Question

Just finished my college essay. Would anyone mind giving me feedback?

Grenouille the Great, Who Rules the Heart of Men

“He possessed the power…the invincible power to command the love of mankind. There was only one thing that power could not do: it could not make him able to smell himself.”
-Patrick Suskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

The little man named Grenouille looked at me from across the room and I did not know what to tell him. The music filled the narrow space with a tired, nostalgic melody, and I wondered if we would dance someday. I knew his story, his seemingly inbred malice. He spoke and yet his raspy, dry voice said nothing. I like to think that he was once happy, once completely olfactorally satisfied in that hollow cave he stumbled upon. You see, it was Patrick Suskind’s creation, this evil little man named Jean Baptiste Grenouille who spoke to me in the strangest way as I flipped the sacred pages of his masterpiece. For, after all, Grenouille was a masterpiece in himself.
To say that I was not afraid would be a very terrible lie, but to say that I questioned his ways, would be a falsehood all the same. What did he want? His sole self-granted purpose was to create the most delicate, the most subtle of fragrances to forever preserve the scent of beauty; he wanted to enamor the hearts of men, for he realized that he lacked a scent of his own. With his every breath, the movement of his nostrils, I too, instantly thrived.
My nose is not so discerning, so I relied on eyesight to fabricate my perception of beauty. I lusted over the beauty of others, envied it really, because when I looked at myself I did not see. I saw myself as my little Jean-Baptiste had seen himself before; with a hunchback and a clubbed-leg and an unattractive limp. His skin, pallid and blotched, was sewn together with mine. All I could do was hide deeper in my cave and watch and observe the images of women I was bombarded with, failing to find their beauty, their seemingy universally accepted beauty, in me. And I wished they could give me some of it, much like Grenouille wished he could have a scent of his own. And Grenouille laughed a bit, and told me that I could just steal it all, that it was meant to be mine.
The job always took time. He opened his satchel and removed from its insides the linen, pomade, and spatula; he then spread cloth over the blanket on which he had lain, and started to brush on the fatty paste. Once the pomade was applied, he dabbed and smeared about here and there, modifying, checking the unctuous mural he had created. Everything was done in darkness, and this made him happy; he was in his element. He folded the cloth, and this always hurt him because he knew that some parts of this chiseled contour would be flattened. The dogs were asleep. Grenouille covered himself in her dress and ate aniseed cakes; he did not think about the future or the scent he would soon obtain. No, he thought of his past, the fish-smelling little village of La Napoule, he thought of Grimal the tanner, of Paris. He thought too, of the mountain in Auvergne. He thought all of these things with great satisfaction. His final task was always to open the cloth and peel the fat from her skin. To Grenouille, the girl would no longer exist as a body, but as an incorporeal fragrance. And, he was carrying that under his arm, taking it with him.
Thus was the beginning of my journey; the quest to obtain beauty and forever somehow preserve it. Yet, this preservation was not for my own pleasure. I wanted to be beautiful for others, for I identified intrinsic worth with the opinions others had of me. I would like to think that Grenouille and I were very different, but to say such a thing would be a lie. I got lost in my thoughts and I came to look upon my existence as a scar upon the face of a beautiful woman. And in the end, Grenouille was the only thing that could pull me out of my thoughts. His story, his odorless body, slowly handed me something I had forgotten. So, when my finger ceased to induce the vomit, and I no longer despised the self and began to hate the act, I knew I had my soul back. I had been given back my original perfume. Only, unlike my little monster, I would not let the crowd consume it. 
And although he does not have my eyes, nor I his nose, I know he understands me perfectly from across the room. I see the doubts within his head as clearly as he smells my farewell. With all that was said in that very quiet instant I traded my perception of beauty for his. In my mind he would see the forbidden and virginal beauty of the red-headed girl with the yellow plums. For once, I was blind to the dresses, the painted nails and the lipstick, the long legs and the thin waists. I traded my sight for the “fleeting realm of scent” and began to see in myself a beauty I was never very much aware of; and what surrounded me, all the images, faded.

And so I withdrew solely for my own personal pleasure, only to be near to myself. No longer distracted by anything external, I basked in my own existence and found it splendid.

