An Analysis of the Social Classes in Patrick Suskind’s Perfume

[nicholasnj]

An Analysis of the Social Classes in Patrick Suskind’s Perfume

 

Analysis of Manipulative Relationships and Animal Metaphors in Patrick Suskind’s Perfume

In Perfume, Patrick Suskind illustrates the importance of social classes in Germany post-World War 2 through his story of Grenouille, a murderer with a strong sense of smell and a goal to control everyone around him, in 18^th century France. The difference in time and place forces the reader to make connections between what was occurring in the book and Communist Germany. Although the settings are different, they demonstrate the rise of communism and social order along with the eventual downfall of it all with the rise of Grenouille’s power and social status in stages. Suskind uses the relationships between Grenouille and his employers/guardians as well as animal metaphors to portray Grenouille’s rise in power from an orphan murderer to almost a God.

Grenouille is born a murderer and as consequence, an orphan. As he grew up, he was compared to a lowly tick who could survive almost anything. The author describes in great detail the characteristics of a tick and then makes a comparison between it and Grenouille. The author wrote, “But the tick stubborn sullen loathsome, huddles there and lives and waits… And only then does it abandon caution and drop and scratch and bore and bite into that alien flesh” (Suskind 23). The author uses this comparison to demonstrate how Grenouille is at the bottom of the social ladder and he waits and waits for the perfect opportunity to grow. Right now Grenouille is living with Madame Gaillard, a woman with no love and he has very little to sustain himself. Until he can find some way to become more useful and manipulative, he shall remain a tick.

It didn’t take too long before Grenouille found someone else to use, Grimal the tanner. Grimal was a dangerous guy who had no qualms with dishing out punishment so Grenouille leaned and adapted to the situation. In this novel, you were either valuable or worthless so when Grenouille survived anthrax, Grimal started to give him special privileges. Grenouille knew that, “because he could no longer be so easily replaced as before, the value of his work and thus the value of his life increased” (Suskind 34). The world that the author created was filled with self-serving individuals who care only about the bottom line and what they were able to get out of something or someone.

Grenouille then used his small influence over Grimal to meet his next victim, Baldini, and move up another class. This section of the book is where the author adds animal metaphors that are attached to Grenouille in order to demonstrate how he is growing and how he will do whatever it takes to become the best. Grenouille was now standing up, completely unfolded to full size, so to speak, in the doorway, his legs slightly apart, his arms slightly spread, so that he looked like a black spider that had latched onto the threshold and frame” (Suskind 73). The author made Grenouille appear to be immovable to show Grenouille’s desperation in working with Baldini.

Suskind showed how Baldini exploited Grenouille when Grenouille decided that he wanted to leave and although Baldini was scared of him, he needed him for new perfumes. At this point in the novel, Grenouille is a common perfumer with a special talent for creating new scents and he refused to be cornered into helping Baldini for so long. Baldini was the master so of course Grenouille had to follow his instructions and “by using the obligatory measuring glasses and scales, [Grenouille] learned the language of perfumery, and he sensed instinctively that the knowledge of this language could be of service to him” (Suskind 95). Because of his special talent he was able to exploit Baldini into teaching him the proper perfuming techniques and terminology. The author is giving Grenouille more power to exploit others as he climbs the social ladder.

Once Grenouille grew on the social ladder, his power over others increased and he never seemed to go down a level. The author however did place him down to almost a caveman who had absolutely no interactions from anyone. By doing this, Suskind is showing us what would happen to Grenouille if he were removed from the class system. “Had his scream not ripped open the fog, he would have drowned in himself – a gruesome death” (Suskind 139). He slowly degraded to madness and almost drowned in his fears. Without any social order he was reduced to thinking only about his worries and fears with no human interactions or distractions.

Suskind had Grenouille return to civilization where he manipulated the liege lord of the town, Marquis de la Taillade-Espinasse into giving him a place to rest and help him fix his physical appearance which had waned in the past seven years. This allowed Grenouille to start off somewhere in the middle rung of the ladder where he could exploit others at very little expense. The author illustrated this by showing what the Marquis hoped to gain from Grenouille, “and if Grenouille was willing to make himself available as the object of a scientific demonstration, he was willing not only to free him from hopeless contamination by earth gas, but he would also provide him with a handsome sum of money” (Suskind 145).Grenouille would be helped in many ways and all he had to do was follow some simple instructions and allow himself to be shown off in public as a changed man after the experiment. Grenouille truly received the long end of the stick and it led him to a perfume shop where he was able to learn something new.

The author then had Grenouille leave the village and make his way to the town of Grasse where he exploited twenty-five virgin maidens and made plans to rule over everyone and climb to the highest rung on the social ladder. Once Grenouille murdered the women and had stolen their essence, he left them to rot and be discovered with no regard to human decency. Grenouille seemed to not have to abide by any laws because, “The murderer seemed impalpable, incorporeal, like a ghost. People were outraged and reviled the authorities” (Suskind 204). To him, murder was just a means to an end and he believed to be above the law since he was able to “become invisible” to people. No one could possibly stop him and everyone knew this. The author, fed Grenouille more power and as he went on, he created the ultimate perfume that could control any and all people in range of the scent.

The perfume that Grenouille used, allowed him to reach almost godly status and broke the social structure that had control over everyone. Suskind chose to write up a Dionysian frenzy scene where different people were paired up with one another. “they fell down anywhere with a groan and copulated in the most impossible positions and combinations: grandfather with virgin, odd-jobber with lawyer's spouse… all topsy-turvy, just as opportunity presented” (Suskind 247). These opposite pairings demonstrated how badly the social class system was destroyed and the events that occurred afterwards showed how much the people truly cared about the class system.

In conclusion, Patrick Suskind gave us a glimpse into the importance of the social class structure in post-World War 2 Germany through the use of animal metaphors and manipulative relationships between the characters. The novel went through the rise of Grenouille through the different classes until he finally reached the top only to lose all his power by destroying the class system.

Edited March 21, 2018 by nicholasnj
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