Dehumanization of Children and Death in Perfume: the Story of a Murderer

Patrick Süskind, a German author, wrote Perfume: the Story of a Murderer in 1986 and sets the novel in eighteenth century France. Süskind dehumanizes children in order to remove emotion from death. He fulfills the concept by using aspects that tend to develop the beliefs and perspectives of a child. During a child’s life, they obtain influences from religion, abuse, self-value, and other children. All the aspects reflect in a child’s life and in Perfume, dehumanization links to those factors and eventually leads to the absence of sensitivity to death.

Religious figures, such as Father Terrier, reject the sanctity of children. Against his Christian principles, he determines that, “An infant is not yet a human being it is a pre-human being, does yet possess a fully developed soul” (10). Father Terrier belittles Grenouille’s humanity for the mere fact that he’s just a child. “A strange, cold creature lay there on his knees, a hostile animal” (9). Here, Father Terrier verbally strips the baby of all humanity therefore dehumanizing baby Grenouille. In religion, after a life has expired, the soul of the person returns to heaven. Father Terrier states that a child lacks a fully developed soul. According to religion, since a child lacks a soul, they cannot return to heaven. This idea depicts that their deaths are insignificant because they do not have the opportunity to go to heaven therefore, when death approaches the young children, they just disappear with nowhere to go.

Next in sequence with the novel, the absence of Madame Galliard’s human feelings during her childhood leads to her indifference towards death. Süskind introduces Madame Galliard next in the novel starting with her childhood. “But on the inside she was long dead. Wh...

... middle of paper ...

...Grenouille goes on to kill other people because he retains no emotion connection to death and that develops during his childhood. He develops this indifference from his surroundings. Grenouille lacks a normal sense of emotional connection to death because everyone around him dehumanizes him. He does not fit into the normal humanistic life therefore, the people who surround him during his childhood, all conclude that the only solution to get rid of the discomfort of his presence, is to get rid of him or kill him. Süskind implements the dehumanization of children and its connection with death in order to set up background for Grenouille’s mental state and strives to retrieve the understanding of the reader the true reason as to why Grenouille goes out to kill others.

Works Cited

Süskind, Patrick. Perfume. Trans. John E. Woods. New York:Vintage International, 1986