VIRGIN TRAGIC PERFUME IN PATRICK SUSKIND NOVEL “PERFUME: THE STORY OF A MURDERER”
A PAPER
BY
AYA SYARIFAH NASUTION REG. NO. 102202035
DIPLOMA-III ENGLISH STUDY PROGRAM FACULTY OF CULTURE STUDY
It has been proved by Supervisor,
NIP. 19490423197412 2 001
Dra. Redita Lubis, Dip. Appl. Ling., M. Hum
Submitted to Faculty of Culture Studies, University of North Sumatera
In partial fulfillment of the requirements for DIPLOMA (D-III) in English
Approved by
Head of Diploma III English Study Program,
NIP. 19521126198112 1 001
Dr. Matius C. A. Sembiring, M. A.
Approved by the Diploma III English Study Program
Faculty of Culture Studies, University of North Sumatera
Accepted by the Board of Examiners in partial fulfillment of the requirements for
the D-III Examination of the Diploma-III Examination of the Diploma III English
Study Program, Faculty of Culture Studies, University of North Sumatera.
The examination is held on July 2013
Faculty of Culture Studies, University of North Sumatera
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NIP. 19511013197603 1 001 Dr. Syahron Lubis, M. A.
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Name : AYA SYARIFAH NASUTION
Title of Paper : Virgin Tragic Perfume in Patrick Suskind Novel “Perfume:
The Story of a Murderer”
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ABSTRAK
Kertas karya ini berjudul Virgin Tragic Perfume in Patrick Suskind’s Novel
ABSTRACT
This work paper entitled Virgin Tragic Perfume in Patrick Suskind’s Novel
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Bismillahirrahmaanirrahiim.
First of all, I would like to thank and praise to the Almighty God,
Allah SWT for blessing and giving me health, strength and ease to accomplish
this paper as one of the requirements to get Diploma III certificate from English
Department Faculty of Culture Science, University of Sumatera Utara.
Then, I would like to express a deep gratitude, love, and
appreciation to:
1. My beloved parents, Drs. Syahruddin Nst and Nurkhalijah Pane
thanks for loving, caring, suppoting me morally, financially,
spiritually, especially in studying in English Diploma III and in
completing this paper. Thanks for being my inspiration.
2. My beloved sisters and brother, Khaironi Syahriza Nst, Sri Khairunnisa Nst and Fawwaz Ashrafuddin Nst. Thanks for motivations and advices.
3. Dr. Matius C.A. Sembiring, MA as the Head of English Diploma Study Program, who gives me a lot of knowledge.
4. My supervisor, Dra. Redita Lubis, Dip. Appl. Ling., M. Hum.
thanks for the valuable time in giving the correction and constructive
critics in completing this paper.
6. Dr. Syahron Lubis, M.A., as the Dean of Faculty of Culture Science, University of Sumatera Utara.
7. All lectures in English Diploma Study Program for giving me advices
and knowledges.
8. My big family (Nasution & Pane), opung, bujing, bou, tulang, uda, nantulang, amangboru, Lila, Niki, Riska and all of my cousins thanks for your support.
9. My little family, CUNers: Tria Anindi (Inyem), Rima Virgi (Imin),
Rizki (Kidok), Anisha Fatiah (Nisut), and Abun Fauji (Buncan) thanks for crazy moment and always make my world alive. I love you
guys.
10.For Batman gank: Mahyar, Angga, Andrian (Yayan), Dani (Ani),
Rahmad, Rio, Yojek, Topek and Aprot thanks for the rock n’ roll moment.
11.My lovely friends, pasid’10: Irna, Bulan, Della, Fatiyah, Milva,
Emi, Irfan, Erwin, Firman, Wayang, Adi and many more, thanks for your support and always make me smile. I love you guys.
12.All of my friends in Diploma III English Study Program, SOLIDAS
thanks for your supports, happiness and madness.
Finally, I do realize that this paper is still far from being perfect.
