Scent, Identity, and Social Representation in Patrick Süskind’s Perfume
Behold the man who has no scent, and how he spends his life making one for his own (Eng 12: World Literatures, UP Diliman, 2015).
Perfume is Patrick Süskind’s debut novel (Ackroyd 9), originally published in German (as Das Parfum) in 1985 (Vazsonyi 332). Süskind won the World Fantasy Award in 1987 for Best Novel because of Perfume (World Fantasy Awards: Award Winners & Nominees); the novel itself achieved immense popularity (Jacobson 201) and considerable literary criticism for its literary style, references, and use of pastiche (Ryan 396). Twenty-one years later, 2006 saw Süskind’s novel transformed into a film (Bradshaw), which was praised for its visual impact but criticized for its inability to conjure the sense of smell as Süskind has done in his novel (Smee).
That is, smell, olfaction, and odor are deemed to be of great importance as a device in the novel’s narrative (Yi 225), owing to scent’s influence on the psychological (Stafford 884) and historical (Feldman) narratives of human experience. The current analysis will then explore this significance associated to scent: what importance does scent have in the human condition, as reflected in the discourses of identity, power, and interaction in Perfume?
Framework: scent in psychology and history
As evidenced by the title, central to Perfume’s plot and devices is the “domain that leaves no traces in history” to which Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (the novel’s protagonist) devoted his gifts and ambition: “the fleeting realm of scent” (Süskind 3). Moreover, above its usage in the novel, the significance of scent can be situated in the psychological and historical discourses which attest to its influence in the human condition. Psychologically, scent figures in human memory, emotion, and identity (Stafford 884-885); historically, in the issues of hygiene (Corbin 90), class, and social status (71). However, both scent and olfaction have been dismissed for their animalistic nature as opposed to being human and scientific (Corbin 6) to the point of being deemed “primitive” and “devilish” (Süskind 14), thus being paid little attention (Stevenson 3). Nonetheless, by considering the impact of odor and olfaction on human memory and history, it can be seen how scent can be used to analyze the human condition as Süskind explored in Perfume.
Psychology: memory and identity
Olfaction is held to be of great power as odor is able to “trigger intense emotions and associated memories that can literally overwhelm us; far more than other senses” (Stafford 884). Scent, then, conjures not only the memory associated to the scent, but also the entire emotional experience in which the scent is situated (Corbin 82). That is, memories (Stafford 885) and moods (Warrenburg i248) become entangled with the olfactory experience such that scent becomes capable in itself to summon these memories upon being perceived (Stafford 885). As in the novel, scent is able to transport individuals back in time through their memories, as Giuseppe Baldini experienced through the vial of the perfume Amor & Psyche (Süskind 85–86).
Furthermore, scent’s capacity to overwhelm individuals can be traced to the physiology of sensing odors: unlike the other senses, olfaction is able to bypass the brain’s sensory triage, thus manifesting in an individual’s consciousness more readily than vision or hearing (Stafford 885; Shepherd 166). The challenge that researchers face, then, is to determine at what point of this sensory relay the conscious perception of smell occurs (166). Apart from this, humans have used scent predominantly for survival: as a tool to search for food (Stevenson 4), to judge environments for hazards (7), and to find a mate to reproduce (10). Perhaps, for these reasons, scent (and the process of olfaction) “has been derided as vague, bastard, [and] ambiguous” (Stafford 884).
In the same way, scent is prominent in the identity of a person. As research has shown, each individual possesses a unique scent produced by the proportion of chemicals present in one’s body (Glausiusz 41). Humans are then able to determine many aspects of other people’s identity through the scents they perceive: sexual attractiveness (Stevenson 11), health status, sexual orientation (Glausiusz 42), and even relationship by kinship to avoid familial inbreeding (Kitayama and Cohen 91). To the same extent, humans are able to smell the emotional state of others, from sexual arousal to fear (Glausiusz 43). Essentially, scent has great influence in the human condition at the psychological level as it participates in the creation of memories, association of emotions, and determination of individual identities.
