PERFUME+-+EXISTENTIALISM...+WHAT+IS+MORALITY?

Existentialism: the individual's unique position as a self-determining agent responsible for the authenticity of his or her choices.

__What is morality?__

Grenouille believes in existentialism, the belief that God is absent and that one can decide and follow his or her own morality. Suskind shows that Grenouille believes this through the use of metaphors.

- The city that he builds/ imagines in his head to completely seperate him from the rest of society. PG 126 " Yes! This was his empire! The imcomparable Empire of Grenouille! Created and ruled over by him, the imcomparable Grenouille, laid waste by him if he so chose and then raised up again, made boudless by him and defended with a flaming sword against every intruder. Here there was naught but his will, the will of the great, spendid, impcomparble Grenouille. And now that the evil stench of the past had been sqept away, he desired that his empre be fragrant."

Grenouille believes that humans are made from substance- very scietific logical mentality. He fails to see any affection/ love/ faith in mankind. Grenouille is an empiricist ( he knows things through his senses)

PG 25 " He could not retain them, confused them with one another, and even as an adult used them unwillingly and often incorrectly: justice, conscience, God, joy, responsibility, humaility, gratitude, etc.- what these were meant to express remained a mystery to him.'

When Grenouille kills his first victim- there is no sympathy, to him, this girl is an object purposly functioning to make Grenouille feel curious. In his mind, he's thinking why not satisfy his own curiousity. To him, it's bad to not discovery this amazing new scent.

" And after he had smelled the last faded scent of her he crouched beside her for a while, collecting himself, for he was brimful with her. He did not want to spill a drop of her scent. First he must seal up his innermost compartments. Then he stood up and blew out the candle."