LAURE the..girl.

*The book I'm using is the one with the cover of orange colour and a picture of a..woman.

Name: Laure Richis

Chapters with her appearance: 35 (p165-172), 41 (p199-202), 46 (p219-221)

Very short summaries of each chapter:
Chapter 35 = Grenouille first smells her and her "fatally wonderful scent (p169)" gives him a specific purpose/goal, which is to make an "ultimate" perfume.

Chapter 41 = Depicts Antoine Richis's strong (and sexual) love towards his own daughter; describes her from his perspectives (building on the description from Grenouille's viewpoint).

Chapter 46 = She dies.

Laure's functionality + significance to Grenouille and to the novel:
- She gives Grenouille, the main character, a clear goal which moves on the pace of the story, because it is that goal making Grenouille to carry out "no fewer than twenty-four (p198)" murders

- In order to perfectly acquire this scent, Grenouille then begins to master his skills as both a perfumer and a murderer

- Hence because of her - or specifically her scents - makes Grenouille to kill other young women to supplement the scent of Laure in his "ultimate" perfume = this causes a "sense of horror (p197)" all over Grasse, as well as in "countryside (p196)"

- The murders of these "lovely, young girls (p195)" spread fear and horror over the place. The town council with a "committee of thirty of the richest and most influential commoners and nobles in Grasse (p197)" at first did not pay the "least attention to the bishop (p197)" because the majority of them were "enlightened and anticlerical (p197)". However, "in their distress (p197)", they write an "abject petition begging (p197)" the bishop to "curse...this monster (p197)" = conveys the ridiculousness of Enlightment and the power & effect of religion during that period

- Therefore shows the theme of Enlightment and Religion

- (not directly related to her functionality/significance) The reaction of Grenouille after smelling her scents or the way Monsieur Richis (her father) loves and looks at her clearly portrays her beauty and the power of it [quotes at the end of this post]

Some useful quotes:
Chapter 35

• "And yet he stood there. Something else was holding him fast" (p168)
• "Fatally wonderful scent" (p169)
• "A scent so exquisite that... his nose had never before encountered one like it" (p169)
• "Grenouille turned hot with rapture and cold with fear" (169)
• "Blood rushed to his head as if he were a little boy caught red-handed" (p170)
• "Brought tears of bliss to his eyes" (p170)
• "He was dizzy, he tottered a little... sinking slowly down" (p170)
• "She had dazzlingly white skin. She had green eyes" (p170)
• "Green buds of flowers before they blossom" (p171)
• (Comparing with the plumb girl) "not as robust, not as voluminous, but more refined, more richly nuanced... more natural" (p171)
• "Her incomparable, splendid scent!" (p172)
• "Rare flower" (p172)
• "It excited him too much" (p172)

Chapter 41

• "The most precious thing that Richis possessed... was his daughter" (p200)
• "She had a face so charming that visitors... would stand stock-still at the sight of her" (p200)
• "Licking that face with their eyes... that typically stupid, single-minded expression on their faces" (p200)
• "Richis would catch himself looking at his daughter... forgetting the rest of the world" (p200)
• "Magnificent girl" (p200)
• "Her hips and breasts were molded... contoured shoulder, elbow, and smooth forearm" (p200)
• "He would feel an awful cramping in his stomach" (p200)
• "Curse himself for being this woman's father and not some stranger" (p200)
• "Full of desire could lie down next to her, on her, in her" (p200)

Chapter 46

• "Oil in her own pores pearled from her skin" (p220)
• "She was dead for him, withered away, pale and limp as a fallen petal" (p220)

The end.
JY