Patrick Süskind’s Usage of Character Stories in Perfume do Persuade the Reader

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Patrick Süskind’s novel, Perfume, presents two major themes: the corruptive nature of power and the inherent flaws of humanity. These two themes are explored throughout the novel in the lives of the characters. Süskind shows the effects of power on Giuseppe Baldini, the marquis de La Taillade-Espinasse, and Jean-Baptiste Grenouille. The author explores the flawed nature of humanity by pointing out the greed and deception experienced by Monsieur Grimal, Giuseppe Baldini, the marquis Taillade-Espinasse, and the citizens of Grasse. Süskind convinces the reader, at least while he or she is reading Perfume, that these two major themes are present and active both in the novel and in the real world.
While Grenouille serves as the epitome of the corruptive results of excessive power, Baldini the perfumer and the marquis from Montpellier also display how the attainment of power can so often be destructive. When Baldini is first introduced, his perfume shop is failing, and “the Persian chimes at the door of [his] shop [ring] and the silver herons [spew] less and less frequently” (47). Because of his slowing business, Baldini plans to sell his home and shop, move away to Messina in order to live in a way that is “more honorable and pleasing to God than to perish in splendor in Paris,” and make a pilgrimage to Notre-Dame (65, 66). Grenouille enters the perfumer’s life, however, and completely transforms Baldini’s business and his desires to grow old living a life of piety and modesty. When Grenouille, equipped with his journeyman’s papers, leaves for Grasse, Baldini begins to feel guilty for saying “if only it turns out all right” as his “continual anxious prayer” during the time Grenouille was with him (109). Baldini plans to atone for h...

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..., Grenouille does not allow anyone to suspect that he is someone other than an eager journeyman. Süskind successfully uses Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, among other characters, to make his reader believe that humans are deceptive creatures led mostly by their greedy desires.
Patrick Süskind truly attempts to persuade the reader of his novel, Perfume, that power corrupts people and that humans are flawed in that they are greedy and deceptive. Süskind develops these themes through many characters in the novel – including Madame Gaillard, Monsieur Grimal, Giuseppe Baldini, and the marquis de La Taillade-Espinasse – but most importantly through Jean-Baptiste Grenouille. By showcasing the corruption brought about by power and the flaws present in the characters of Perfume, the author does in fact persuade the reader that power is corruptive and humans are inherently flawed.

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