Therefore, I welcome any constructive critics and suggestions towards
this paper.
Medan, 2013
The writer,
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1.5The Significance of Study 3
1.6Method of Study 4
1.7 Reason for Choosing the Topic 4
CHAPTER 2 : REVIEW AND RELATED OF LITERATURE
2.1Novel 5
3.2 Perfumes Production Process 12
CHAPTER 4 : CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION
4.1 Conclusion 17
4.2 Suggestion 17
BIBLIOGRAPHY 19
APPENDICES
A.Biography of Emily Giffin 20
ABSTRAK
Kertas karya ini berjudul Virgin Tragic Perfume in Patrick Suskind’s Novel
ABSTRACT
This work paper entitled Virgin Tragic Perfume in Patrick Suskind’s Novel
CHAPTER 1
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of The Study
The tragedy such a murdering frequently happens within society. Almost
every day on television, radio station, and newspaper report about murdering.
Those incidents are caused by many factors, for example jeolousy, grudge, debt,
and so on. These things are very different conditions within novel Perfume: The
Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind. In the novel, Patrick Suskind gave
explanations about tragic murdering to produce perfume.
The writer was interested to analyze a novel of Patrick Suskind entitled
“Perfume: The Story of a Murderer.” This novel tells about perfume was made of
25 virgin girls’ aroma. Jean- Baptiste Grenouille, who had a good sense of smell,
was a genius and capable to make good fragrant. He was obsessed to make the
best perfume because he had ever smelled a virgin girl’s aroma. Then he
murdered 25 virgin girls to take their body fragrance. The virgin girls died
improperly. Their clothes, hair and head skins were lost. The murdering of the 25
girls was successfully done with planned and mysterious ways and finally created
the best virgin perfume with magic. As the object of this paper, the writer will
analyze the tragic virgin perfume on “Perfume: The Story of a Murderer” by
Patrick Suskind.
Novel is a long work of prose fiction. In English the word “novel” was
from medieval and classical romances as something that was new. In their book,
they also says that there are four aspects of fiction, works of fiction share a
number of common elements, they are: character, plot, structure, and theme. First,
Character is an extended verbal representation of human being, the inner self that
determines thought, speech, and behavior. A story is usually concerned with a
major problem that a character must face. This may involve interaction with
another character, with a difficult situation, or with an idea or general
circumstances that force action. The character may win, lose, or tie. He or she
may learn and be better for the experience or may miss the point and be
unchanged. Second, Plot is the serial arrangement of incidents, ideas or events.
The story of the novel progresses through various plots and conflicts. One of the
most important elements in shaping a work of fiction is plot. In the analysis of the
story, sometimes the plot is called as groove. Third, Structure refers to the way a
plot is assembled. Chronologically, all stories are similar because they all move
from beginning to end in accord with the time it takes for causes to produce
effects. Fourth, Theme is something which becomes the authors thought. It means
explains about view of life or the author’s image and how the consider the case.
Theme becomes a basic development of the whole part of the story the novel.
To understand a novel, we should know prose elements, such as plots,
characters, settings, themes, point of view, and figure of speech. Furthermore, an
ability in identifying novel elements is required to analyze a novel. The writer
uses descriptive methods or library researches by collecting data from some books
approaches by Wellek and Warren (1994:24), which is taken from data in
the text.
1.2 The Problem of The Study
Based on the background of the analysis, the problem of the study may be
recognized as follows:
a. Why does the tragic virgin perfume become an exciting tragedy?
b. How to produce the perfume?
1.3 The Scope of The Study
In this paper, the writer found many tragic stories to produce the virgin
perfume and excited to analyze. The writer just focused on the tragic virgin
perfume to make the readers easier to understand the novel.
1.4 The Purpose of The Study
The purpose of the study is to analyze and explain the virgin perfume
made of tragic stories.
