Piety
As one of the main characters is a clergyman, it is obvious that the theme of religion might be touched and opened in the story. But in fact it is no so much the religion that is discussed, but piety. The Dean and his sisters lead secluded life, visit the church, and the girls even sing in the chorus. They help the pure by both good words and money, due to their own financial possibilities. But the piety of both the sisters is locked into the frames of their narrow-mindedness and complete lack of knowledge of the world. Surely they are pure in their hearts and intentions, but they are not wise. Thus the theme of piety is one of the main in the story, but it is revealed in a comic manner.
Home
Home is the place where one’s heart lives. In most of the cases it is the place where one has been born and grew up. For Martine and Philippa such a place is their native town, which they never left, and their house, which is known as a yellow house. Babette has intruded into this house, and it became her home. Back in France she had a husband and a son, but cruelties of the Civil War and the Revolution took them away from her, and she was left alone. In the yellow house she found a home, as there lived people who became close for her. When she received ten thousand francs,both the sisters thought she would leave them for sure, but as it turned out, Babette had nothing to return to in France. The theme of home in the story is revealed through feelings of tenderness and love, home is the place where live dear to one’s heart people, and it should not necessarily be the place of one’s birth.
Gratitude
Babette’s has organized and cooked for the Dean’s birthday a dinner which showed all her gratitude towards good people, those who many years ago let her stay with them and share the roof of their house as her own. Babette is a kind and good person, and never let herself to feel and to act arrogantly concerning her new friends, though her knowledge of the world was much wider that of the sisters’. The dinner was the greatest act of gratitude.