History: odor and the social order
France in the 18th century was preoccupied with disinfection and, thus, deodorization “to conceal the evidence of organic time, to repress all the irrefutable prophetic markers of death” (Corbin 90). Perfume’s plot was situated in the same era, giving an accurate picture of what odors France tried to repress at the time:
The streets stank of manure, the courtyards of urine, the stairwells stank of moldering wood and rat droppings, the kitchens of spoiled cabbage and mutton fat; the unaired parlors stank of stale dust, the bedrooms of greasy sheets, damp featherbeds, and the pungently sweet aroma of chamber pots (Süskind 3).
Odor was treated as a threat to the existing order of society; the act of deodorization was pursued as the hygienic and the fragrant were taken as marks of social stability (Corbin 5). These processes were motivated by medical discoveries in the Enlightenment era which connected odor to disease (Feldman) and pleasurable scent to well-being (Corbin 74). Apart from this, the dynamics of class were implicated in the characterization of scent: strong animal scents were associated to the masses, while subtle, flowery scents were reserved for the aristocrats and the refined (76). In these cases, scent was not only a sensory experience, but a justification for the establishment of endorsed social orders (5, 90). As will be explored further, scent is also implicated in notions of economic prosperity and social recognition (Süskind 101), and how medical discoveries regarding odor can translate into social processes and reforms (Corbin 100).
As such, Perfume’s extensive use of olfactory stimuli can be traced to scent’s psychological and historical underpinnings. Thus, considering its great influence in these aspects of the human condition, the role of scent in the discourses of identity and social representation will frame the current analysis of Patrick Süskind’s Perfume.
Analyzing Perfume: the dynamics of scent
Scent participates in three discourses within the novel: personal and social identity (cf. Clarke 101), power and social representation (Corbin 76-78), and human interaction (cf. 100-101). These three discourses are given attention in this analysis as they demonstrate how scent is able to mobilize plot and represent the human condition. Grenouille himself may embody scent’s role in the plot: he progresses from a state of lacking his own scent (Süskind 135) to creating a perfume that “managed to make the world admire him” (239) by collecting the odors that the world presented to him (37) and refining the methods he used to capture them (173–177) thus creating an identity for himself (e.g. 153).
Similarly, scent reflects a person’s status in society and what human interactions are opened to an individual. People of high repute are entitled to perfumes that stand as if heirlooms (e.g. 106), with the sense of smell itself a necessity in engaging in social and emotional affairs (e.g. Madame Gaillard, 19). Essentially, scent is implicated in these discourses by taking a central position in the lives of the characters and events of the novel (Yi 217).
Scent as personal identity
Grenouille, in not having a scent of his own (Süskind 135), is left unnoticed. To have a personal odor, he realized, allows him to have a “shadow, so to speak, to cast across another’s face” (152). Indeed, a person’s scent serves as a unique identifier for that person (Glausiusz 42), somehow becoming an extension of an individual’s personality—an indicator of mood (43), for instance. In this manner, identity is of great importance as it is “projected at the target audience in a theatrical performance that conveys [the] self to others” (Clarke 511). Thus, as Grenouille lacks a personal odor which “performs” his identity to others, he is stigmatized by this “failing” (Goffman 11) and thus made an outcast in the community where he is present (14).
Grenouille did make multiple perfumes (“a number of personal odors”, Süskind 182), all compensating for his lack of scent and thus surpassing the stigma, but with each one designed to elicit a specific mood from those who would perceive his smell (cf. Warrenburg i248)—one of semen to attract attention, another of milk to elicit compassion, and a third that was of rancid meat to make people avoid him, among others (Süskind 183-184). Thus, he possessed odor-identities, changing them “like clothes as the situation demanded” (184). Eventually, Grenouille finally created the perfume that would lead the world to love him (155) using the odors of twenty-four girls about to enter puberty (cf. 198) with Laure Richis, his last victim, being the crowning scent of his perfume (Yi 222). As such, the notions of scent and personal identity have been intertwined in Grenouille’s perspective: “True, he did not love…the girl who lived in the house…he loved her scent—that alone” (Süskind 190).
