One can find many similar recurring themes in the novels Siddhartha, by Herman Hesse, and Perfume, by Patrick Suskind. Both authors use an aspect of nature as a symbol, the river. Since the time of the ancient Chinese, Pharaohs, Romans and Greeks, people have believed that the flow of the river represents the flow in one's life. They use the river to symbolise peoples' existence. In both books, the river portrays spiritual aspects that tell the characters' life stories, whether they take place in the past, present, or future, to show the consistency of the river and of life.
In Siddhartha,…
