In Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind, the motif of perfume and smell plays an important role in the development of the plot of the novel; this is perhaps the main driving force behind it all. Throughout the book, this motif is woven throughout the text as a distinct entity that relates to the essential theme of the novel: olfaction. Süskind's placement of the enhanced sense of smell brings Grenouille closer to readers by the very fact that he is dehumanized by it. The author's technique in using this motif is graceful such that its presence does not show redundancy; rather, it causes the reader to yearn each time it is shown how the motif relates to the story holistically. Süskind's first demonstration of “knitting” this motif into the text is through the dehumanization of the protagonist Jean-Baptiste Grenouille. From the first pages of the book, this dehumanization is shown through the figure who gave birth to Grenouille: his mother. Due to her current situation, she doesn't even pretend that Grenouille and his siblings are "real children" (p.5). By the very fact that they are illegitimate, no father is present at home, and her inability to support them pushes her to decide to consider them fake. Although this scene does not directly relate to the motif, Süskind uses this quote as the beginning of Grenouille's perpetual inhumane treatment and increased olfactory abilities. The first use of this motif occurs when Grenouille's childhood caregivers realize that he has no personal scent. The scene in which Father Terrier denigrates Jean Bussie for claiming that Grenouille is possessed by a demon because he has no personal scent shows how infants were treated as incomplete hum...... middle of paper.. ....currently reversing this on his victims. Giving Laure the attribute of having sap dehumanizes her to the maximum. This foreshadows that future victims of Grenouille's murder will simply be inhuman prey, nothing more. In this same passage, Süskind reveals how finely tuned Grenouille's hyperosmia is. A year before, when he was in Grasse, his perfume was “dusted and spotted” (p. 190), but now it is “a light, sweet current of perfume that shimmered” (190). However, Grenouille then envisions the peak of his perfume as being "only twelve months more" and he could then "trap the wild flow of his perfume" (p. 190). Süskind reveals in this passage – as well as in the other murders – that Grenouille's penchant for the perfume of prepubescent, red-haired girls reflects not only his contempt for humanity, but also his lack of reverence for women..