Grimal begins to civilize Grenouille while Grenouille is twelve years old. Grimal allows Grenouille to have a half of Sunday off. While Grenouille is
thirteen years old, Grimal lets him to go out on weekend evenings after work and do whatever he likes. Grenouille is spoiled with blissful feelings for he has the
opportunity to explore new odors in Paris. The writer analyzes this occasion to see Grenouille’s awareness of having passion in hunting odors regardless his state of
being odorless. Grenouille loves to spend his time alone, even when he has half of Sunday
off. When he explores Paris, he likes to walk alone and stops in the corner of the street and sniffs to acknowledge various kinds of odors and registers them in his
mind. He would often just stand there, leaning against a wall or crouching in a
dark corner, his eyes closed, his mouth half open and nostrils flaring wide, quiet as a feeding pike in a great, dark, slowly moving current. And when
at last a puff of air would toss a delicate thread of scent his way, he would lunge at it and not let go. Then he would smell at only this one odor,
holding it tight, pulling it into himself and preserving it for all time. Süskind, 2006: 34
The fact that Grenouille always enjoys being alone portrays one of the alienation symptoms. He observes and learns new odors by himself, travels at
night, and avoids crowd. For Barclay and Monicivaiz define alienation as a state when someone is estranged from society, as well as Grenouille who likes to spend
all of his time alone. They mention that alienated person “becomes isolated from other people and his or her environment” Barclay and Monicivaiz, 2013.
That means Grenouille is aware of his interest in observing odors that exist around him. He loves to travel alone because no one understands his ability and
also because physically, Grenouille is not attractive at all.
3. The Refusal to Obey Rules
Living in Madame Gaillard’s orphanage, Grenouille is also described as a character who has a tendency to disobey rules. Since Grenouille likes to travel
from one place to another, it makes him to go home late at night. Not only goes home late at night, Grenouille even remains missing for days. Consequently,
Madame Gaillard’s punishments await him every time he goes home. What he loved most was to rove alone through the northern parts of the
Faubourg Saint-Antoine, through vegetable gardens and vineyards, across meadows. Sometimes he did not come home in the evening, remined
missing for days. The rod of punishments awaiting him he bore without a whimper of pain. Confining him to the house, denying him meals,
sentencing him to hard labor
—nothing could change his behavior Süskind, 2006: 27.
According to Barclay and Monicvaiz, the refusal to obey rules is one of the symptoms of alienated person.
Grenouille’s characteristic who likes to disobey rules in Madame Gaillard’s orphanage indicates that he is an alienated person. In
addition, it also reveals that Grenouille is a stubborn person for even Madame Gaillard’s punishment does not change his behavior
. One time in city of Paris when Grenouille has become a young man, he
travels alone and catches a blissful scent that makes him paralyzed. He becomes possessed by that scent so he has to hunt that scent until he knows to whom that
scent belongs. In short, that scent belongs to a plum seller. The plum seller is a
thirteen years old girl. Grenouille, then, tries as hard as possible to steal the scent of the plum seller.
He backed up against the wall, cloed his eyes, and flared his nostrils. The scent was so exceptionally eluded his perception, was masked by the
powder smoke of petards, blocked by the exudations of the crowd, fragmented and crushed by the thousands of other city odors. But then,
suddenly, it was there again, a mere shred, the whiff of a magnificent premonition fo
r only a second…and it vanished at once. Grenouille suffered agonies. For the first time it was not just that greedy nature was
offended, but his very heart ached. He had the prescience of something extraordinary
—this scent was the key for ordering all odors, one could understand nothing about odors if one did not understand this one scent,
and his whole life would be bungled, if he, Grenouille did not succeed in possessing it. He had to have it, not simply in order to possess it, but for
his heart to be at peace Süskind, 2006: 38.
Thereafter, he decides to kill the plum seller in order to possess her odor and get peace in his heart. Grenouille strangles the plum seller without any
resistance from her. After Grenouille murders the plum seller, he lays her on the ground, tears off her dress, and he gloriously enjoys the stream of her scent like a
flood of fragrance. He pushes himself suddenly to her skin and sweeps his flared nostrils across her, from belly to breast, neck, face, hair, and back to her belly and
her genitals, her thighs, and legs Süskind, 2006: 43. Grenouille literally sucks the plum seller’s odor by sniffing her whole
body, but with no intention to rape her. His action is purely done to sniff and collect her body odor in his mind simply to satisfy his desire. It can be seen from
Süskind’s description on how Grenouille “did not want to spill a drop of her scent” Süskind, 2006: 43. Right after he is satisfied by the plum seller’s scent,
he leaves the girl and he is quivering with happiness until he cannot sleep for pure bliss.
