Perfume

644 Words2 Pages

Perfume by Patrick Suskind follows the journey of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, an extraordinary man with an extraordinary sense of smell. During the course of the novel Suskind shifts narrative styles and personas. This is seen throughout the entire novel; however, especially in part one. The novel is told from the third person omniscient perspective and although Grenouille is the protagonist, whom Suskind revolves the majority of the novel around; the reader still gets insight into the minds and thoughts of other characters in the novel. Suskind changes the narrative styles and personas to create a relationship between the narrator and the reader and to create a distance between the reader and Grenouille. One of the narrative styles Suskind chooses to use is a very conversational and friend-like narrative and this creates a relationship between the narrator and the reader. Suskind does this to make the reader feel like they are not just being told a story, but are in fact a part of the story. And he does this by switching the narration to the first person; for example, this is seen on page 29 when the narrator says, “Since we are to leave Madame Gaillard behind us at this point in our story and shall not meet her again, we shall take a few sentences to describe the end of her days.” In this quotation, Suskind chooses to use words like “we”, “us” and “our” and by doing this Suskind creates the first person narrative and makes the reader feel as if the story they till now have just been following, has now become their story. Suskind also does this to make the reader feel guilty and responsible for everything Grenouille decides to do later on in the story and he does this by including the reader in the narrative, which also makes it ... ... middle of paper ... ... the storyline has distanced from Grenouille, the reader still learns about the murders he commits. Also even though, the narrator does not directly say Grenouille committed the murders, the reader can conclude he has. And Suskind during these five chapters does this to create suspense and make the reader feel as if Laure is Grenouille’s next target. Suskind changes the narrative styles and personas throughout the entire novel and he does this to create a relationship between the narrator and the reader and to create a distance between the reader and Grenouille. The relationship Suskind creates with the reader makes the reader feel a part of the story and guilty for everything Grenouille does and his decisions. Whereas, the distance Suskind creates between the reader and Grenouille creates a lot of suspense and keep the reader guessing as to what will happen next.

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