Comparing Grenouille To God In Perfume Suskind

Humans have five senses that are naturally given, but their significance only comes out when they become a necessity. Throughout Perfume Suskind goes into depth about smells, and how scent contrasts Grenouille to God and Satan. Grenouilles lack of personal scent connects him to the devil, while his olfactory supremacy compares him to God.

In Grenouille’s mind smell determines everything, which prevents his adaptation to society. From the start Grenouille becomes more determined with the idea of preserving scent and at the same time getting away from the smell of humans. He decided to “not just avoid humans, but villages as well”(116). Along his journey of avoiding humans he “discovered a natural tunnel, in which he spends several days.” During

The narrator rarely mentions Grenouille viewing the world with his eyes, his nose determines where he tends to go next. Thus emphasizing Grenouille has more animal like qualities than human. Suskind's diction indicates Grenouille lacks confidence and awareness of his surroundings. The context reveals that Grenouille never intentionally meant to kill the young red haired girl, but “he in turn, did not look at her, did not see her delicate freckled face, her red lips, her large sparkling green eyes, keeping his eyes closed tight as he strangled her, for he had only one concern-not to lose the least trace of her scent”(42). The narrator makes the readers well aware that Grenouille only intends on mastering scent, and once Grenouille realizes how powerful he can become when he embodies the ultimate scent, he becomes more determined with keeping every drop of the unique girl. Grenouille needs more than one drop of the redhead girl, so when he finds a scent that brings back memories of the night when he murdered her he becomes infatuated with their scents and does everything in his power to distill the scent of similar