That shows how Grenouille fulfills a quality of alienated person: the refusal to obey rules. Implicitly, Grenouille refuses to obey the society’s common
norms and rules at that time. The reason is because Grenouille may have inadequate knowledge about what is right and what is wrong according to the
society’s norms. He is also not accustomed to distinguish what is considered as good and bad in the society where he lives. This happens because since Grenouille
was kid he rarely has any interaction with others and he is never taught to have a good manner, behavior, and common ethics in society.
So that, he does not know what things that are considered as right and wrong, good and bad. Grenouille does everything on his own will and for the sake
to fulfill his desire and ambition. He never considers whether everything that he does may harm others or not. As result, his way of thinking is like this: if he has
an ambition, he shall to be able to achieve it for himself only. Hence, because what Grenouille has done is against the norm and law that are applied in that
society, the writer finds that Grenouille fulfills the quality of an alienated person who has a tendency to disobey rules.
4. The Difficulty Approaching and Speaking with Others
In Madame Gaillard’s orphanage, Grenouille faces alienation while he
interacts with the other orphan kids. The orphan kids in there are Grenouille’s housemates. Grenouille is alienated from his housemates and it can be seen on
how Grenouille has difficulty to mingle with his housemates. Süskind pictures Grenouille in the story as a character that is difficult to
approach and speak with others. This characteristic is relatable to the one of
alienation symptoms according to Barclay and Monicvaiz. The alienation symptom is the difficulty approaching and speaking with others healthline.com,
2013. Grenouille is difficult to speak to others because from the first time he
learns to speak, he only speaks words that are related to smelling objects such woods, leaves, milk, and animals. So, for words such run, walk, dream, happy,
sad, responsibility, and gratitude are difficult to remember and utter because those words are abstract and has no odor Süskind, 2006: 24-25.
In addition, Grenouille also only learns to speak a bit at the school and he does not have any playmates in the school and in the orphanage. So, he rarely
speaks and has interaction with others. Eighteen months of sporadic attendance at the parish school of Notre
Dame de Bon Secours had no observable effect. He learned to spell a bit and to write his own name, nothing more Süskind, 2006: 27.
Since Grenouille has difficulty to approach and speak with others, the writer finds that Grenouille fulfills one of the symptoms of an alienated person.
According to Barclay and Monicvaiz, a person might be able to feel disconnected from other people, the environment, or oneself because some of social causes.
One of some possible social causes of alienation is being abused as experienced by Grenouille in the orphanage.
In the story, Süskind describes Grenouille as a different child compared to the other children. In the orphanage, Grenouille brings fear to others although
Grenouille does nothing so that other children do not want to play with Grenouille. In worse, Grenouille’s housemates even attempt to suffocate him so—
hopefully —Grenouille will die and no longer live in Madame Gaillard’s
orphana ge Süskind, 2006: 23. Grenouille’s state of being alienated is clearly
molded because he is abused by his housemates in the orphanage. Hence, Grenouille feels that he is different from others because his housemates abuse him
then he becomes alienated. In addition, Grenouille is different from other kids in orphanage because
Grenouille’s existence brings creep to his surroundings. This happens because Grenouille does not possess body odor, unlike other children who have odor.
Therefore, as a result, Grenouille always fails to mingle with his housemates Süskind, 2006: 24 and he becomes alienated.
5. The Feeling of Depression
Baldini is a well-known perfumer in Paris. Baldini becomes Grenouille master because of Grenouille’s own will. Grenouille meets Baldini when Grimal
orders him to deliver leather made of goatskin to Baldini’s workshop. There, Grenouille is mesmerized by dozen perfumes and scents inside Baldini’s
workshop. It is because Grenouille knows that inside Baldini’s workshop there are lots of new scents that he wants to acknowledge. Actually, he already knows it
earlier because Grenouille has been stood for nights at the shop windows and “his nose is pressed to the cracks of their doors” Süskind, 2006: 68 so that he can
picture exactly what is insi de Baldini’s workshop.
During Grenouille’s life with Baldini, Grenouille exposes his quality of having one of the alienation symptoms in the way of his responsiveness towards
an event. The symptom is the feeling of depression. According to Murphy in his
