The Perfume

For an indispensable book of poems such as Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, it is prudent to give scrupulous attention to the first part. It is an introduction to what is to come, demonstrating Whitman’s style and themes so that we may be prepared for what is to come: Whitman is inclusive when he begins by saying that “What I shall assume, you shall assume;/For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you” (1). He connects himself with the reader, whoever he may be, by saying that they are one and the same. When he says “I celebrate myself” (1), he may be, according to the fact that we are all one, celebrating that very connection. The fact that he is celebrating implies a social gathering designed to praise a person or event.

A predominant theme can be seen: nature. I don’t mean nature per se, but rather the detachment of society into the silence found in nature. There is another theme: nature, which promotes loafing. Society requires haste and occupation. Everyone is in constant contact with everyone. For that, he says that “the distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it” (1), which means that being engulfed in the hive that is society is addicting and pleasurable, but, for that, all the more dangerous. Then, he praises loneliness, but without the lonely part, for he will “go to the bank by the wood, and become undisguised and naked;/ I am mad for it to be in contact with me” (1). The disguise he mentions is that of the image he must (and in turn, all of us as well) maintain when part of society (as is the theme in Patrick Suskind’s The Perfume, which is adequately titled, considering the mention of perfumes in this poem, which I believe play the same metaphor: Perfumes are disguises, or inauthentic images created by society’s individuals for themselves). He praises genuine silence and freedom, which only nature can offer.