![]() ![]() Throughout the novel, Grenouille is likened to a tick. ![]() In what ways can Perfume be read as a critique of the eighteenth century's conception of itself as the Age of Reason? Where else in the novel do you find rationality being overcome by baser human instincts?ģ. He has tried to combat "the superstitious notions of the simple folk: witches and fortune-telling cards, the wearing of amulets, the evil eye, exorcisms, hocus-pocus at full moon, and all the other acts they performed". When the wet nurse refuses to keep Grenouille because he has no smell and therefore must be a "child of the devil", Father Terrier takes him in. How would you relate the circumstances of his birth to the life he grows up to live?Ģ. He barely escapes death at his birth his mother would have let him die among the fish guts as she had her four other children. Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born in a food market that had been erected above the Cimetiere des Innocents, the "most putrid spot in the whole kingdom". Set in eighteenth-century France, Perfume explores the evolution of a remorseless killer during an era of intense contradictions, an age in which poverty, filth, and superstition coexisted uneasily with the Enlightenment's ideals of progress, liberty, and reason.ġ. We hope they will provide you with a variety of approaches to this vividly imagined historical novel. The introduction, discussion questions, and suggested reading list that follow are intended to enhance your group's reading and discussion of Patrick Süskind's Perfume. ![]()
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