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CHAPTER II REVIEW OF LITERATURE
A. Review of Related Studies
Perfume: Story of a Murderer
is awarded as the most read German novel and breaks an international best seller Adams, 2000. This novel presents a main
character named Jean-Baptiste Grenouille who experiences alienation. There are several researchers who conduct a study related to alienation suffered by the
character in the story. One of the studies is conducted by Lilik Jonet Pranowo 2004 from Sanata Dharma University.
Pranowo conducts an underg raduate thesis entitled Joseph’s
Alienation in
Saul Bellow’s Dangling Man: A Psychological Study. In his study, Pranowo analyzes Joseph, a character in that story, and finds that Joseph has a state of
being alienated. Joseph’s alienation can be recognized since his characteristics
represent the symptoms of an alienated person “Joseph’s divorce from the
community has alienated himself from hi s society” Pranowo, 2004: 27.
Thereafter, Pranowo looks for the causes o f Joseph’s alienation and sees further to
th e impacts of Joseph’s alienation to Joseph’s mental condition.
In order to discover the analysis of Joseph’s alienation and the impacts of it, Pranowo applies the psychological study. Therefore, Pranowo relates the
psychological study to the analysis of J oseph’s alienation and its impacts.
Pranowo’s study is appropriate to be applied in this study because of the similar
approach and theory: psychological approach and theory of alienation in social psychology.
On the other hand, there are also two studies which analyze the characteristics of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille. Particularly, the following studies
discuss about psychological problems suffered by Grenouille. The first comes from Dame Kristana Napitupulu 2012. Napitupulu undertakes an undergraduate
thesis entitled
Anti-social Personality Disorder of the Main Character in Patrick
Süskind’s Perfume, the Story of a Murderer from Sanata Dharma University. She discovers that Grenouille, the main character of the story, experiences a
psychological disorder known as anti-social personality disorder. Her discovery is due to her research in identifying the characteristics of Grenouille and finds
Grenouille’s symptoms for he suffers the anti-social personality disorder. Thereafter, Napitupulu conducts a psychological study in order to relate
Grenouille’s characteristics with the criteria of anti-social personality disorder. The second study is conducted by Sie Anne K.C. 2010 from Sanata
Dharma University entitled Grenouille’s Anxiety and His Effort to Deal with It
as
Seen in Patrick Süskind’s Perfume. In her study, she finds, “Jean-Baptiste Grenouille undergoes reality anxiety for one thing comes up due to his traumatic
experience in childhood ” 2010: 60. This shows that Grenouille has a kind of
psychological problem that comes up as result of his unpleasant past experience. One of Grenouille’s unpleasant past experience is when his mother bears him but
then his mother does not treat him properly. By then, Grenouille has no one to look after him. He gets affection neither from family nor even from the society.
Knowing on this fact, Grenouille feels different from the other people mainly when he also discovers that he has no body odor. As result, Grenouille likes to
isolate himself from the society. Here, the writer has the same object of the study with Napitupulu and
Anne which is a novel by Patrick Süskind entitled
Perfume: Story of a Murderer
. In this research, the writer aims to reveal Grenouille’s alienation symptoms as
seen through his characteristics in
Perfume: Story of a Murderer
. Since one’s
alienation symptoms are examined through one’s life in social context, the writer focuses on Grenouille’s interactions with other characters. So, Grenouille’s
alienation symptoms can be discovered. Different with the wri
ter’s focus, Napitupulu and Anne put focus on Grenouille’s past experience in examining his anti-social personality disorder and
anxiety disorder. Yet, the findings of Grenouille’s characteristics from Napitupulu
and Anne also useful as the supporting sources for the writer to reveal Grenouille’s alienation symptoms in
Perfume: Story of a Murderer
. This study contributes further on the novel’s interpretation in the
perspective of alienation symptoms in psychology. For the future studies, this study contributes prominent information and deeper analysis
on main character’s state of being alienated in the novel
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
.
B. Review of Related Theories
In this part, the writer discusses the theory used in the study to be able to analyze the object of the study objectively. In this study, the writer uses theory of