Scent-identities extend to the perfumes that a person uses: France in the 18th century found the use of perfume either to accent personal odor (Corbin 73) or suppress it under a different scent (74) which is of the choosing of whoever uses the perfume (75). Scent is then an extension of the person’s identity, reflections of the person’s preferences in scent and odor (73).
Furthermore, even the individual’s environment may attest to the person’s identity: the olfactory space that a person inhabits reflects one’s trade and social status. Laure (daughter of Antoine Richis, the richest man in Grasse; Süskind 199) lived in a house surrounded by a large garden (169), while Grenouille was born in the middle of a fish market, “on the most putrid spot in the whole kingdom” (4). Baldini owned a perfume shop that smelled of “everything that had a scent or…contributed [in its] production” (46); meanwhile, working under Grimal the tanner, Grenouille smelled of “stinking hides…pickling dung, chopped wood…[and] caustic fumes” (31). Indeed, as the descriptions in Perfume show, scent is treated as if it is a personality characteristic, a social mark or stigma (Goffman 14) representing a person’s origins and status, which determines how the person is perceived in social spaces (Clarke 511).
Scent as social order and representation
As presented above, smell was an extension of an individual’s identity, of personal origin and status. Indeed, 18th France can distinguish people by their scent: musk and animal scents belonged to the masses, yet perfume was reserved for the aristocrats and those in power (Corbin 76). In this sense, scent entered the realm of class distinction and social representation: power is now attributed to the scent that a person has (78), both those who use and produce the scent. The perfumers in Perfume were in constant competition to achieve recognition from their clients. Antoine Pélissier achieved renown by introducing new and original perfumes which would be instant successes with his customers (Süskind 53); other competitors have duchesses and royal households as clients, some even having stores outside of France (54).
Meanwhile, through all of this, Baldini’s perfume shop continues to lose its already numbered customers, as the perfumer himself had never introduced any new scent (51); should he lose the last Count he has for a customer, he would then have to chase after customers in the streets (54). By the mere fact that a perfume is used by someone of high repute and is sold to places outside France, the perfumer is accorded social recognition for his talent in creating perfumes, thus able to amass fortunes and maintain social power; such had been Baldini’s case upon acquiring the genius of Grenouille (106).
Scents-as-perfumes have already been shown to have given Grenouille some semblance of identity in the absence of his own odor (152). However, as expounded here in Baldini’s experiences, scent is also capable of according economic prosperity; and should Baldini succeed in his plan to design perfumes for individuals of royalty, scent will also secure for him social recognition for the perfumes created under his name (101; Corbin 76). Furthermore, social recognition can be extended to an entire city: Grasse, in being the home to many great perfumers in the novel, had been deemed “the Rome of scents, the promised land of perfumes, and the man who had not earned his spurs here did not rightfully bear the title of perfumer” (Süskind 166).
Moreover, 18th century France engaged in a project set to disinfect and deodorize their society to cleanse it of any reference to death or transience (Corbin 90). The era of the Enlightenment was marked by the influence of scientists and philosophers who increasingly saw the connection between disease and the odor of filth (Feldman). As such, the scents used in France were ranked not only because of the social class who used the perfume, but also because of the hygienic characteristics that the ingredients of the perfume possessed (Corbin 78). In the novel, the marquis de La Taillade-Espinasse possessed the same perspective in proposing his “fluidal theory”: excesses in fluidum letale (“lethal fluid”) within an individual’s body manifests in the physical deterioration of the individual (Süskind 140). Using Grenouille as his case study, he explains that the ground emits a lethal gas “which lames vital energies and sooner or later totally extinguishes” those who have been exposed to it excessively (139-140).
