“Babette’s Feast” is a story about two sisters Philippa and Martine from the Scandinavian religious community and a French refugee Babette Hersant, whom Philippa and Martine take as an au pair. Once a woman wins a lot of money in a lottery, but she spends it not on a quiet retirement, but on a great feast for her benefactors and parishioners of the community on their special religious holiday. For a poor Frenchwoman, this turns out to be the only day in her life far from her homeland, when she can return to her previous greatness and remembers who she once was.
Before reading this book, one will find that it is worth thinking and deciding what food means to a person – an opportunity to maintain strength or to get pleasure or even a way of communication, or maybe an act of creation. For the daughters of the preacher, Philippa and Martine, food is secondary, as far as possible. If they have their strength to work, then this is good. And for many years their servant Babette played by the rules. However, now she has a chance to remember a different time, at least once. Food makes her the center of the universe again.
This is a story about devotion, loyalty and about how it is difficult not to have an opportunity to do what you like. When Babette has such an opportunity, she puts all her talents and skills into the feast.
In this story, there is neither mysticism, nor salvation of the world, nor perversions, but Karen Blixen manages to create on this material a surprisingly sincere and shrill story that forces the reader to reconsider the meaning of feat and dedication. The short story shows that some people are better than they seem. It is also about lost hopes.
The meaning of the story can be interpreted from many different philosophical or religious points of view. For example, spiritual, religious and artistic values are treated in the same way. Self-sufficient person does not need anything. He just fulfills his purpose in this world. Babette needs only love. She, like two sisters Philippa and Martine, likes to help people with all her heart without asking for anything in return. These three women have the same inner world. People from high society understand Babette, because they can recognize her skill and she has means for self-expression. People, who live in the simple village, far from social events and restaurants, are content rarely and enjoy the little things. Babette’s feast in the dilapidated house bring these people together, just as it brings people of the highest class together in Paris into the luxurious restaurant and that is fine.
The artist works not for the sake of financial means, but for harmony, self-expression and personal pleasure, as well as for his joy that makes all people around happy. Babette is an artist, who gives people joy and pleasure. She teaches readers to be generous and of course to love every moment of life.