Answer 1

Grenouille the Great, Who Rules the Heart of Men

“He possessed the power…the invincible power to command the love of mankind. There was only one thing that power could not do: it could not make him able to smell himself.”
-Patrick Suskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

The little man named Grenouille looked at me from across the room and I did not know what to tell him. The music filled the narrow space with a tired, nostalgic melody, and I wondered if we would dance someday. I knew his story, his seemingly inbred malice. He spoke and yet his raspy, dry voice said nothing. I like to think that he was once happy, once completely olfactorally satisfied in that hollow cave he stumbled upon. You see, it was Patrick Suskind’s creation, this evil little man named Jean Baptiste Grenouille who spoke to me in the strangest way as I flipped the sacred pages of his masterpiece. For, after all, Grenouille was a masterpiece in himself.
To say that I was not afraid would be a very terrible lie, but to say that I questioned his ways, would be a falsehood all the same. What did he want? His sole self-granted purpose was to create the most delicate, the most subtle of fragrances to forever preserve the scent of beauty; he wanted to enamor the hearts of men, for he realized that he lacked a scent of his own. With his every breath, the movement of his nostrils, I too, instantly thrived.
My nose is not so discerning, so I relied on eyesight to fabricate my perception of beauty. I lusted over the beauty of others, envied it really, because when I looked at myself I did not see. I saw myself as my little Jean-Baptiste had seen himself before; with a hunchback and a clubbed-leg and an unattractive limp. His skin, pallid and blotched, was sewn together with mine. All I could do was hide deeper in my cave and watch and observe the images of women I was bombarded with, failing to find their beauty, their seemingy universally accepted beauty, in me. And I wished they could give me some of it, much like Grenouille wished he could have a scent of his own. And Grenouille laughed a bit, and told me that I could just steal it all, that it was meant to be mine.
The job always took time. He opened his satchel and removed from its insides the linen, pomade, and spatula; he then spread cloth over the blanket on which he had lain, and started to brush on the fatty paste. Once the pomade was applied, he dabbed and smeared about here and there, modifying, checking the unctuous mural he had created. Everything was done in darkness, and this made him happy; he was in his element. He folded the cloth, and this always hurt him because he knew that some parts of this chiseled contour would be flattened. The dogs were asleep. Grenouille covered himself in her dress and ate aniseed cakes; he did not think about the future or the scent he would soon obtain. No, he thought of his past, the fish-smelling little village of La Napoule, he thought of Grimal the tanner, of Paris. He thought too, of the mountain in Auvergne. He thought all of these things with great satisfaction. His final task was always to open the cloth and peel the fat from her skin. To Grenouille, the girl would no longer exist as a body, but as an incorporeal fragrance. And, he was carrying that under his arm, taking it with him.
Thus was the beginning of my journey; the quest to obtain beauty and forever somehow preserve it. Yet, this preservation was not for my own pleasure. I wanted to be beautiful for others, for I identified intrinsic worth with the opinions others had of me. I would like to think that Grenouille and I were very different, but to say such a thing would be a lie. I got lost in my thoughts and I came to look upon my existence as a scar upon the face of a beautiful woman. And in the end, Grenouille was the only thing that could pull me out of my thoughts. His story, his odorless body, slowly handed me something I had forgotten. So, when my finger ceased to induce the vomit, and I no longer despised the self and began to hate the act, I knew I had my soul back. I had been given back my original perfume. Only, unlike my little monster, I would not let the crowd consume it. 
And although he does not have my eyes, nor I his nose, I know he understands me perfectly from across the room. I see the doubts within his head as clearly as he smells my farewell. With all that was said in that very quiet instant I traded my perception of beauty for his. In my mind he would see the forbidden and virginal beauty of the red-headed girl with the yellow plums. For once, I was blind to the dresses, the painted nails and the lipstick, the long legs and the thin waists. I traded my sight for the “fleeting realm of scent” and began to see in myself a beauty I was never very much aware of; and what surrounded me, all the images, faded.

And so I withdrew solely for my own personal pleasure, only to be near to myself. No longer distracted by anything external, I basked in my own existence and found it splendid.