Perfume Essay Example for Free

Perfume Essay This essay will compare and contrast the various methods used by the author and director of the novel Perfume. Perfume, written by Patrick Suskind and adapted by Tom Tykwer, is a dramatic, crime thriller about the life of a murderer. Born and raised in Paris, Jean-Baptiste survives the most gruelling childhood; his father unknown and mother executed for attempting to kill him, rejected by the wet nurses in the village and when finally taken in by Madame Gaillard at the orphanage, the children endeavour to kill him. They fear he is dangerous because of his lack of personal scent. However Grenouille survives through even their best efforts, survives the measles, dysentery, chicken pox and cholera. It is clear that this child is special not only because of his amazing ability to endure the most appalling conditions but also because of his exceptionally talented sense of smell. The title â€Å"Perfume† gives the reader/viewer a good idea of what to expect from the very beginning. Trying to translate Grenouille’s olfactory language into visual picture was from the beginning a mammoth task than is expertly accomplished by the director through the use of audio and several visual components. It is however much easier to do in a book because the reader can be manipulated through their personal experience with smell. Therefore from this point the book is mildly better even though it is at a disadvantage because the reader has no visual aid. The main themes of Perfume are black humour, emotionally/mentally challenged people, hatred of humanity and seeing importance in others life only when they affect your own. These themes are portrayed well throughout both the book and film. The most prominent is seeing importance in others life only when they affect your own. For example, Madame Gaillard dies in a tragic way shortly after she sells Grenouille. In the book she dies of cancer in a crowded bed, in the film she is slit at the throat as she returns home. Monsieur Grimal falls into the river on his way home from celebrating the sale of Grenouille. Giuseppe Baldini’s house falls into the river not long after Grenouille leaves for Grasse. All these deaths symbolise that Grenouille can only value human life if it has something to reward him with; when this is done they no longer exist in his mind. This also explains why Grenouille can kill the innocent girls, take what he wants and leave without feeling any remorse for his actions. One of the best adapted scenes is the opening chapter, Grenouille’s birth. Suskind does an extended description of the putrid place where Grenouille was born. â€Å"The streets stank of manure, the courtyards of urine, the stairwells stank of mouldering wood and rat droppings, the kitchens of spoiled cabbage and mutton fat†, this quote goes on for a considerable amount of time yet it is necessary because there is so many rotten smells included that everyone can relate to at least one. This provokes the reader to think of the most revolting smells they have ever experienced and then try to imagine them worse. In the film, Tykwer uses a fast moving, rolling shot to show the reader the various scents that inhabit the area. And he uses shots of typically revolting objects such as rats, fish guts, sick and rotting vegetables. These smells are relatable to humans and so the viewer can appreciate how bad it smells, however this may not be as powerful as the smell that the human imagination can fabricate from the book. Also he employs the sound of a heartbeat and rapid breathing of the new-born babe to humanise the situation and to portray the struggle the baby has to survive. The heartbeat makes us anxious and so we wonder whether the baby will survive. The baby breathing rapidly makes us question if it can continue. However regardless of this the baby lets out a scream. The audio effects stop and this could symbolise that as soon as the baby chose to live it ended the life of his mother and shows that the world is not the same. Obviously some scenes from the book have had to be cut to stay within a reasonable screen time, one of the scenes cut is the scientific study that is carried out on Grenouille nevertheless this is not missed and the film makes up for such scenes in other aspects. One of the biggest advantages the film has over the book is that it can use the best actors suited to the role. The actor that plays Grenouille, Ben Whishaw is perfectly suited to the character. He has a childlike voice that represents his innocence, not that his soul is innocent but because he has been void of all love for his whole life. His life was only valued by those wanted something from him. His character is also very good because his expression can be changed in an instant. In one scene he can appear helpless and angelic while in another he can be closer to the devil than a human. The way he sets himself into the role is nothing less than perfect; he scuttles as he should, hunches as he should and does everything as weirdly as is should be. Grenouille is a disturbing character and this is very well portrayed by the actor. In the book Grenouille doesn’t say much because the book is written in third person. This is used so that the reader can get close into the minds of all the characters instead of being limited to one. This also means that we can observe events happening in all the different places. In the film this is done through the use of a narrator. However the narrator does tend to disclose information that as viewers might have preferred to interpret ourselves. So even though the narrator is used in both the book and film the effects are far better in the book. To conclude, there are many similarities between the book and film adaption of Perfume that are equally as good as each other but some aspects such as the narrator are stronger in the book. Equally particular aspects of the film are better, for instance the ability to use actors. One of the primary differences is the character change of Grenouille from book to film. The book shows him as a conniving parasite that is very good at manipulating people. The film shows a man who is unaware of the effects of his actions and is somewhat innocent. The strongest parts of the book are the descriptions of the in-depth break down of the various scents and how deep into Grenouille’s mind the reader gets, since spoken language is not Grenouilles strength. The best bits of the film are casting decisions and the superb adaption that captures the soul of the book and enhances it through captivating music and images. It’s like smelling with your eyes.

