. Grenouille was unobtrusive as result of his lack of personal scent which makes him nearly invisible to others. His small stature, ugly appearance and crippled foot also made him unsightly, and the cruel humanity was indifferent towards his existence. ·  At the same time, he was also physically persistent as a result of the uncaring and unsympathetic treatment he received during his childhood. Motivated primarily by her self interest to earn money necessary for a peaceful death, Madame Gaillard did not accepted Grenouille as an orphan out of sympathy or love. Madame Gaillard’s harsh treatment and Grenouille’s numerous illness during his childhood made him “as tough as a resistant bacterium” (20), demonstrating the child’s dispensability for love and security. <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> <span style="color: red; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">“From the first day, the new arrival gave the other children the creeps. They avoided the box in which he lay and edged closer together in their beds as if it had grown colder in the room…They were afraid of him” (22-23). <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> ·  <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">The fact that children, who are often associated with innocence and uncorrupted judgment, also both feared and loathed the child Grenouille verifies the idea that Grenouille never received love or sympathy during his childhood purely because of the disquieting fact that he was odorless. ·  <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Grenouille’s rejection by the young children emphasizes <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun;">his status as an outcast among the sea of humanity with all its individualized and recognizable scent. The indifference of humanity ignored Grenouille’s existence because humanity was afraid of exposing their immoral side to the child’s nose. As a result, Grenouille ended up as a mere shadow in the society, lacking identity and care. <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> <span style="color: red; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">“This (immunity to anthrax) set him apart not only from the apprentices and journeymen, but also from his own potential successors. And because he could no longer be so easily replaced as before, the value of his work and thus the value of his life increased” (32). ·  <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun;">Grenouille’s unfortunate suffering from anthrax ironically raised his human value as the immunity made him valuable among other apprentices and journeymen. The value of Grenouille’s life was connected to his commercial value and dependent on his usefulness for his employer. The materialistic mind of Grimal is a reflection of humanity’s unsympathetic and loveless treatment towards Grenouille, in which his human value was based on the benefit that the apprentice would bring to one’s business, rather than on his quality as a unique human being. <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> ·  <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun;">Grimal’s improved treatment for Grenouille after the discovery of his commercial value was also similar to how Grenouille was treated later at the hands of Baldini, who exploited Grenouille’s genius as a perfumer, and the marquis, who valued Grenouille’s isolation experience to prove his fluidal theory. <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> <span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themetint: 153;"> <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> <span style="color: red; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">"To the world he appeared to grow ever more secretive. What he loved most was to rove alone through the northern parts of the Faubourg Saint-Antonie, through vegetable gardens and vineyards, across meadows. Sometimes he did not come home in the evening, remained missing for days" (27). ·  <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun;">On his quest to preserve various scents in order to complete his precious collection, Grenouille chose to isolate himself and focused primarily on the only thing he held passion for, the individualized scent of every single object. ·  <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun;">E <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">ndowed with an unparalleled sense of smell <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun;">, Grenouille preferred to isolate himself as his obsession for scents dominated his life, and scents became the only source of satisfaction and the only passage through which Grenouille could make connection with his surrounding people and environment. <span style="color: red; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun;"> <span style="color: red; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">“He bottled up inside himself the energies of his defiance and contumacy and expends them solely to survive the impending ice age in his ticklike way. Tough, uncomplaining, inconspicuous, he tended the light of life’s hopes as a very small, but carefully nourished flame” (31). ·  <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun;">The motif of the tick is particularly prominent during Grenouille’s time as a young apprentice to the Grimal the tanner. Grenouille, encapsulated within himself, endured many tough experiences and waited for a change for the better, which would turn out to be his visit to Baldini’s perfumery shop. ·  <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun;">Grenouille’s isolation and his diligence at work allowed him to appear as a regular apprentice and hid his supernatural sense of smell from the society. His grand plan for making the best perfume in the world was carefully nourished and must be unknown to the outside world. <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun;"> <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> <span style="color: red; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">“As he began to withdraw from them, it became clear to Grenouille for the first time that for eighteen years their compacted human effluvium had oppressed him like air heavy with an imminent thunderstorm.” (116). <span style="color: red; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun;">+ <span style="color: red; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">“He assumed that