However, in making these individuals undergo a process of “decontamination and revitalization”—being put into chambers designed to cleanse the air that the person breathes, and “fed a diet of foods from earth-removed regions”—the effect of fluidum letale could be reversed, as he had done to Grenouille (143). That is, the marquis proposes that a person (and by extension, society) can be transformed from barbarism and decay to pleasantness and civility through disinfection and the introduction of proper scent (Süskind 158; Corbin 94). Thus, scent is not only a means through which personal identities can be made known and given social representation (Corbin 83): in being supported by scientific and philosophical notions that attest to its central position in the tension between degeneration and vitality (98), scent is then used as a justification for the imposition of specific social orders (100).
Scent in the discourse of human interaction
Madame Gaillard, in losing her sense of smell, lost “every human passion” (19). Similarly, in his lack of scent, Grenouille had not been accorded human passion as would be given to a normal human (Ackroyd 9), apart from the fact that “he himself could not love” (Yi 222). In the discourse of human interaction, scent facilitates the emotional connection (of whatever kind) between people (Glausiusz 43). Grenouille demonstrated this in his supposed execution where, upon wearing the perfume he designed to make people admire him, the entire assembly that was originally assembled to execute him fell under divine reverence and carnal desire for him (Yi 223). He was dissatisfied as he did not receive any real love or passion from the people assembled as they were merely intoxicated with his scent, without realizing the identity of him who entranced them (Süskind 240).
The final scene proceeds to emphasize this: Grenouille, having poured the entire bottle of perfume on himself, was consumed alive by a group of people, each fueled by desire to possess a part of “this angel of a man” (254). Indeed, scent here provides an intimate space for interaction (Corbin 77), personal odor being a marker of sexual arousal and attraction (Glausiusz 43). However, Grenouille was never a subject of real intimacy in human interaction, merely being the recipient of the irrational self-abandonment and insane love that people who have smelled him would give him (Süskind 155).
The captives of Grenouille’s perfumes were held “under the sway of the odor, but without being aware of it” (158). He was driven by contempt over humanity’s “simplicity and corruptibility” (Yi 225) to create a perfume of great power such that he may be admired, loved, desired, and idolized (Süskind 139). Moreover, what pleased Grenouille most, was “that all these men, women, and children…about him could be so easily duped”—that they deem the artificial personal odor he made for himself “just like their own”, leading them to “accept him…in their midst as a human being among human beings” (153). Even so, this perfume that compensated for his lack of scent was an artifice (Ackroyd), which lead him to greater depths of hatred for humanity “for they perceived only his counterfeit aroma, his fragrant disguise, his stolen perfume” (Süskind 140). In the end, though scent “lent itself to the transactions of intimate exchange” (Corbin 77), “without the ability to smell, one cannot detect the soul in a person” (Yi 220): the lack of any form of recognition for a person’s scent-identity (e.g. as would usually be given to a friend, Glausiusz 45) is, to the same extent, the absence of “the substance that fully established [one] as a human being” (Yi 220).
Conclusion: scent and the human condition
The sense of smell has long been neglected in the descriptions of historical events (Corbin 6) and psychological discoveries (Stafford 884). However, as presented here, scent offers an indispensable perspective in the construction of the importance of identity in achieving social recognition and succeeding in human interactions. That is, as scent reflects personal identity through its grounds in human physiology (Glausiusz 41) and individual preferences (43), it is regarded with importance in its ability to facilitate social discourses (e.g. Corbin 77), economic prosperity (Süskind 101), and power due to recognition (Corbin 78) as depicted in Perfume. Scent, indeed, is important not only for its psychological impact on human thought and experience (Stevenson 14-15), or its historical significance in decisions affecting the order of an entire society (Corbin 90; Feldman). Above these, it is able to offer a perspective not based on visual or auditory depictions of the world (cf. Yi 224), but founded on ways in which olfactory spaces are identified, individualized (Corbin 101), and shared in the history of the human condition (Stafford 887).
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