4. AN ANALYSIS OF THE LEADING CHARACTER’S PERSONALITIES IN PATRICK SUSKIND’S NOVEL,
PERFUME : THE STORY OF A MURDERER
4.1. Survivor
The word survivor is a suffixation of “survive” means continue to live or exist in spite of danger or hardship. So survivor is a person who survive or a
person remaining alive after an event which others have died. From the explanation, survivor can be categorized into two kinds. The first is mental
survivor and the second is physical survivor. Mentality relates to the mind of human being. Mental is the total
emotional and intellectual response to his environment. And the struggle is also relates to mind and soul. The second is to survive physically. Physical means
having material existence; through the sense and subject to the laws of nature, everything is measurable by weight, motion and resistance. It means that the
condition relates to the physic struggle. The writer will discuss the survivor in deeper.
4.1.1 Persistence
Persistence includes surviving mentally. The person who has this character is not easy to defeat by condition. Sadness is only a decoration of life and the life
will be hard when we are moved in the sadness.
Into this world Grenouille is born. His mother abandons him, leaving him under a table at a Paris fish market, and he grows up in an orphanage. As a baby,
Grenouille doesnt smell the way babies should “like caramel”. Although he has an exceptional nose, he himself gives off no bodily odor whatsoever. Still,
everyone that he meets finds him in some way repellent:
As quoted: “The young Grenouille … gave the world
nothing but his dung—no smile, no cry, no glimmer in the eye, not even his own
scent.” Suskind, 1986:25 The condition has built his mentality to survive in the hard life. Since his
birth, no one that gives him love, security, attention, tenderness or whatever a baby needs. He has to face the rudeness of life lonely. He uses all the ways to
compete in the life, whatsoever good or bad ways. The struggle of life and the smallest opportunity must be used in surviving.
The hard condition has taught him the meaning of a life. He saves all his hopes. He never requests feeling of sorrow for sufferings of others. He uses what
he has. And his most valuable possession is persistence to keep his hope.
4.1.2 Hard worker
Sometimes we find something that we do not expect. The over expectation for something only make us more weak. Grenouille that is born without any
relatives has become a symbol of persistence. In the winter, if the babies that are died often come nine out of ten per year, Grenouille can survive. For little
Grenouille, Madame Gaillard’s establishment is blessing. Madame Gaillard has a merciless sense of order and justice. She shows no preference for any one of
children entrusted to her nor discriminated against any one of them. She serves up three meals a day and not the tiniest snack more. She changes nappies of the little
ones three times a day, but only until their second birthday. Whoever disobeys
her, she decreases meals two times a day, but Grenouille has a tough constitution.
As qouted:
“Whoever has survived his own birth on a rubbish heap is not so easily shoved back
out of this world again. He could eat watery soup for days on end, he managed on
the thinnest milk, digested the rottenest vegetables and spoiled meat. In the course
of his childhood he survived the measles, dysentery, chicken fox, cholera, a twenty
foot fall into a well and a scalding with boiling water poured over his chest. True,
he bore scars and chafing and scabs from it all, and slightly crippled foot left him
with a limp, but he lived.” Suskind, 1986:23
The quotation above shows that since his birth, Grenouille has became a strong man. The condition has built his body to adapt in the environment, in
madame Gaillard’s establishment. Up the rubbish heap to the orphanage is not an easy challenge to live. In the orphanage, he does not whine like another baby. His
body is designed to survive. When Grenouille has turned eight, the cloister of Saint-Merri, without
mention of the reason, ceases to pay its yearly fee. Madame Gaillard does not
dune them. For appearances’ sake, she waits an additional week. And when the money owe her still has not appeared, she walks with him into the city. She sells
Grenouille for a tanner named Grimal. Grenouille knows that the man is capable of thrashing him to death for the
least infraction. He has no choice, never once making an attempt to resist. He has to work hardly.
As quoted: “Tough, uncomplaining inconspicuous, he
tended the light of life’s hopes as very small, but carefully nourished flame. He as
a paragon of docility, frugality, and diligence in his work, obey implicitly, and
appeared satisfied with every meal offered.”
Suskind, 1986:36 He must work hard to survive. The hard life has to fill with working hard.
Grenouille trusts that his small hope will be bigger and comes true if he treats his hope properly. His simplicity has given him maturity in thinking and doing. The
silence of Grenouille saves a great expectation. He does not work for money but he works for life and for his hope.
4.2 Genius
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