1.5 Significance of the Study
The significance of this paper is to enrich the understanding on literary
works and it can improve the students to more interest in studying and enrich
1.6 The Method of The Study
The writer uses the work of the library method that is by collecting data
from books in the library and the writer also search the information from internet,
such as data are colleceted, sorted, and summarized.
The writer also uses intrinsic approach by Wellek and Warren (1994:24)
which is the approach taken the data from text itself and also use library method
(Library Research) that is by collecting data from books in the library and also
search the information from internet, such as data are colleceted, sorted, and
summarized.
1.7 Reason for Choosing the Topic
The writer has chosen Patrick Suskind’s novel Perfume: The Story of a
Murderer as a subject of this paper. The writer is interested in tragic stories the
virgin perfume which is very excited. Especially tragic stories to produce the
CHAPTER 2
2. DESCRIPTION OF THE TERMS 2.1 Novel
The novel is a work of prose fiction written in the narrative, usually in
story form. The word comes from the Italian, novella which means “a story or
piece of news.” The novel is literary form of the most popular in the world. This
form of literature is the most outstanding, because the vast power of
communication in society. As literature, the novel can be devided into two groups,
namely the work seriously and works of entertainment, but not all are able to
provide entertainment could be called serious literature. A serious novel that he
demanded not only a work of beautiful, attractive, and this also provide
entertainment for us. But he also demanded more than that. The novel is novel
primary requirement is taken it must attract, entertain and bring people out of
complacency after reading.
The novel is also a fictional work that describes a world which contains
a life model idealized, imaginative world, built as its intrinsic elements like story,
plot, character, setting, point of view, and so on, which is overall narative. Edgar
V. Roberts and Henry E. Jacobs in their literary books : An Introduction to
reading and writing (1995:49) said that novel is a fictional long prose work. In
English, novel is adopted from French and Italy to describe these works and
In their books, they also said that there are four fiction aspects, fictional works
consist of common elements, they are character, plot, structure, and theme.
2.2 Characters
In fiction, a character maybe defined as a verbal representation of a
human being. Through action, speech, description, and commentary, authors
portray character that are worth caring about, rooting for, and even loving,
although there are also characters you may laugh at, dislike, or even hate.
The characters in a story are the characters involved from the beginning
until the ending part of the story (plot). Edgar V. Roberts and Henry E. Jacobs
(1995:51) said that character is natural facsimile from the human with all good
and bad characteristics. A story is usually related to big conflict of the character. It
is probable to involve interaction with another character in complicated situation,
or with idea or ordinary condition. The character may win, lose, or relevant. He or
she can learn and become better for experience or maybe lose point and no
change. Furthermore, according to Edgar V. Roberts, character is the verbal
realization from human, personality which determines thoughts, statements, also
attitudes. The writer got interactions between character and environment through
interview, action, and also comments (1988:64).
2.3 Plots
Plot is the structure of serial incident, idea, or story. Novel story takes
place through various plots and conflicts. Plot maybe defined as a story’s
word “chronological.” But doing so would exclude many stories that depart from
this strict ordering of events. The plot is decided by three essential elements:
events, conflict, and climax.
Edgar V. Roberts said that plot is any conflicts between two powers:
between humans and themselves, with other humans, or with nature or
supernatural power (Roberts, 1983: 42). The parts which the conflict raising is
climax. If we can make a brief description about the plot of the story, we can use
it as instrument to define the theme of the story. A story usually has one plot, but
it also has additional plots which frequently called as lower plots.
2.4 Structures
Structure refers to how to make plot. Chronologically, all stories are
identical because they move from the beginning until the ending accordance with
the time required for causes to create effects. Edgar V. Roberts and Henry E.
Jacobs (1995:90) said that structure is the arrangement and placement of the
material for activity. The structure describes how the writer manages and puts the
material accordance with common ideas and the purpose of the activity.
