CONTENT WARNING: This article contains descriptions of violence and murder.
SPOILERS: The content of this article contains major spoilers for Patrick Süskind’s novel, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer and Grant Morrison and Dave McKean’s Batman graphic novel, Arkham Asylum: A Serious House On Serious Earth.
Someone once said “You see madness, as you know, is like gravity. All it takes is a little push!” Granted that said someone was the Joker in 2008’s “The Dark Knight,” who could be said to be anything but wise, he presents an interesting point. That within everyone is the grain of madness and all it takes to fall into it is one single moment. A number of questions arise in regard to Joker’s theory. What happens to a person if they finally decide to succumb to madness? Can it break them? Can they wield their own madness and turn it into something new? In the case of Patrick Süskind’s novel, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer and Grant Morrison and Dave McKean’s Batman graphic novel, Arkham Asylum: A Serious House On Serious Earth, the reader can see in the protagonists of both tales that how madness is dealt with depends on the individual, in an abstract way. For Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, Süskind’s lead, once he comes to face his madness head on, it becomes unbearable to him, shattering the worldview he had crafted for himself. For Batman, Morrison presents a man who fears the madness that has created him and worries if it will eventually consume him but is able to conquer it and turn it into the final piece that completes his mindset. While these two characters could not be farther apart, the madness that comes to define them both is essential to understanding how consuming but potentially uplifting our inner demons can be.
Süskind’s novel presents Paris, France during the 18th century, in all its dismal, disgusting glory. Into this scenario is dropped Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, a tiny worm of a man with no physical scent of his own, whose almost demonic sense of smell and subsequent obsession with scent is the only thing that really gives him purpose. He seeks to create the ultimate scent, through any means necessary. This desire is what drives his madness and the reader is shown how deeply pervasive it is during Grenouille’s first kill. Grenouille comes across a young red-haired girl after following her scent through the streets of Paris and, for what appears to be no discernible reason other than his need for her scent, strangles her to death. Grenouille’s inhuman nature lets him get the jump on her and
She was so frozen in terror at the sight of him that he had plenty of time to put his hands to her throat. She did not attempt to cry out, did not budge, did not make the least motion to defend herself. He, in turn, did not look at her, did not see her delicate, freckled face, her red lips, her large sparkling green eyes, keeping his eyes closed tight as he strangled her, for he had only one concern—not to lose the least trace of her scent (Süskind).
Grenouille’s madness here is evident by the need he has for her scent. He knows he needs it, knows he wants it desperately, and doesn’t worry about the means he uses to obtain it. This is his madness; sacrificing humanity in favor of a quest for and essentially in honor of scent. Grenouille doesn’t see people for what they are; he views them as receptacles of scent that he can drain once he comes across a scent he wants. This view is reinforced by his glancing away during this act of violence. Grenouille makes a conscious decision to dehumanize this girl into this scent sponge instead of someone who had a life ahead of her. Here, Grenouille uses his madness as a shield, one that prevents him from engaging with humanity in a way that fosters some kind of typical empathy.
His madness evolves once he learns how he can further deceive those around him and create a more elaborate disguise of humanity for himself. Following his first kill, Grenouille had left Paris and had gone through a something of a metamorphosis after a mountainside seclusion. After his departure from the mountain, a local noble takes the young monster into his care, using Grenouille as evidence to a ludicrous theory he has about human vitality or some such nonsense. It is during this residency with this noble that the next phase of Grenouille’s madness develops. During his time inside the mountain, Grenouille realizes that he has no scent of his own. Once he has recovered from his mountainside seclusion, Grenouille goes out to craft a scent for himself. Once he accomplishes that goal, he comes to a further realization about his endgame of crafting the ultimate scent. He realizes that
He who ruled scent ruled the world… His mood was not euphoric as he formed his plans to rule humankind. There were no mad flashings of the eye, no lunatic grimace passed over his face. He was not out of his mind, which was so clear and buoyant that he asked himself why he wanted to do it at all. And he said to himself that he wanted to do it because he was evil, thoroughly evil. And he smiled as he said it and was content. He looked quite innocent, like any happy person (Süskind).
Grenouille denies any form of madness but embraces an evil nature. He appears to have reached a level of sanity that is so above that of a typical human being; he has become so irrational that his thinking to him feels rational, comparable to some kind of super-sanity. He believes in his mission so intensely that he abandons any sense of humanity, if he ever had any to begin with. This mission of his ultimately becomes self-destructive, as seen at the climax of the novel.
As part of the process to create his perfect scent, Grenouille has to kill a number of people, particularly young girls like the red-haired girl he encountered in Paris. Through these horrendous acts, Grenouille is able to craft his ultimate scent. Following this, he is captured and sentenced to death because of the murders he committed. At his execution, Grenouille reveals his completed scent to the masses that gathered to watch him die and madness ensues. Grenouille’s ultimate scent forces the crowd into a massive orgy, a scene whose scope is near incomprehensible to the reader. Even though this moment of control is what Grenouille wanted, had been striving for, had sacrificed any chance of humanity in order to get to it, even he can’t comprehend what he had unleashed.
Yes, he was Grenouille the Great! Now it had become manifest. It was he, just as in his narcissistic fantasies of old, but now in reality. And in that moment he experienced the greatest triumph of his life. And he was terrified.
He was terrified because he could not enjoy one second of it…What he had always longed for—that other people should love him—became at the moment of its achievement unbearable, because he did not love them himself, he hated them. And suddenly he knew that he had never found gratification in love, but always only in hatred—in hating and in being hated (Süskind).
