I'm a little surprised it's that high, but I don't think there's a way to reduce that. It represents pulling up all those .pm and .dll symbols into the program's memory space. I suspect you're kinda stuck with it unless you build your own XS that does the Tk parts and only do perl things in perl.

That's a doable thing, but probably a lot more work than you're hoping. XS can also be quite challenging. Perhaps Inline::C can help. Do your Tk things in there? Still seems like a lot of work. I hate to say it, but if you're trying to fit in a small amount of ram, the perl GUI choices may not be the best choice. :(