Grenouille's effect of love and hate

Grenouille's effect on other people is the central paradox of his existence and the engine of the novel's plot. From the moment of his birth, he provokes an instinctive, visceral reaction that oscillates between revulsion and adoration, a duality that he himself never experiences but that he learns to manipulate with devastating precision. His effect is not a single, stable quality but a dynamic force that evolves from the negative pole of hatred and fear to the positive pole of love and worship, and finally to a cannibalistic consumption born of love.

The Effect of Odorlessness: Instinctive Revulsion and Fear

Grenouille's primary, innate effect on others is one of profound unease and disgust, stemming directly from his lack of a personal scent. His wet nurse, Jeanne Bussie, is the first to articulate this: she refuses to keep him because he does not smell the way a human child should, and she declares him "possessed by the devil." Father Terrier, though initially rationalizing the boy's odorlessness as a sign of health, is himself overcome with a shudder of revulsion when the infant's nose seems to "smell at him shamelessly," leaving him feeling "naked and ugly." The other children at Madame Gaillard's establishment sense this immediately; they avoid him, conspire to suffocate him, and are "afraid of him" because they "could not smell him." This effect is not based on any action or appearance but on an olfactory absence that registers as a threat. Grenouille himself understands this dynamic: he knows that people pass him without notice, that he has "no shadow" to cast, and that when he collides with someone, they stare at him as if at "a creature that ought not even to exist." This instinctive rejection is the foundation of his isolation and his hatred for humanity.

The Effect of the Artificial Scent: Compelling Adoration

Grenouille's greatest achievement is to invert this effect entirely. By creating a perfume that imitates human odor, he gains the power to command love. In Montpellier, after applying his first artificial human scent, he experiences a "powerful sense of pride" as he notices people reacting to him as a normal human being—a woman at a well raises her head to see who is there, a man turns to look at him with curiosity, children make room for him. He then escalates this to a test of absolute power: mingling in a crowd at the Cathedral of Saint-Pierre, he is accepted as "a human being among human beings," and a mother even thanks him for holding her child. This is the first stage of his triumph: he is no longer an object of fear but of ordinary, unremarkable acceptance.

The ultimate expression of this effect occurs at his execution in Grasse. Dressed in a blue frock coat and anointed with his masterpiece perfume—the scent of twenty-five murdered virgins, with Laure Richis's at its core—he steps from the carriage, and the ten thousand assembled people are instantly transformed. They are infused with "the unshakeable belief that the man in the blue frock coat could not possibly be a murderer." He appears to them as "innocence personified." The effect is not merely cognitive but visceral and erotic: the crowd is overcome with "goodwill, tenderness, crazy, childish infatuation, yes, love." The execution degenerates into a massive orgy, with respectable women baring their breasts, men copulating in impossible combinations, and the bishop himself slumping forward in "religious rapture." The power of the perfume is so absolute that it overrides all evidence, all memory, and all moral sense.

The Internal Effect: Hatred and Self-Loathing

The most tragic dimension of Grenouille's effect is its complete failure to satisfy him. At the moment of his greatest triumph, he is "terrified" because he cannot enjoy it. He realizes that he has never found gratification in love, but only in hatred. The more the crowd worships him, the more he hates them, and this hatred remains without an echo because they perceive only his "counterfeit aura." He longs for someone to see through his mask and return his hatred, to kill him, but even Antoine Richis, the father of his last victim, is overcome by the perfume and embraces him as a son, begging for forgiveness. Grenouille's effect on himself is one of suffocation: the "dreadful fog" of his own odorlessness rises up within him, and he feels as if he is going to suffocate on himself. His power to command love is meaningless because he cannot love in return, and he cannot be known for what he truly is.

The Final Effect: Cannibalistic Love

Grenouille's death is the final, grotesque consummation of his effect. In the Cimetière des Innocents, he pours the last of his perfume over himself, and the thieves, murderers, and whores gathered there are seized by a "frenzied, alluring force." They tear him apart and devour him. Afterward, they are amazed that they feel no twinge of conscience; instead, their hearts are light, and they experience "delightful, bright flutterings in their dark souls." They have, for the first time, "done something out of Love." This is the ultimate irony: Grenouille, who was born without love and who inspired only hatred, is finally consumed by an act of love that is also an act of annihilation. His effect, which he could never feel himself, is to make others feel a love so powerful that it destroys him.