Peter Taylors The Old Forest Essay example -- Peter Taylor Old Forest

Peter Taylor's The Old Forest Critics have continuously characterized Peter Taylor’s work, as a social critique of the South and how it shows â€Å"the effects of cultural inheritance on its people† (Bryant 66). In his story, â€Å"The Old Forest,† Taylor examines the regional history and social structures that shaped his own past and how breaking the architecture that has existed for generations is not easily accomplished. Although it takes place in 1937, with progressive girls and college students filling the city of Memphis with intellectualism and open sexuality, the social constructions of the past, most specifically the descendents of plantation owners and rich socialites, are not easily forgotten. Lines have been drawn between those residing in the progressive city and Nat Ramsey’s community of debutantes and patriarchal dominance. Nat’s fiancà ©, Caroline Braxley is unwillingly thrown into the conflict as Nat finds himself in a questionable situation with a city girl, L ee Ann. As Caroline struggles to secure her marriage to Nat, she is faced with obstacles of gender, social class, and her own emotions. Taylor exposes the essential truth behind Caroline of how she uses her knowledge of her expected roles to survive in a changing societal context. Caroline embodies a middle path through the conflicting generations and social movements that allows her to follow her desires and gain the future she wants without excluding herself from the values she has learned to accept. Caroline Braxley does not have a significant role in the beginning of Nat’s narrative. Instead, she is background noise in his quest for individual knowledge and self-awareness in the changing Memphis community. Nat only refers to her as â€Å"the society girl I... ...in English 9 (Fall 1987): 65-72. Heldrich, Philip. â€Å"Collision and Revision in Peter Taylor’s ‘The Old Forest’.† Southern Quarterly: A Journal of the Arts in the South 38.2 (Winter 2000): 48-53. Robinson, David M. â€Å"Engaging the Past: Peter Taylor’s ‘The Old Forest’.† Southern Literary Journal 22.2 (Spring 1990): 63-77. Robison, James Curry. Peter Taylor: A Study of the Short Fiction. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1988. 78, 89-95. Shear, Walter. â€Å"Peter Taylor’s Fiction: The Encounter with the Other.† Southern Literary Journal 21.2 (Spring 1989): 41-46. - -. â€Å"Women and History in Peter Taylor’s Short Stories.† Southern Quarterly: A Journal of the Arts in the South 33.1 (Fall 1994): 41-46. Taylor, Peter. â€Å"The Old Forest.† Growing Up in the South: An Anthology of Modern Southern Literature. Ed. Jones, Suzanne W. New York: Penguin Group Inc., 2003. 247-314.

Human Essay

I find it is amazing how human is the only being ( by means of being able to be observed by common senses ) as the only independent object by which is not subjected , or bounded to , any limiting factors (except by the factor of capability of human itself ). If we are to study , why human are able to think independently , we go to the brain. Now, when you study the brain and view it from a philosophy spectrum, you will see that the brain is simply a bunch of chemicals ( in fact, everything is chemicals ) that collaborates together and form a very sophisticated and complicated active mechanism of maneuvering and solving variables of countless many ( think of it like this , you mix in a mixture of chemicals ( such as H(2)O,CO(2) and all kinds of other chemical component of the brain) , and find that the mixed chemicals are capable of thinking! ). As quoted from Oliver Sachs from the TED Talk ( forgive me if I’m mistaken),†Information in the form of energy , streams in simultaneously through all of our sensory systems , and then it explodes into this collaborative collage ( the collage here are used to signified the greatness of our brain , being each of the brain cell ability to think )†. Now , our brain has two very opposing parts , the passive and the active group. This two groups are very different in a manner such that it can even contradicts itself , although it being in a single organ in our body which is weird. That is the power of decision. We make decision in our daily life and in fact , every things make decision , even in the atomic level ( the attracting and discharge of electron itself by atoms is decision). But what makes us different from other things are that we are able to make decision even beyond the passive limitation ). For example , when you are running you will eventually gets tired. When you are tired , your passive group of brain make decisions to increase heartbeat and increase breathing process rate , and provide your active group of brain a decision to stop running (since running is an active process). You have now 2 options, firstly you agreed with the passive brain to stop running and get a rest. Secondly , you could countinue running and eventually dies. Now here’s the thing , the main objective of living thing is to , survive and dying is not a very good choice if you want to survive , but you , as a living thing , an independant living things has actually broke the very purpose of being a living thing (the fact that very aim of living things is to survive also intrigues me , how can a bunch of collaborative chemicals wants to live , to survive ). Unlike plants for example , they are subjected to boundaries or laws. For example , when they require sunlight and water , it will grow shoot and root respectively. They are unable to overcome this limitation of â€Å"thinking† because they are not independant , unlike we human. More amazingly, with this power of decision we are able to compute a very complicated mathemical problems , mechanical problems , and overcome flaws. Although that was a very bad example of decision but the point here is that we have the power to actually do something beyond the horizon and boundaries of passiveness. We human has this miracelous gift of being able to think actively. With this capability , we can do something good, or something bad. And it is for us to decide. Is it with this capability , that divide humans into levels of intelectuality and quality, it is this capability that can shape a single human capable of transforming and nourishing the whole entity of universe and when ignored , the most simpleton of blockhead, bonehead, dumbass, dunce, dunderhead, hammerhead, knucklehead, loggerhead, lunkhead, muttonhead, numskull kind of human.

