How does Süskind portray smell in part 1 of “Perfume”?
From the first pages of the book, he conveys the identity of people through their smells, or in the case of Grenouille, his main character, through the lacking of scent. Since Süskind gives the reader an idea of the identity of his characters through their smells, the fact that he so clearly states that Grenouille does not have a smell rings true with the lack of identity he seems to have. The people he meets in his early days are therefore crucial in pinpointed who Grenouille is, since it is through their perspective of him that the reader gains an understanding of jean-Baptiste Grenouille. In particular, Father Terrier and Madame Gaillard and their roles in Grenouille’s early life lay the foundations of the perspective of Grenouille which the reader adopts. When Father Terrier takes the child under his wing, the reader understands that his view of children as “poor innocent little child[ren]! Innocent creature[s]” (p.15) is not just Father Terrier’s, but that of the whole Church; to them, all children are innocent and simply cannot have anything imperfect about them: which, of course, is then disproven. In this way, Süskind might be subtly alluding to the one-sided perspective of the Church, the unchanging view that it adopts, and how in many cases this perspective is wrong. Indeed, only a few lines later, Father Terrier realises that Grenouille does not have a smell: still, even when faced with the obvious sign under his nose that something is not right about this infant, he sticks with his belief, and tries to justify the lack of scent. “How could an infant, which does not yet know sin, even in its dreams, have an odour?”: the irony of this piece of internally focalized piece narrative is that Grenouille himself is born into a society where sin is unavoidable, and thus he must have already know sin. This is another example of the detachment of the Church from the reality of matters in cases where its’ opinion is already set. Furthering my point on Father Terrier reflecting Grenouille’s personality, as he is trying to smell Grenouille, the use of free indirect discourse helps the reader to see that Grenouille in fact has no character: “An infant […] simply doesn’t smell, any more than it speaks, or walks, or writes”. Although Father Terrier pins this down to Grenouille being but a babe, the reader gains the feeling that this is because it is Grenouille, rather than because it is a babe, which is being talked about. Madame Gaillard was another character through whom the reader is able to gain insight on Grenouille’s character – or, since it becomes more apparent he doesn’t seem to have one, into who he is. She is the only character in Part 1 of “Perfume” who cannot smell: this takes away her ability to judge individuals in this way, and therefore Grenouille is not set apart from the other children in her care. Where Father Terrier represented the hypocrisy of the Church, Madame Gaillard represents the French society of the 19th century: working towards one goal, completely desensitised. Indeed, Madame Gaillard is completely focused on a single goal, so much so that she is unable to live in the present: she is “the mummy of a young girl” (p.20): although she is still physically alive, her only goal is to die in private, and so her entire being is focused towards her death. The lack of smell caused Madame Gaillard to have a lack of care or compassion, which is replaced with an unshakable sense of justice and order.
