Hero's Journey Of Grenouille

The Ironic Hero’s Journey of Grenouille in Patrick Süskind’s Perfume In Perfume, Patrick Süskind illustrates Grenouille as a villain through language, however, the structure of Grenouille’s story mirrors one of a hero. The scholar Joseph Campbell defines a popular structure in literature of a hero’s story, called the “Hero’s Journey” (Vogler). This structure follows a hero through his/her adventure and the things that he/she faces. It includes a call to adventure, supernatural aid, threshold, revelation, transformation, and return. Süskind constructs a story with this structure to ironically juxtapose Grenouille’s true character. This irony creates a much more intriguing character than a stereotypical villain, creating a disturbing quality
This character’s epiphany represents more maturity and growth from who they were when they began. It leads to transformation as the character accepts change. Süskind demonstrates the revelation when Grenouille resides in the mountain for seven years emerging as a new person. When he first arrives to the mountain he “needed a very long time to believe what he was not smelling” (Süskind, 120). The shock he experiences highlights amazement of finding a peaceful place for him. Often, monks go to remote locations alone to “find themselves”. The monks emerge very different people as they put themselves through fasting, vows, and living a life of non-indulgence (Vallely). Thus, Süskind includes the connection to monks to highlight the irony of the situation. Grenouille is a murderer and yet he puts himself though the life of a non-violent, religious monk. He doesn’t embark on this path to reach God, but to know himself (Süskind, 123). Süskind organizes the story so that Grenouille will go through a change via self-reflection. Similarity to the life of the monks makes it apparent that Grenouille will change and the structure of the story compliments this thought process. Having Grenouille kill someone, then the revelation, manifests hope in the readers to believe he will emerge being a hero. Süskind manipulates the expectations of the readers to crate
Once Grenouille creates a human scented perfume, his “transformation” of ability creates a self-assured hero who can blend in with the rest of society and defy forces against him. Grenouille embodys the “cuckoo’s egg, in their midst as a human being among human beings” (Süskind, 153). Cuckoo’s lay their eggs in other bird’s nests. The cuckoo chick grows faster than other birds and evicts the other chicks. The cuckoo mother tricks the new mother into thinking the cuckoo belongs to her and the new mother feeds it and treats it as her own. (Greenspan) The cuckoos, like Grenouille lives as an imposter among others that look the same. Süskind includes this metaphor to call attention to Grenouille’s transformation. Süskind does this by contrasting how society treats him before, as now as the townspeople accept him as one of their own. Süskind implements irony here because Grenouille possesses characteristics that make it impossible to fit in: his “definite limp”, his “odor, which he could not smell”, and his “murder”, but against all odds, Süskind reveals that Grenouille can fit in (Süskind, 225, 241,