2.5 Themes
Theme is the main idea or thought as the basis of the story. Theme gives
power and emphasizes the unity of storytelling and also tells about life in common
context. Themes distilled from the motifs contained in the relevant work that
determines the presence of events, conflict and situations. The theme became the
wider and abstract. Principal themes as the meaning of work of fiction is not
deliberately hidden because precisely this that is offered to the reader. However,
the overall theme is the meaning of which supported his story by itself would be
hidden behind a story that supports it.
Edgar V. Roberts (1964:8) said that theme is the main idea of the writer
will be communicated to the readers through the writer’s work. An integrated
theme needs a main idea, which is stated in existence of the idea in the plot of
story. Basically, a writer of literary works will begin a main idea, which is served
in the plot of story. In the main idea can be inserted by some additional supporting
ideas, and finally all the ideas are connected into an integrated literary work.
2.6 Intrinsic Approach
Intrinsic Elements (intrinsic) are the elements that build the literary work
itself. Elements are what because the literary present as a work of Martial Arts.
Intrinsic elements (extrinsic) are the elements that are beyond the works of
Matrial Arts, but indirectly affect the building or system of the organism’s Matrial
Arts. Extrinsic elements of novel must be still seen as something important.
Wallek&Warren (1956).
Wallek and Warren (1975: 75) says that the approach is based on the
intrinsic structural point of text and literature. This means the intrinsic approach
emphasizes the inter text analysis by describing the elements of prose that
described previously. Relationship with the art of literature and art of music is
and taste can be studied and related to the theory and literary tastes of artists.
Besides the issue of sources and influences, inspiration and cooperation, there is
another problem, namely literary works often produce the same results with the
results of painting and musical. The term is just a vague metafon.
Furthermore Wallek and Warren says, one approach is to find the purpose
and theory of the artist creator. A more useful is based on the comparison of
works of art, social and cultural background the same, can unravel the background
CHAPTER 3
3. THE ANALYSIS OF VIRGIN TRAGICP PERFUME
3.1 Perfumes
The best virgin perfume was perfume created by Jean Baptiste
Grenouille. The perfume was made of aroma collected from virgins’ bodies. The
creation of virgin perfume was caused by Grenouille had a better sense of smell
instead of other people even he could sniff something when his eyes closed he
could guess the things behind the house wall. One day, his nose smelled a fragrant
aroma and no one could know it and he had never found it before. Apparently the
fragrance came from a virgin’s body who was cleaning palm fruit on Marais St.
Then he was obsessed to make a most fragrant perfume. “He wanted to press, to
emboss this apotheosis of scent on his black, muddled soul, meticulously to
explore it and from this point on, to think, to live, to smell only according to the
innermost structures of its magic formula.” (Suskind, 1986: 42)
A virgin perfume was made of great and wonderful ingredient. The
perfume components could produce unequalled aroma and had magic and
marvelous power. The greatness of the formula could defeat hundred thousands
aroma ever created. “Contained within it was the magic formula for everything
that could make a scent, a perfume, great: delicacy, power, stability, variety, and
terrifying, irresistible beauty. He had found the compass for his future life.”
The best virgin perfume created by Grenouille had magic powers. This
most fragrant perfume could make anyone who smelled it became surrendering
without any reasons. “… the ten thousand people on the parade grounds and on
the slopes surrounding it felt themselves infused with the unshakable belief that
the man in the blue frock coat who had just climbed out of the carriage could not
possibly be a murderer.” (Suskind, 1986: 235)
The virgin perfume could hypnotize thousands people who smelled it to
change their mindset. From prejudice and hatred to Grenouille became contrary;
beloved and admired. He was arrested to murder 24 virgin girls and would get
capital punishment. However, the aroma evaporated from the robe worn by
Grenouille and changed him into a holy and innocent figure. “All at once his
strong arms were as weak, his knees as wobbly, his heart as anxious as a child’s.
