Garrett Blackwood
Holloway
English III IB - 1
21 December 2007
The
Effect of the Setting of a Small Town on the Characters in the Towns of Grasse
in Perfume and the setting of Chronicle of a Death Foretold
Small
towns are notorious for several things; unruly quick spreading rumors, everyone
knowing each other by name, the ability to pick out an outsider easily, outward
complete trust in one another, a close knit homogeneous society that never
locks their doors, and long passed horrific events no one dares speak of lest
they run the risk of being excluded from the society they desperately cling to.
Both of these novels have several examples of these qualities in their
respective small towns. These characteristics greatly shape the course of
action the inhabitants of the towns of Grasse
and the setting of Chronicle of a Death Foretold. The way the characters
interact socially, act physically, and react to news happens to have quite an
effect on the way the story is conveyed.
The citizens of
the town of Grasse
live in a town that clings in a manner that can never be described as
gracefully above a stinking valley reeking with the most astounding scents that
could ever be cultivated by humans. Rumor in this town about a mass murderer
targeting beautiful young women quickly sends the entire population into a
panic starting when “the naked body of a fifteen-year-old girl was found in a
rose field” (Suskind 194) and after the second murder “the news spread like
wildfire” (Suskind 196). Bars are hastily added to windows. Girls are hastily
shipped off to live with relatives in far away villages. Wealthy merchants are
both thrilled and frightened for the lives of their daughters. This state of
panic increased until “the least rumor caused mob scenes” (Suskind 197). All
this ruckus simply caused by a handful of unsolved deaths and a half true
rumor. Had this been a big city of this time period, perhaps no one would have
cared. Perhaps people would have gone about their daily lives passing corpses
lining the streets. Indeed once the main assumption of the rumor, “that the
girls had been ravished” (Suskind 197), turns out to be false, the population
is sent into further panic as the motive becomes no longer known. All this
panic was caused by a rumor in a small town, where rumor is law. Once they got
the bishop to excommunicate the monster, the murders seemed to cease and move
to Grenoble.
The rumor started panic could only be silenced by another rumor. This small
society ties people together in such a strong way that when the evidence of the
murders were put forth on pikes “hundreds of people filed by the macabre
gallery” (Suskind 226) and then they all demand to see this murderer.
Eventually the story started to move by it’s own means. The prisoner in his
cell was rather boring, so the people made up details about him in order to be
able to perceive him as a murderer, “the etcher printed up several hundred
copies of the sketch he had made of the murderer in prison—touched up a bit
from his own imagination” (Suskind 230). Throughout Grenouille’s imprisonment
the parade grounds of this town were being set up for his execution. Social
events in a small town are so uncommon that it was not a surprise that the
parade ground would be open. This was the biggest event of the year for the
people of Grasse.
The parade grounds were prepared with seating for ten thousand people, more
than enough for the entire population of the town. After the utter failure of
the execution of Grenouille the twon seems to agree never to speak of the incident
again. They find a scapegoat to punish and they forget about it, “forgotten it
so totally that travelers who passed through in the days that followed and
casually inquired about Grasses’ infamous murder of young maidens found not a
single sane person who could give them any information” (Suskind 247).
The citizens in
the town Chronicle of a Death Foretold live in a town clinging to a
river in Columbia.
Although the culture is radically different, the principle qualities of a
typical United States
small town still applicably apply. The town has a rich man, a priest, who goes
about his daily life in this obscure village where two twin brothers have had
it decided for them to kill him. Somehow all of the citizens of the town know
what is going to happen even though the plan was only developed the night
before. That is how close knit this society is. Each person has their own
reason for not warning the priest that he was to be killed. Rumor in small town
is still not trusted as gospel truth. On the morning it was to happen, “fake
customers … went in and out with the purpose of seeing whether it was true that
they were waiting for Santiago Nasar to kill him” (Marquez 64). Outside the
store in this town people were milling about for the sole purpose of finding out
if the rumor they had heard was true. Most inhabitants simply dismissed the
idea as being impossible. The mayor of the town himself had said, “’When I saw
them I thought they were nothing but a pair of big bluffers” (Marquez 56). Giving
their own reasons why it would be unlikely for Nasar to have had sex with Angela
Vicario. Even in this small trusting society, there is still a general mistrust
about the air as the story progresses. Every person has their own view of what
happened on that day. In a small town setting history is quick to become
legend, and legends are never quite recited accurately, “many people coincided
in recalling that it was a radiant morning… but most agreed that the weather
was funereal, with a cloudy, low sky” (Marquez 4). In this town the only thing
that separates rumor from legend is time. However, there is no dividing line
between rumor in truth here. Trying to piece together the full story of what
happened that day from each person’s individual account was like “trying to put
the broken mirror of memory back together from so many shattered shards”
(Marquez 6).
Small towns have
their well deserved notoriety. They’re great places to settle down, raise a
family, and be in a place where everyone knows everyone. A place of trust, and
care where you never have to lock your door, this is what a small town exudes,
this air of neighborly goodwill. There are always things to a small town that
an outsider will never understand. Whether it be how inhabitants can instantly
recognize an outsider, or the dirty terrible secrets tainting the peaceful
reputation of the town. Both Patrick Suskind and Gabriel Garcia Marquez take
full advantage of the mindset of the small town, and are able to weave the most
plausible stories from the most outlandish of ideas.
1,163
Works Cited
Márquez,
Gabriel García. Chronicle of a Death Foretold. Trans. Gregory Rabassa. New York: Vintage Books,
1982.
Sϋskind,
Patrick. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. Trans. John Woods. New York: Vintage
International, 2001.
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