Making Sense of Scents

Last week I opened a new soap: Yardley's lemon verbena. I suddenly thought of Ellen O'Hara, Scarlett's mother in Gone with the Wind. 

                 ...Scarlett thrilled to the never-failing magic of her mother's touch, to the faint fragrance of                         lemon verbena sachet that came from her rustling silk dress. 

There's another line when Scarlett is reluctantly remembering the old days before the war--a whisper and a fragrance that was Ellen. Lemon verbena is described as a light, refreshingly mild, citrus scent. I'm not sure why Margaret Mitchell used lemon verbena, but a light and mild scent seems to go with the quiet presence of Ellen--the empty shell of the woman who married Scarlett's father Gerald O'Hara.

Another scent associated with a fictional character is jasmine: the scent of Josette in Dark Shadows--the television series. Jasmine is described as sensual, rich, sweet, intoxicating, exotic, and intense--appropriate to represent a love lost for hundreds of years. Of course, since Josette is a ghost, the scent of jasmine is used primarily to indicate her presence to the living. 

Lily of the valley is sweet, fresh, floral, feminine, light, and sexy. It's the scent that Tobey Heydon's husband Brose prefers. Tobey seems to regard it as run-of-the-mill. The description sounds appropriate for the heroine of a 1940's-1950's series of books for teenage girls by Rosmund du Jardin.

Scent triggers memories and scents can be an important part of characterization. I need to pay more attention to the use of scents in reading as well as my writing.