… he dreaded the moment when they would lead him forward; he tottered, had to
prop himself up with his death-dealing rod to keep from sinking feebly to his
knees…” (Suskind, 1986: 236)
Furthermore, the perfume aroma could make everyone surrenders and
powerless. To inhale the fragrant aroma of virgin perfume could cause all the
bodies bowed and weak. Even a bully could not do his duty to execute him. The
virgin aroma made anyone who smelled it blind. “They wept and removed their
hats, put them back on, cast themselves to the ground, fell into each other’s arms,
withdrew again, flapped their arms absurdly in the air, wrung their hands…”
The evaporating virgin perfume could also make people drunk. The
fragrant aroma of virgin perfume made anyone who smelled it drunk. The people
who saw Grenouille’s arrival became drunk too. They were trapped on passion to
have a big and illegal sex party on the execution field. “There were women who
with one look at Grenouille thrust their fists into their laps and sighed with bliss…
There were gentlemen who kept springing up and sitting down and leaping up
again, snorting vigorously and grasping the hilts of their swords as if to draw
them.”(Suskind, 1986: 237)
Through the excerpt above can be concluded that the beginning of
creation of virgin perfume caused by the most fragrant aroma which inspired
Grenouille to own it. The virgin perfume had four great powers and contained
magic formula. The magic formula could make the people who smelled it became
surrendering, hypnotized, and felt love.
3.2 Perfume Production Process
Murdering is the first step of virgin perfume production process. Virgin
girl was murdered to get the aroma of the virgin’s body. There were 25 virgin
girls became the murdered victims in the story. However, the virgin girl was first
time murdered was not found in the perfume. The best virgin perfume was made
of only 24 aroma from the murdered virgins’ bodies. Furthermore, step by step
the formula was collected by murdering the virgin girl one by one. In this novel,
the murdering of 23 virgin girls made into perfume formula were not explained
specifically. The twenty-three-virgin girls were only described for their death.
perfume was the most beautiful virgin girl with the best aroma explained
specifically.
The murdering happened first time in May. A 15-years-Virgin girl was
murdered in the rose garden with a strong hitting in her head. She was the victim
who would be created as perfume formula. “In may of that same year, the naked
body of a fifteen-year-old girl was found in a rose field, halfway between Grasse
and the hamlet of Opio east of town. She had been killed by a heavy blow to the
back of the head.” (Suskind, 1986: 194) The girl was only left in the garden. She
was found in naked lain down and without any hair on her head. Then a farmer
found her body and reported to the police to investigate.
The next murdering was the second and the third victims. Both of the
girls were found as the beginning of jasmine harvesting. It was such a previous
murdering. Both of them were found in naked condition and any strong hitting on
her head. “Not long after the beginning of the jasmine harvest, two more murders
occurred. Again the victims were very lovely young girls, again of the languid,
raven-haired sort, again they were found naked and shorn and lying in a flower
field with the backs of their heads bludgeoned.”(Suskind, 1986: 195) Similar to
the previous thung, the victims were left by the murderer in the same garden and
the police investigated again.
After the second and the third victims were found in the next days, a
dead body of a girl, the palace laundry washer, found again. She was murdered in
they found the body of yet another girl, abused in the same manner as the others.
This time it was a Sardinian washerwoman from the bishop’s palace; she had been
struck down near the great basin of the Fontaine de la Foux, directly before the
gates of the town.” (Suskind, 1986: 196) This incidents made many people
worried. The polices were more strictly to investigate this case.
The fifth murdering happened to a carpenter’s daughter. She was
murdered in her bedroom. No people in the house realized it. Even the dog in the
house did not bark because he could not sniff the stranger’s smell or the murderer
who came into the house. “The daughter of a carpenter was found slain in her own
room on the fifth floor, and no one in the house had heard the least noise, and
although the dogs normally yelped the moment they picked up the scent of any
stranger, not one of them had barked.” (Suskind, 1986: 197) Her dead body was
left in her bedroom. Through this incidents, the people thought that the murderer
was nonhuman and maybe it was a ghost.
