This extract of Perfume by Patrick Suskind written in first-person narration explores and captures the authors portrayal of the olfactory sense in eighteenth century France, where rests the foulest city of stench, Paris.

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ENGLISH A1 HL COMMENTARY: Perfume by Patrick Suskind

This extract of ‘Perfume’ by Patrick Suskind written in first-person narration explores and captures the author’s portrayal of the olfactory sense in eighteenth century France, where rests the foulest city of stench, Paris. The diction, literary devices and on top of that, the use of revolting visual imagery to describe each particular unappealing smell encompassing not only human beings but also ordinary places in such explicit detail emphasizes  the supremacy of each smell to the readers. The syntax of these descriptions is able to overwhelm readers with mixed feelings of appall and disgust but at the same time also awe and fascination.

One thing interesting about this extract is the ironic bond between the title of the novel and the content this extract. The title of the novel ‘Perfume’ contradicts clearly with the repetition of the words “stink” and “stench”. This is interesting because the contrast between “perfume” and “stench” is quite obvious. It is as though comparing bitter with sweet or “pungently sweet aroma” to “chamber-pots”. Through the use of oxymoron, I think that Suskind is trying to create and emphasize an emotional response or a feeling of disgust amongst readers through the use of this rhetorical device. The repetition of the words emphasizes the unpleasantness of a mixture of smells and this in turn highlights how unhygienic people are. People are said to stink of “sweat” and “unwashed clothes” and old people are said to stink of “rancid cheese and sour milk and tumorous disease.” This quote interestingly depicts the elderly in a very nauseating and unattractive way. The sentence seems to be structured in a sequence of increasing repulsiveness in terms of smell and visual image. The vivid imagery of “rancid” cheese and “sour” milk is enough to make the readers feel sick. However, to imagine a person smelling like that makes the whole experience even more gut-wrenching. This description of the elderly highlights how Suskind thinks of human beings in general; that they all literally stink.

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Because everyone is said to stink, it is no surprise that the places described within the extract is said to “stink” either. This idle attitude of the citizens living in Paris caused “millions of bones and skulls (to be) shoveled into the catacombs” and atop it, a food market is constructed. This is quite peculiar as markets should not be built upon a cemetery, especially when it involves food. It is as though the food market is built atop to conceal the mess created under it; in the catacomb as remainders of bones and skulls are just “shoveled” without ...

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