Born or Made a Murderer: Psychological Analysis of Jean Baptiste Grenouille in Patrick Süskind's novel Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

Abstract

This study examines the novel Perfume: The Story of a Murderer and analyses the main character, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, and tries to find out the factors that influenced his personality and thinking that contributed in making him a serial killer. Since the crimes he committed were not ordinary crimes, but were a series of heinous crimes, as he killed 25 innocent virgin girls. His crimes were planned, they were elaborate and in an artistic way with no feeling guilty, but rather he felt the power and control at the time. Are his feelings and actions just something acquired from society, or are these traits inherent in a person's nature? These ideas and these questions were the motive behind this study, and to answer them, this research followed a psychological approach that includes, nature versus nurture, attachment, and psychopathy theories. After a deep research, it was discovered that the traits that characterize Jean-Baptiste Grenouille are the characteristics of a psychopathic person. Scientists and researchers have discovered that psychopaths are born with a dysfunction in certain areas of the mind, which in turn leads to a lack of empathy and remorse, which is the most important factor that contributes to the transformation of an ordinary person into a monster. He faced great difficulties in his life, especially in his childhood, such as abandonment, rejection and abuse, which reinforced his mental abnormalities and also reinforced the percentage of making him a murderous person. After this research, this study found that Jean Baptiste Grenouille is an integrated psychopath, born with brain abnormalities, which made him a serial killer characterized by the traits of lack of emotion, lack of guilt and the will to control others, but also his bad experiences with society were a strong motive behind his heinous crimes. Finally, it can be said that both nature and nurture play a crucial role in shaping Jean Baptiste Grenouille's personality, making him both born and shaped into a murderer.