The sixth until 24th murderings were not explained specifically by
Patrick Suskind. In the novel, the writer just described some situations that the
murdered victims reached 24 girls.
“… having cut down no fewer than twenty-four of its most beautiful virgins out of every social class, was made anathema and excommunicated both in writing and from all the pulpits of the city, including a ban spoken by the bishop himself from the pulpit of Notre-Dame-du-Puy. The result was conclusive. From one day to the next, the murders ceased.” (Suskind, 1986: 198)
The excerpts above were retold by Patrick Suskind that the murderer had
“… in it were twenty-four tiny flacons filled with drops of the congealed aura of twenty-four virgins-precious essences that Grenouille had produced over the last year by cold-oil enfleurage of their bodies, digestion of their hair and clothes, lavage, and distillation. And the twenty-fifth, the most precious and important of all … ” (Suskind, 1986: 209)
The twenty fifth victim happened to the beautiful girl, Laura, the
aristocratic girl. She was found murdered on her bed. It was the last murdering
done by Grenouille.
“… Laure lying on her bed, naked and dead and shorn clean and sparkling white. It was like his nightmare, the one he had dreamt in Grasse the night before last and had forgotten again.” (Suskind, 1986: 221)
Perfume production process of 24 virgin girls as follows. Preceded by
murdering virgin girl. The 24th murdering done by Grenouille was almost same.
The girl was hit or strangled until dead. Then the body was made naked and
wrapped with linen cloth and smeared oil to stick the sweat. Then he cut their hair
and took their clothes to extract the perfume. “At the start of December, reports
came in from Grenoble that a murderer there was strangling young girls, then
tearing their clothes to shreds and pulling their hair out by the handfuls.”(Suskind,
1986: 198)
On the location where the girls murdered, the victims’ bodies were
smeared oil to strengthen the aroma. Then their bodies were wrapped with cloth
and take the oil. Even the oil from pore was scraped from the skin.
wiped off with her undershirt, using it to rub down her body from head to foot one last time...” (Suskind, 1986: 220)
From the excerpt above can be concluded that the virgin perfume
production included of many processes. Murdering twenty four girls by hitting
their head and wrapping their bodies with linen cloth. Then the cloth was removed
until the aroma stick on the cloth. Formula created of the twenty four girls was
CHAPTER 4
4. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
CONCLUSIONS
Patrick Suskind (1986) is a writer who wants to invite the readers
adventure with virgin perfume of Grenouille. He wants to make the readers
imagine about the tragic virgin perfume in the novel and how the virgin perfume
created and the produced even though it had long process.
After analyzing the novel, it is provable that tragic virgin perfume shown
in novel: “Perfume: The Story of a Murderer” created to get fragrant virgin aroma
which was collected by Grenouille. The aroma of virgin perfume had magic
formula which able to anyone smelled it became surrendering, powerless, illogical
thinking, and drunk. The virgin perfume was created by skillful talent. With his
good sense of smell, he murdered 24 girls to take the aroma. After they were
collected, the twenty fourth formula were combined into a best magic virgin
perfume with four wonderful miracles. The production process was also surprising
by murdering virgin girls and smearing oil to take the aroma from their body.
Then their bodies were wrapped and removed by murderer so that the aroma stuck
on the cloth. Furthermore, the victims were peeled and cut for their hair.
SUGGESTIONS
The writer hopes this work paper can help the readers who want to know
the readers of the novel not only sit silently and read the whole story, but also
they can understand the story in the novel. In this work paper, the writer hopes the
readers know that the virgin perfume created by tragic incidents is the writer’s
imagination and perspective only. This is not a true way to reach the dream and
ambition because it is the wrong way. The writer realizes that this paper of virgin
perfume still needs corrections. Therefore, the writer accepts useful critics and
comments to improve this paper. I expect this paper would be useful for the
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Gray, Martin. 1985. A Dictionary of Literary Terms. Hong Kong: Longman York Press.
