“Midway this life we’re bound upon I woke to find myself in a dark wood, where the right road was wholly lost and gone.” – Dante, The Divine Comedy (Harvey, 2002)
STAGE 1 - BIRTH
The story begins with the protagonists birth amongst unfavorable conditions. His mother abandons him at the time of his birth, leaving him to die amidst a pile of rotten fishes. The circumstances of his birth meant he could not conceive both love and life. His soul was terminally detached from his physicality.
STAGE 2 - ROBBED
The second stage depicts the time when the protagonist is sold to Madame Galliard, a woman who agreed to take care of orphaned children for their money. The detachment of Grenouille and her, right before she was ruthlessly robbed and murdered has been compared with Jean-Baptiste’s dispossession caused by the extremities of hypocrisy and ignorance. He is robbed off of all illusions and hopes to a better life.
STAGE 3 - LEVELED
The concept of polarization, the extreme juxtapositions of life and death, love and hate, good and evil can be completely envisioned in this next stage. The stage of extreme desire brought with it its consequences. In order to quench his thirst of acceptance and the desire to re-create a scent he loved, the concept of binding the love he never received in the form of perfume has been very well discussed.
STAGE 4 - DEATH
The final stage not only being one but as a whole. The deaths of 24 beautiful and innocent women is compared to the time when Jean-Baptiste was robbed of his innocence as a child, living a life of extreme misery. His essence been ripped off his soul, long ago sacrificed for the sake of bodily survival. Such resentful feelings have been compared to that of the young girls who were lying unconscious, stripped off their clothing thus robbed of the very sense of their being. All these deaths are the representations of the perceived and misconceived sensory experiences felt by the abandoned and dying baby. (Mitrani, 2007)
