Patrick Suskind's use of visual imagery captures the audiences' sense of smell by dragging the reader into this world of hideous stench. Perfume is unique as it creates a reality by 'painting a picture' in the mind of the reader through the olfactory senses. Suskind does, on many occasions, manipulate the readers' basic instincts through the novel's protagonist, Jean Baptiste Grenouille.

Suskind is successful in the way that he takes the reader into his story through the use of very vivid detail in his description of the odours in this book in the way that other authors describe surroundings.

Suskind's writing technique is also distinctive in the way that he uses phrases and imagery to make what initially seem to be violent and grotesque descriptions an erotic and sexual encounter. This is a prominent theme when the main character is murdering his young virgins and dissecting various 'smells.'

Through these various techniques of Suskind's, we are drawn into the world of Jean Baptiste Grenouille. It is to be analysed in this essay how we are able to experience what Grenouille feels. The reader is confronted with the issues of acceptance and fi

"Grenouille's body was strewn with reddish blisters. Many of them popped open, releasing their watery contents, only to fill up again. Others grew into true boils, swelling up thick and red and then erupting like craters, spewing vicious pus and blood streaked with yellow. In time, with his hundreds ulcerous wounds, Grenouille looked liked some martyr stoned inside out"

It is in fact, the first stage in the book where we are brought to understand the transition for Grenouille. This is where he is beginning to understand who he really is. It is hard to accept how he can achieve this revelation just after he has murdered a young woman all to 'capture' and 'savour' a woman's scent.

nding love both of which are relevant to human nature thus the audience is able to sympathise with him. He cannot achieve acceptance in society by being who he really is. He therefore strives to achieve this by killing in order to obtain the ultimate scent. It is with this scent that he will no longer be odourless and feared

This first introduction of smells being presented to the reader is used to 'paint a picture' for the reader of the atmosphere that is created by these smells and preparing the reader for what has yet to come.

Suskind enables the reader to share Grenouille's first encounter of debauchery and at this stage it is the first time he achieves true happiness. At the innocent age of fifteeen it almost shocks the reader of the determination and longing for acceptance Grenouille feels towards 'capturing' the smell of a young virgin: "His whole life would be bungled, if he, Grenouille, did not succeed in possessing it. He has to have it, not simply in order to possess it, but for his heart to be at peace."

"Never before in his life had he known what happiness was. He knew at most some very rare states of numbed contentment. But now he was quivering with happiness and could not sleep for pure bliss."

With issues raised previously, Suskind is able to bring the reader into the world of Grenouille. He first introduces the reader in to an elaborate description of horrible, hideous stench of smells that the reader is instantly bombarded with at the beginning of the novel. Perfume is set in 18th Century France and the stench described by Suskind is "barely conceivable to use modern men and women." Patrick Suskind cleverly gives his audience a 'taste' of smells that the reader has been completely oblivious to and is made to become very aware. Various words are emphasised such as "stank" and "stench" which are used repetativly. Phrases such as "the pungently sweet aroma", "the stench of sulphur..." "unaired parlours", "congealed blood", "manure" and "urine."

Through this analysis of how Patrick Suskind enables th

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1838
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)