Perfume
Animal Parallels of Grenouille
Law of Infanticide
1. Grenouille as a Frog
Key Characteristics of a frog:
-Tailless
-Insignificant
-Amphibian
These characteristics are applicable to Grenouille, the frog protagonist of the novel in a variety of ways.
Being tailless represents the difference from other amphibians like Salamanders who do have tails. This difference in Grenouille's character is portrayed as his separation from any other humans in his lack of- also interpreted as his heightened human ability smell.
Frogs are not main or vital creatures within the food chain. In the same manner, Grenouille has no significance within the society. In the first chapter, he is oblivious compared to famous people who have made life altering marks in history.
Being an amphibian, as mentioned earlier, is a direct association to the border that Grenouille lies on. An amphibian lives its life partly on land and partly in the water. Grenouille lives as a normal human being until he leaves Paris for Grasse and finds the cave where he lives more animal-like. Additionally, he is human but his heightened sense of smell makes him less human and more animal-like.
2. Grenouille as a Tick
Book References to Frogs and Grenouille:
1. Baldini was wearing a "blue coat adorned with golden frogs"
This represents the success that Grenouille will bring into Baldini's life. The gold suggests riches which becomes evident when Grenouille becomes an intern at the Baldini House and he is able to increase profits for Baldini.
Key Characteristics of a tick:
-Offers nothing to the world
-Lonely
-Blind, deaf, sniff all year long
It is possible from these few characteristics to draw similarities to Grenouille and a tick.
First off, in offering nothing to the world, rather than a comparison this serves as both a comparison and a similarity. Grenouille does offer nothing to the world in the sense that he is alone in the world with nobody to care for and nobody to take care of him. He is orphaned at birth, and was actually supposed to die because of him being deemed as insignificant to his mother. Although the comparison that can be drawn revolves around Grenouille managing to bring exquisite scents into the world, it can also be said that perfume already existed before and after Grenouille's life- further suggesting his insignificance.
As ticks are lonely, so is Grenouille. As mentioned earlier, he was alone in the world from birth to death. In the book he has no close associates and no friends. He finds no life partner which could perhaps be a reason to his hostility towards humans.
Although ticks are deprived of these senses; sight and sound, they sniff all year long. Grenouille as well has an exaggerated sense of smell and all he does- which brings him and Baldini's business success- is figure out scents for perfumes.
Book References to Ticks and Grenouille:
1. "He was as tough as a resistant bacterium and as content as a tick sitting quietly on a tree and living off a tiny drop of blood plundered years before."
The simile that compares Grenouille's surviving nature to that of a tick, further illustrating that he is content and leads a simple lifestyle not requiring much.
2. "like that tick in the tree, for which life has nothing better to offer than perpetual hibernation. The ugly little tick, which by rolling its blue-gray body up into a ball offers the least possible surface to the world; which by making its skin smooth and dense emits nothing, lets not the tiniest bit of perspiration escape. The tick, which makes itself extra small and inconspicuous so that no one will see it and step on it. The lonely tick, which, wrapped up in itself, huddles in its tree, blind, deaf, and dumb, and simply sniffs, sniffs all year long, for miles around, for the blood of some passing animal that it could never reach on its own power."
3. Grenouille the animal
1. He eats what he can get his hands on​ (as well as animals)
"Once a dead raven lay at the mouth of the cave. He ate it."
2. Goes into hibernation
"He was standing naked at the entrance to the tunnel, where he had lived in darkness for seven years."
3. "Hunts for scents"
"Not long after the beginning of the jasmine harvest, two more murders occurred. Again the victims were very lovely young girls"
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Grenouille murdered girls, who were pure (virgins)
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These girls were murdered for their "beautiful scents"
4. Disregard for life
How does the French culture of Grenouille’s time treat unwanted children and young apprentices? How does this affect how Grenouille grows up and how he views himself?
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The children of the lower class were protected by the law from infanticide, if the culprit was caught in time. This rational and humane law however, executed those who attempted it, often leaving the children orphaned. Since Grenouille had no other family, he lost, on the day of his birth the only person who could possibly have loved him. Even the church didn’t believe infants to be “yet a human being”. Grenouille, though kept alive by a society which protected his life, at least nominally, was never provided with the possibility of love or a real family. Therefore, Grenouille always thought of himself as separate and profoundly different from other people. Young apprentices likewise were under the control of the masters and treated not much better than workhorses or other animals.