Questions to discuss perfumes1. What motivates Grenouille to commit his first murder? What does he discover about himself and his destiny after killing the red-haired girl? The motivation behind Grenouille's first murder is his obsession with the perfume his victim is wearing: he feels that "without perfume his life would be meaningless", and that he should do anything to get it without any remorse for his actions , what he discovers about himself and his destiny after killing the red-haired girl for the perfume is that he is destined to "revolutionize the odoriferous world" by becoming the "greatest perfumer of all time"2. Throughout the novel, Grenouille is compared to a tick. Why do you think Suskind chose this analogy? How does Grenouille behave like a tick? What does this analogy reveal about his character that a more direct description wouldn't? The reason I think Suskind chose this mint analogy is because Grenouille's character lives and breathes the satisfaction of stealing other women's perfume to quench his mental thirst to have any specific scent he likes by any means necessary, just like a tick that literally lives and breathes by stealing blood from other animals and humans to survive. This analogy reveals how deep Grenouille's passion is for smell and the perfume he smells.3. Do the descriptions of life in 18th century France surprise you: the crowded neighborhoods, the unsanitary conditions, the treatment of orphans, the punishment of criminals, etc.? How are these conditions related to the ideals of enlightenment, reason, and progress that figure so prominently in eighteenth-century thought? The descriptions of life in eighteenth-century France surprised me in... middle of paper... ...words, appearances, emotions or will. The persuasive force of an odor is unstoppable, it enters us like breath into our lungs, it fills us, it totally permeates us. There is no remedy” [p.82]. Do you think this is true? Why would a smell have such power? How does Grenouille use this power to his advantage? I think every smell instantly takes over emotions and curiosity, but smells cannot shape a person's character or behavior permanently because smells fade away and are never forever, so I disagree that that any smell can have such a powerful persuasive power that it changes a person's outlook on life, Grenouille uses the power of smells twice the first time to smell like a normal person, which makes him practically incapable of being seen and the second Once he creates a perfume from all the perfumes of his victims he has stolen, which makes everyone do what they want.