Robert, Edgar V and Henry. E. Jacob. 1995. An Introduction to Reading and Writing (Fourth Edition). New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Suskind, Patrick. 1986. Perfume: The Story of A Murderer. United States of America: Vintage Books.
Suskind, Patrick. 2007. Perfume: The Story of A Murderer. Jakarta: Dastan Books.
Wellek, Rene and Austin Warren. 1956. Theory of Literature. New York: A Harvest Books.
APPENDICES
BIOGRAPHY OF PATRICK SUSKIND
Born in 1949, Süskind was raised in Ambach, Germany, the eldest son of
Wilhelm Emanuel Süskind, a writer and journalist best known in Germany for his
collection of essays on language, Aus dem Worterbuch des Unmenschen. In 1968
Süskind entered the University of Munich to study history. He later completed a
master of arts degree at the University of Aix-en-Provence, France, in 1974.
While studying in the perfume-producing country of southern France, Süskind
traveled and gathered material for what eventually became the novel Perfume.
Meanwhile, in the fall of 1981, Süskind's play The Double Bass premiered,
establishing him as one of the most popular playwrights of German theatre.
Originally conceived as prose piece that was repeatedly rejected for publication,
The Double Bass eventually appeared in novella form in 1984. Around the same
series, Monaco Franze. In late 1984 the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine
Zeitung contracted Süskind to serially publish his first prose work, Perfume.
Published in book form the following year, Perfume immediately became a
German best-seller and subsequently sold over six million copies worldwide by
1991. Wary of his newfound celebrity, Süskind declined a five-thousand dollar
prize for best first novel from Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in 1986, vowing to
never again accept awards for writing. That same year, Süskind resumed his
collaboration with Dietl by co-writing the script for another popular television
series, Kir Royal, which revolved around the adventures of a titular Munich gossip
columnist. In 1987 Süskind published the novella Die Taube (The Pigeon) which,
though critically well received, failed to attain the popular success of Perfume.
Süskind and Dietl reteamed again in 1996 to write the screenplay for the film
Rossini: oder die mörderische Frage, wer mit wem schlief, which follows the
careers of a variety of characters in the German film industry as their lives
intersect in a Munich restaurant.
Patrick Suskind’s career
The principal focus of Süskind's works has been the motivations and
behavior of the typical outsider. The Double Bass is a serio-comic monologue that
explores a double-bass player's relationship to his instrument, illuminating the
instrument's—and the player's—supporting role in the orchestra and in life. The
double-bass is alternately characterized as feminine, reliable, discriminated
end, both the instrument and its player allow themselves to conform and play their
allotted secondary part. Set in urban Paris and the French countryside of the
1700s, Perfume is a study of the dynamics of scents and the sense of smell. The
bizarre and ironic tale focuses on an alienated antihero, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille,
a despised outcast orphan who lacks any bodily odor. He roams through
eighteenth-century France murdering beautiful young women in order to distill
their bodily scents into a perfume that will make him the most desirable and
powerful man on Earth—not to mention nominally human. In addition, Perfume
also weaves a detailed discourse on historical perfume-making techniques into its
narrative, complete with sensuous descriptions of both pleasant and repellent
odors as a recurrent motif.