Pachycephalosaurs - The Bone-Headed Dinosaurs

Pachycephalosaurs (Greek for thick-headed lizards) were an unusually small family of dinosaurs with an unusually high entertainment value. As you can guess from their name, these two-legged herbivores were distinguished by their skulls, which ranged from the mildly thick (in early genera like Wannanosaurus) to the truly dense (in later genera like Stegoceras). Some later pachycephalosaurs sported almost a foot of solid, albeit slightly porous, bone on top of their heads! (See a gallery of bone-headed dinosaur pictures and profiles.) However, its important to understand that big heads, in this case, didnt translate into equally big brains. Pachycephalosaurs were about as bright as the other plant-eating dinosaurs of the late Cretaceous period (which is a polite way of saying not very); their closest relatives, the ceratopsians, or horned, frilled dinosaurs, werent exactly natures A students, either. So of all the possible reasons pachycephalosaurs evolved such thick skulls, protecting their extra-big brains certainly wasnt one of them. Pachycephalosaur Evolution Based on the available fossil evidence, paleontologists believe that the very first pachycephalosaurs--such as Wannanosaurus and Goyocephale--arose in Asia about 85 million years ago, only 20 million years before the dinosaurs went extinct. As is the case with most progenitor species, these early bone-headed dinosaurs were fairly small, with only slightly thickened skulls, and they may have roamed in herds as protection against hungry raptors and tyrannosaurs. Pachycephalosaur evolution really seems to have taken off when these early genera crossed the land bridge that (back during the late Cretaceous period) connected Eurasia and North America. The largest boneheads with the thickest skulls--Stegoceras, Stygimoloch and Sphaerotholus--all roamed the woodlands of western North America, as did Dracorex hogwartsia, the only dinosaur ever to be named after the Harry Potter books. By the way, its especially difficult for experts to untangle the details of pachycephalosaur evolution, for the simple reason that so few complete fossil specimens have ever been discovered. As you might expect, these thick-skulled dinosaurs tend to be represented in the geological record mainly by their heads, their less-robust vertebrae, femurs and other bones having long since been scattered to the winds. Pachycephalosaur Behavior and Lifestyles Now we get to the million-dollar question: why did pachycephalosaurs have such thick skulls? Most paleontologists believe male boneheads head-butted each other for dominance in the herd and the right to mate with females, a behavior that can be seen in (for example) modern-day bighorn sheep. Some enterprising researchers have even conducted computer simulations, showing that two moderately sized pachycephalosaurs could ram each others noggins at high speed and live to tell the tale. Not everyone is convinced, though. Some people insist that high-speed head-butting would have produced too many casualties, and speculate that pachycephalosaurs instead used their heads to butt the flanks of competitors within the herd (or even smaller predators). However, it does seem odd that nature would evolve extra-thick skulls for this purpose, since non-pachycephalosaur dinosaurs could easily (and safely) butt each others flanks with their normal, non-thickened skulls. (The recent discovery of Texacephale, a small North American pachycephalosaur with shock-absorbing grooves on either side of its skull, lends some support to the head-butting-for-dominance theory.) By the way, the evolutionary relationships among different genera of pachycephalosaurs are still being sorted out, as are the growth stages of these strange dinosaurs. According to new research, its likely that two supposedly separate pachycephalosaur genera--Stygimoloch and Dracorex--in fact represent earlier growth stages of the much bigger Pachycephalosaurus. If the skulls of these dinosaurs changed shape as they aged, that may mean that additional genera have been classified improperly, and were in fact species (or individuals) of existing dinosaurs.