Cannibalism Through Love

Cannibalism Through Love

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Cannibalism Through Love

The book Perfume: the story of a murderer by Patrick Sūskind is one of its kind since it embodies a vice and a value. Both love and murder are put together, contrasted and compared and in fact with a closer look it seems like all is fine for Jean-Baptiste Grenouille to kill since he is just desperately looking for a scent from girls that he likes their scent. Cannibalism even though totally against the values of humanity and any moral principle of the time of the setting of the book is forgiven in the book when the population realizes that the young man was just desperately in love and this is mesmerizing because forgiveness and even the desire of the father of the girl to adopt jean are not expected. The final part of the novel is indeed difficult to interpret. The human beings in that time as depicted in the novel are caring and loving. However, a society that allows cannibalism and death in the name of love cannot be judged in a positive way. It is a confusing issue as death and love can never be reconciled.

Jean wants love and he does not get it. He seeks love through his special gift as a perfumer and tries to smell different girls whom he thinks are perfect for him. However, it does not end well because the more he tries to get the girls the more he continues killing. He develops an art of collecting the perfumes of girls that he likes after his first encounter that does not go so well. The first time he smells a girl who is a virgin across the city and tracks her down. He kills her in order to collect her scent and this proves to be difficult. Later he discovers another girl and tries to collect her scent as well and he kills her then holds her until the scent disappears. Finally, he realizes that he doesn’t have a scent and tries to make one for himself. These efforts are all geared towards being liked and making himself the superhuman in the human society. He wants to get attention and love but the methods he uses to attain this are very questionable. Therefore, the story of jean is a metaphor and it is a complicated one.

References

Süskind, P. (2001). Perfume: The story of a murderer. Vintage.