PERFUME+-+SOCIAL+CRITIQUE

__**Social Critique in "Perfume"**__
- (on Grenouille's mother) "who hoped to live a while yet, perhaps a good five or ten years, and perhaps even to marry one day and as the honourable wife of a widower with a trade or some such to bear real children.." Grenouille's mother wishes to have "real" children, in this case legitimate children within a marriage. This is a criticism of the social environment. Others do not care about her or her son. They even kill her immediately- callous and thoughtless of the future of the newborn baby or about her say on this issue. Also by saying " a good five or ten years," seems ironic and quite sarcastic (as we think that she should actually live for more than 5 or 10 years) which follows the post modern style.

- (Madame Gaillard) "Paris probably produced over ten thousand new foundlings, bastards, and orphans a year. Several such losses were quite afforable" Social criticism- more care, money and time needed for orphanages. Also suggests that the state needs to provide better conditions for living- maybe not so many deaths would occur. The use of the word "affordable" is also sarcastic because it should not be affordable to lose a few infants/children every year.

-At the beginning of the novel, Suskind suggests that the move from religion to science has taken away human qualities like "justice, conscience, God, joy, responsibility, humility, gratitude, etc.". The writer insinuates that we lost many important attributes when we lost faith.