Grenouille realizes that this kind of power over people can never fulfill him in the way he wishes it would. His madness, when viewed with this final facet in place, is that he sought after something that was never meant for him to wield. Grasping this power, even momentarily, was like staring into the sun; he couldn’t withstand it and burned for it. Grenouille lacked the foundation to recover from this, ultimately using the scent to assist in his suicide. Grenouille’s madness was an essential tool for the entirety of his life. However, he never took a step back at the cost of using it to accomplish the creation of this ultimate scent. He never considered that his madness was less a tool and more a timebomb. His fate was always bound toward a violent end because how severely he used his madness to get what he wanted. While Grenouille’s madness ends up destroying him, Batman’s madness is what makes him a force to be reckoned with.
In Morrison’s story, the inmates of Arkham Asylum, led by the Joker, have taken over the facility and hold the staff as their hostages. They are willing to surrender their captives on one condition: Batman must take their place in the asylum. Batman agrees to this plan, even though those around him question his decision. Prior to Batman’s departure to the asylum, Commissioner Gordon asks
Gordon: You okay? You know you don’t have to go in there. Let me organize a S.W.A.T. team or something.
Batman: No. This is something I do have to do.
Gordon: Listen, I can understand it if even you’re afraid. I mean, Arkham has a reputation…
Batman: Afraid? Batman’s not afraid of anything. It’s me. I’m afraid. I’m afraid that the Joker may be right about me. Sometimes I…question the rationality of my actions. And I’m afraid that when I walk through those asylum gates…when I walk into Arkham and the doors close behind me…it’ll be just like coming home (Morrison).
Much like how Grenouille’s madness is driven by an obsession with scent, Batman’s madness is driven by an obsession with vengeance and justice. Unlike Grenouille, Batman questions whether his mission is ultimately worthy. He doesn’t feel comforted by his mission, like Grenouille appears to be. While he began his crusade in honor of his murdered parents, Batman admits that he may have lost the purpose of this responsibility. By creating the Batman, Bruce Wayne has created an entity that doesn’t allow him to use his natural instincts. Batman is a much of a shield for Bruce as Grenouille’s madness for scent is a shield for dealing with the evil of what he does to get those scents. Bruce would never go into the asylum, but Batman must because that’s who he is, what he was created to do.. He is the only one who could. While Batman can handle the pressures that the asylum places on him, Bruce is simultaneously aware of the madness inside of and around him by the inmates he encounters after entering the asylum.
After Batman’s arrival at the asylum, Joker releases his hostages, though some of the asylum doctors, Ruth Adams and Dr. Cavendish, remain in an attempt to maintain a semblance of order. The Joker and his fellow inmates force Batman into a mad game of hide and seek throughout the asylum grounds. During this, Batman comes across the Lewis Carroll obsessed inmate Jervis Tetch, otherwise known as the villain Mad Hatter. The Hatter presents a theory to Batman, stating that “Sometimes…sometimes I think the asylum is a head. We’re inside a huge head that dreams us all into being. Perhaps it’s your head, Batman. Arkham is a looking glass. And WE are YOU” (Morrison). Tetch asserts that the asylum as a whole can be seen as representative to the warlike nature in Bruce’s psyche, with each villain representing some part of him. The Joker is his dark side, what Bruce would be should he fall into madness. Two-Face represents the dueling natures of the Bruce Wayne/Batman personas, one always trying to achieve dominance over the other, alternating in decisions that impact the life of either persona. These representations support Bruce’s fear that his actions are irrational; if his mind really is this fractured, he is no better than any of the inmate of Arkham. While a fear of this caliber would cripple most, Batman takes this and ends up using it to make himself a stronger individual.
Towards the story’s end, Batman has beaten most of the inmates who have crossed his path, with the exception of Two-Face and the Joker. As he goes to find them, one of the remaining doctors, Ruth Adams, asks him why he is going back into the asylum. She goes on to ask Batman
Adams: What are you?
Batman: Stronger than them. Stronger than this place. I have to show them.
Adams: That’s insane.
Batman: Exactly. Arkham was right! Sometimes it’s only madness that makes us what we are. Or destiny perhaps.
This is the moment where Batman takes his madness and conquers it into submission, something that Grenouille failed to do. Bruce finds that the dueling aspects of his mind are better served when they work together. He admits that madness is what created him, it drives him in some way, but madness doesn’t rule him. In the end, Batman is in control of himself, he is not susceptible to the apathy that madness can give, as shown in people like Joker or Grenouille. His madness was sadly inevitable, but Bruce takes trauma that creates Batman uses it to create a way to channel it into something constructive.
Madness is something that is dealt with differently on an individual level. For Grenouille, he was had approached it in a self-destructive manner. He lied to himself frequently about his destiny, not knowing he was taking himself one step closer to oblivion with each lie. His goal, supported by his madness, was inherently flawed due to the extreme methods he used to obtain it. Once he completed his perfect scent, he couldn’t handle the power that came with it because he learned it was too great for him. With his purpose ripped away from him, Grenouille’s madness consumes him and he drifts off into nothingness. Batman’s madness becomes one of his assets, despite his own doubts about its effectiveness. He wonders if his actions are just part of some mad delusion that was crafted after witnessing the murder of his parents. Bruce also sees that the villains he battles can be reflections of his fractured self, each fighting for dominance over the others. Batman is finally able to say that while madness created and it may be a part of him, it does not rule him. He is better than it, stronger than it. Bruce becomes a better person because of that logic as he is no longer subject to debilitating doubt. While madness can be one little push away, how we harness and address that madness within us makes us who we are really meant to be.