How Is Alienation Explored in Perfume by Patrick Süskind and in the Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka?

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How is alienation explored in Perfume by Patrick Süskind and in The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka? Süskind and Kafka portray their protagonists’ state of alienation in Perfume and The Metamorphosis explicitly. In Perfume, the theme of alienation is apparent through the main character, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, an unwanted child whose mother tried to kill him. This child is exceptional; he is afflicted with hyperolfaction and, ironically enough, he himself has no smell of his own. Süskind focuses on Grenouille’s relationship with others to further his statement about how one must artificially implant themselves into a society that rejects them. In The Metamorphosis, Gregor’s alienation is due to his family treating him as if he was brought into the world for the sole purpose of providing for them. However, Grenouille and Gregor differ in the sense that Grenouille’s alienation is self-imposed from the start of the novel due to his hatred of humanity, whereas, Gregor’s alienation is imposed on him by the constant rejection he receives from everyone he knows. In The Metamorphosis, Kafka uses Gregor’s relationship with the secondary characters around him to further his statement about how we create our own alienation by being complacent. Both Kafka and Süskind use insect imagery throughout their works to represent the alienation of their main characters. In Perfume, Grenouille is referred to as a tick throughout the first part of the book, ”The tick, which makes itself extra small and inconspicuous so that no one will see it or step on it”. Here Süskind uses the imagery of the tick to illustrate Grenouille sheltering himself from a world that does not want him by telling us that he is offering the least possible surface for the world to see. This also shows how Grenouille is in fact alienating himself from the world and it is not just the fault of society but

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