Grenouille’s being is just like a tick that does not deserve any attention “even other woman would have kicked this monstrous child out” Süskind, 2006: 22.
After Madame Gaillard, Grenouille lives with Grimal. Grimal is a tanner. There, Grenouille works for him. As well as living in Madame Gaillard’s
orphanage, Grenouille receives no affection from Grimal. Grenouille only knows that he has to w
ork hard for Grimal and Grimal does not care of Grenouille’s being as his worker. One time, Grenouille suffers anthrax. Anthrax is a disastrous
disease feared by most tanners at that time 2006: 32. Grimal is afraid for Grenouille suffers that disease. Grimal is afraid to loose Grenouille, his valuable
worker. Fortunately, Grenouille is able to escape from that fatal disease. As result, what’s left on Grenouille is swollen skin and it makes Grenouille’s look horrible.
But contrary to all expectation, Grenouille survived the illness. All he bore from it were scars from the large back carbuncles behind his ears and on
his hands and cheeks, leaving him disfigured and even uglier than he had been before. It also left him immune to anthrax
—an invaluable advantage
—so that he could strip the foulest hides with cut and bleeding hands and still run no danger of infection Süskind, 2006: 32.
From the quotation, the writer pictures Grenouille’s ignorant characteristic through his reaction towards events and physical appearance.
2. Prodigious
Living all alone in the society shapes Grenouille’s quality to be an independent person. He has to learn everything in his surroundings by his own
effort. When he is four years old, Grenouille is able to utter words that exist around him like fishes, goat stall, savoy cabbage, and Jacqueslorreur Süskind,
2006: 23. Those words are hard to utter for a person who learns to speak. Grenouille learns those- things all by himself. No one teaches him.
Besides being an autodidact, Grenouille also explores and enriches his vocabulary by observing things around him. Grenouille has his own method in
improving his knowledge and ability. Here, he realizes that he has a peculiar ability to distinguish odor and memorize all of them.
He only smelled the aroma of the wood rising up around him to be captured under the bonnet of the eaves. He drank in the aroma, he drowned
in it, impregnating himself; he lay on the cord of wood like a wooden puppet, like Pinocchio, as if dead, until after a long while, perhaps a half
hour or more, he gaged up the word “wood.” He vomited the word up, as if he were filled with wood to his ears, as if buried in wood to his neck, as
if his stomach, his gorge, his nose were spilling over with wood. And that brought him to himself, rescued him only moments before the
overpowering presence of the wood, its aroma, was about to suffocate him. He shook himself, slid down off the logs, and tottered away as if on
wooden legs. Days later he was still completely fuddled by the intense olfactory experience, and whenever the memory of it rose up too
powerfully within him he would mutter imploringly, over and over,
“wood, wood” Süskind, 2006: 24-25. Grenouille acknowledges his own way in recognizing things around him
only by sniffing the odor of those things. Then, Grenouille names those things and keeps them in his memory. Grenouille, in his age at that time, is considered as a
prodigy kid for he knows the most suitable way of learning for himself without anyone who teaches or accompanies him. He is a typical self-learning person.
As time goes by, Grenouille’s ability is developed. Grenouille can differentiate objects that he has been recognized more specific. He can
differentiate many types of wood such maple wood, oak wood, elm wood, pear wood, old, young, rotting, moldering, mossy wood, down to single logs, chips,
and splinters Süskind, 2006: 25. Surprisingly, Grenouille can do this to all objects.
Because of Grenouille’s peculiar ability, Madame Gaillard feels insecure.
Madame Gailla rd sees Grenouille’s ability is getting developed day by day.
Grenouille can find Madame Gaillard’s money which is kept in a hidden place in
the orphanage. Grenouille is also able to predict what will happen in the future. He can predict “a visitor who will stop by the orphanage long before the person
arrived or a thunderstorm when there was not the least cloud in the sky” Süskind, 2006: 27. Madame Gaillard thinks that Grenouille has second sight and considers
him as a feebleminded. Madame Gaillard believes that a person with second sight will only bring misfortune inside the house.
Not only describing a character’s quality through personal description, “the author can describe him through the eyes and opinions of another” Murphy,
1972: 162. By analyzin g Grenouille’s quality through Madame Gaillard’s
perspective, the writer sees Greno uille’s quality that is prodigious. Grenouille is
considered as a prodigy because he can learn everything in his life by himself without any guidance. Grenouille relies on his olfactory system to improve
knowledge about anything around him. Even Madame Gaillard considers him feebleminded.
In addition, Grenouille the prodigy arranges his murder scenario neatly. He plans to murder twenty five virgins in Grasse including a beautiful girl named
Laure Richis in order to create perfume that is made from the essence of the virgin’s body odor. He knows what he needs and he knows exactly what he has to
do to murder the virgins firmly. In order to travel to Grasse legally, Grenouille