in whatever direction he turned he ought to detect some latent scrap of human odor. But there was only peace, olfactory peace, if it can be put that way” (120). <span style="color: red; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun;"> ·  <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun;">Disgusted by the scent of humanity, or possibly disgusted by the inhuman treatment which he received in society and sickened by the immorality of people which his piercing nose interpreted, Grenouille decided to squirm away from humanity and live in a world devoid of the pungent scent of humans. ·  <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun;">The simile “like air heavy with an imminent thunderstorm” relating to people’s treatment of Grenouille demonstrates the suffocating effect that the indifference of humanity apply on Grenouille’s incisive nose. <span style="color: red; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun;"> <span style="color: red; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">“Grenouille had withdrawn solely for his own personal pleasure, only to be near to himself. No longer distracted by anything external, he baked in his own existence and found it splendid” (123). <span style="font-size: 20pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun;">↓ <span style="color: red; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> “It was grotesque: he, Grenouille, who could smell other people miles away, was incapable of smelling his own genitals not a hand span away!” (135). ·  <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Since Grenouille initially believed that in an environment no longer distracted by the repugnant scent of humanity, he could finally establish his own identity, the shocking realization that he had no personal scent at all terrified Grenouille. ·  <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">The discovery of his own near nonexistence influence induced Grenouille’s decision to rejoin humanity in order to learn new technique for extracting scents and most importantly, to collect the precious ingredients for his personal scent. ·  <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Despite holding a strong sense of hatred towards humanity, Grenouille wanted to be part of the society, to be acknowledged as a human being and be loved as a human being. He wanted to establish his own identity by exuding the odor of human flesh. <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun;"> <span style="color: red; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">“He, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, born with no odor of his own on the most stinking spot in this world, amid garbage, dung, and putrefaction, raised without love, with no warmth of a human soul, surviving solely on impudence and the power of loathing, small, hunchbacked, lame, ugly, shunned, an abomination within and without - he had managed to make the world admire him!” (239). <span style="font-size: 20pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun;">↓ <span style="color: red; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">“What he had always longed for – that other people should love him – became at the moment of its achievement unbearable, because he did not love them himself, he hated them. And suddenly he knew that he had never ground gratification in love, but always only in hatred – in hating and in being hated” (240). ·  <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Although Grenouille had finally achieved his aim to be loved by humanity, he ultimately did not feel loved or satisfied because he was not loved for his identity, but rather the perfume which he created. No matter how powerful and manipulating the perfume he wears, society would only admire the perfume itself, rather than the unique human being beneath it. ·  <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">The realization that he could never be accepted for who he was transformed Grenouille’s initial gratification of the crowd’s admiration for himself into hatred and disgust for humanity’s cruel unawareness of his existence, a motive which eventually led to his final suicide by cannibalism.
 * __<span style="font-size: 15pt; color: gray; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-themecolor: background1; mso-themeshade: 128;">Isolation, Outsider __**
 * <span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themetint: 153;"> I.  ****<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themetint: 153;">Every since his young age, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille has been considered as an outsider by the people around him as a result of the child’s odorless characteristic and the people’s fear of exposing themselves under his attentive nose. He grew up as a child lacking love or sympathy as people seemed indifferent to his existence or identity. Consequently, the inhospitable treatment Grenouille received as a youngster turned him into a tick-like creature.  **
 * <span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themetint: 153;"> II.  ****<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themetint: 153;">When Grenouille’s growing compulsiveness for the perfect scent and his mounting ambition to become the perfumer that the world has ever known, he prefers to isolate himself as he put his genius qualities and extraordinary sense of smell to work.  **
 * <span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themetint: 153;"> III.  ****<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themetint: 153;">Disgusted by the scent of humanity which he hated so much, Grenouille escapes to the lonely mountains of Plomb du Canal, searching for ****<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themetint: 153;">peaceful solitude far away from human existence. However, during his isolation, Grenouille realized that he does not give off scent as a human being and his shocking realization sends him back into society in search of an artificial substitute for a human scent.  **
 * <span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themetint: 153;"> IV. ****<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themetint: 153;"> Finally, despite his success in manipulating humanity with his glorious perfume, Grenouille nevertheless felt no satisfaction but rather felt isolation again due to the fact that Grenouille was loved for the perfume he created, not for the human himself.  **