Love Three Pivotal Passages from the novel Perfume by Patrick Suskind - Essay Example

February 28, “Love” Pivotal passages from the novel perfume. At the beginning of part two of the book, Susskind starts by creating a symbolic introduction of the character’s movement away from the destroyed city. As Grenouille goes on, air behind him becomes “clearer, purer and cleaner” (Suskind 106) from the stench of human scents. This seems to have created liberty for him as he found any scent coming from a human-free world more interesting. By doing this, the author creates a good definition of the main character in this part; a character that wants total liberty by choosing solitude as a way of self-deliverance.

By so doing, he brings the theme of self-liberty by showing how peaceful one can get when freeing himself from the mixes of the world. Thus, the motive of the character in this passage is to go further from the presence of other human beings, in search of inner peace. This is a quintessential example of the author since from the beginning, the author has employed the use of an extraordinary character that one would find hard to fit into the society and thus the character should always try to run from the society- justification.

He achieves imagery by describing the sandy road Grenouille walks on and this passage does not seem to connect to any literary works read so far. In the middle of part two of the book, the author explores a relationship of the main character and hatred for love-bringing scent-flowers like the violet. He begins by succinctly describing the hardships Grenouille experiences while he encounters a scent from a violet. With struggles to near-absolute-suffocation, the main character makes struggles to overcome the scent but it chokes him.

His only wish is to make a scent that would drive all violet scents away, only if provided the opportunity (Suskind pp.135-136). This passage defines dangers and threats to the life of the main character and the difference between normal and abnormal since the main character gets heavily affected by the normal. This passage illuminates on paradox whereby things that are meant to bring love bring hatred instead. As the author writes all throughout the book, his style seems to challenge normal situations and this is not any surprise and thus reflects his style of writing. Matt (16) argues that this works in part reflects styles of previous pieces of works written before such as The House of Spirits.

At the end of part two of the book in chapter thirty four, Susskind narrates on the artificial love that Grenouille had gained from the people in the society, through creation of a love-inducing scent and thus became famous. Through this, societal attention to the main character increased. People became more curious on his past encounters which he narrated as the ordeals had happened. Their attention was biased towards a sympathetic approach. This passage recounts on Grenouille’s desire to be loved by the society which he eventually gains, therefore defining him as a love-yearning character.

It is a crucial moment in the development of the story since it indicates another side of the character, which makes the reader to understand the character more. Other stories that come up in this passage give flashbacks to events that had happened to Grenouille without the reader’s knowledge. Susskind’s statement on “fame had spread without much tour” (148) is a simile of fame and tours. The motive of the character thus is to attract societal love- which does not reflect the style of the author.

This piece reflects important circumstances seen in other literary works such as Great Expectations (Matt 64). Works cited. Matt, Caroline. Major themes in the novel ‘Perfume’. Houston, Texas: Wiley & Sons, 2008 Suskind, Patrick. Perfume. New York, NY: Vintage books, 2006.