The novella The Pigeon focuses on a single day in the life of Jonathan
Noel, a Parisian bank guard, who has finally attained a measure of happiness after
years of personal strife. Totally satisfied with his job and the isolation he secures
in his small apartment, Noel finds his serenity abruptly interrupted when a pigeon
lands on his doorstep and remains there for the rest of the day. The event is so
unnerving for Noel that he goes to sleep vowing to kill himself in the morning. In
Die Geschichte vom Herrn Sommer (1991; The Story of Mr. Sommer), the narrator
recalls his post-war childhood, framing his growing knowledge of the adult world
in terms of his frequent encounters with the eccentric Herr Sommer, who spends
his days frantically traversing the local environs by foot, barely saying a word to
anyone but always carrying his extraordinarily long walking stick. The novella
life lessons about responsibility, suffering, and distress that contrast with his
comfortable, contented existence as a child. In the first story comprising Three
Stories and a Reflection (1996), a young artist retreats from the world and
eventually kills herself because critics labeled her art as superficial. The second
story involves a game of chess in Luxembourg Gardens between a dashing young
stranger and a perennial elderly champion. As the game progresses, the
confidence and foolhardiness of the youthful novice unexpectedly yields a victory
over the expertise of the seasoned veteran, stunning the audience and ultimately
persuading the old man to abandon playing chess. The longest piece of the
collection, “Das Vermächtnis des Maitre Mussard,” consists of the first-person
deathbed writings of Mussard, a historical figure mentioned in Jean-Jacque
Rousseau's Confessions (1782-89), who is suffering from the delusion that
petrifaction is overtaking the world. In an addendum, an anonymous narrator tells
us that Massard died of a strange form of paralysis and had to be buried in a
right-angled hole. The final item of the collection, “Amnesie in litteris,” is a reflection
on books, with Süskind proclaiming that he has long since forgotten every book
that had once deeply stirred him.
SUMMARY OF THE NOVEL
Grenouille is born to a fishwife mother in Paris in the early eighteenth
century. He is delivered behind his mother's fish stall and is immediately
abandoned to die. The baby, who strangely has no scent, cries out and is saved by
successful infanticides, leaving Grenouille, a bastard, alone in the world. He is
brought up in a sort of home orphanage, tended together with several other
orphans by an emotionally damaged woman name
of eight he is given in apprenticeship to a tanner
worked to death. After having survived anthrax, and thus becoming more useful in
a tannery, he is treated marginally better and is given some slight freedom.
Grenouille roams the city of Paris, searching for new scents, because he has the
most gifted nose in the world.
On one of his olfactory jaunts around the city, Grenouille finds the most
delicious scent he has ever encountered, that of a adolescent girl. He finds her
scent from a long distance, and he follows it until he is very near her in the dark.
She senses him, and as she turns around to see him he strangles her. He then takes
the opportunity to smell her scent to his heart's content. It is the happiest he has
ever been. He leaves the body and feels no remorse.
One night he delivers some goatskins t
old man to let him work for him, after showing the master that he has a wonderful
nose and a great memory for mixing perfumes. Baldini is so impressed with the
scent that Grenouille creates that he buys his apprenticeship from Grimal. While
working for Baldini, Grenouille makes the best scents Paris has ever smelled, and
Baldini becomes very rich. Grenouille falls ill again, but he survives once Baldini
tells him there are other ways to distill and preserve scents to be learned in the
south of France. This news revives Grenouille, and he lives. Eventually he leaves
On the way to Grasse, Grenouille makes a detour for seven years to a
mountain cave, where he ponders the scents he has known in his life thus far.
Descending from the mountain looking like a wild man, he is rehabilitated by a
slightly mad pseudo-scientist nobleman who believes that he is a prime example
of a vicitm of fluidum letale. After a farce of a scientific "proof" is enacted,
Grenouille slips away and goes to Grasse.
There he works in a small perfumery, learning different methods of
distillation, but especially cold enfleurage. He now begins to distill scents other
than flowers, such as inanimate objects. He moves onto animals, finally realizing
that he must kill them in order to get their scent properly. Now he has a goal; he
has found a scent to match the girl he killed in Paris, another red-head here in
Grasse nam
he needs other scents to buoy up and extend her scent, to make it truly wonderful.
Grenouille thus proceeds to kill twenty-four teenage girls in the region of
Grasse, and he distills their scent by cold enfleurage. Finally he murders and
obtains the scent of his prize, the best-smelling girl, Laure. He is caught for his
crimes but, by using the master scent he has created, he is believed innocent by all
and released. Feeling depressed and suicidal because there are no greater scents to
be discovered or distilled, Grenouille goes to Paris to die. He douses himself with
