Patrick Suskind's Use Of Exaggeration In 'Perfume'

Exaggeration is commonly used in everyday life to make a story an individual may use when telling another about an event that happened to them. The so called ‘narrator’ of the event may add in more details to the story than what actually happened to attract the ‘reader’ and keep them interested. Authors may use the same tactic to pull readers in and keep them excited to read the end of the story/novel/etc. Exaggeration for the background of the story or even a Shakespearean play gives the story a entirely different meaning in general.

Perfume, which was written by Patrick Suskind, gives the reader an overwhelming, to the point of sickening, imagery of stench. The protagonist of the novel, Grenouille, becomes obsessed with finding

his own true smell. He murdered a few young, virgin women for their scent, but in his own search, he cannot seem to find his own. Throughout the entire novel, Suskind writes about Grenouille obsessive behavior of finding his own stench. At first in the novel, the stench is barely mentioned at all in this point. But, as the book progresses, the mention of the stench grows more and more, to the point the reader(s) can imagine the smell and it grows to the point it becomes repulsive.

In Chronicle Of A Death Foretold, Gabriel Garcia Marquez writes about a town murder of a man who supposedly stole a young woman’s purity. Besides the fact of the exaggeration the young woman (Angela) told her brothers of how he ‘stole’ her purity, the weather contributes a huge part of the story and to the exaggeration. In Shakespearean plays, the background changes along with the weather. A few storm clouds towards the back of the actors and actresses may symbolize that an explosive fight or event may start to take place, or the story is building up to that climax. Sunshine and no clouds may represent that the play and/or story is going to become more happy.

In Chronicle Of A Death Foretold and Perfume, the weather is dark and rainy, giving readers a gloomy and suspicious setting. That setting may foreshadow in the novel, that a terrible or dark event may soon occur and give the reader a feeling of suspense during the novel.