“Deeper Down in the Domain of Human Hearts”: Hope in Isak Dinesen’s Babette’s Feast

Abstract

ISAK DINESEN'S BABETTE'S FEAST was first published 1950 Ladies' Home Journal. Dinesen, Danish writer, had heard that Americans were interested stories about food. So when she wrote short piece for an American audience, she centered transformative action of story on splendid meal. (1) About twenty years before Babette's Feast was published, German Catholic philosopher Josef Pieper wrote work titled Meaning of Courage. He was encouraged by publisher to write treatises on seven virtues, to which he responded with great enthusiasm, publishing On Hope 1935. (2) How much I, basically unsuspecting, had fallen into simply inexhaustible theme, which had been capable of sketching only outline at best, became clear to me quite soon, Pieper notes. (3) Nevertheless, theme of hope has not been focus of much philosophical inquiry aside from Kant; as Bernard N. Schumacher notes, history of philosophy, hope has never been dominant theme; it was generally treated, if at all, 'incidentally,' just as it continues to be treated today among majority of philosophers. (4) Yet experience of hope is fundamental to human condition; loss of hope for an individual or for community can be devastating. In an insightful essay on Pieper's work, Gilbert Meilaender notes that what is right requires being good, but we can become good only by doing what is ... [Pieper's] discussion leaves us to wrestle with problem: how to hand on moral society which often fails to inculcate doing of what is right. (5) This is crux of tension and discord Dinesen's Babette's Feast: moral has not permeated community. Their religious leader, known narrative as Dean, has died, and his disciples were becoming fewer number every year, whiter or balder and harder of hearing. (6) The congregation remembers Dean's message but individual members have trouble living it out. They sing hymns, study Dean's writings, and gather for worship services, but nevertheless sad little schisms would arise (BF, 3-4). The Dean's daughters, although they live virtuous lives, have been unsuccessful hand[ing] on moral knowledge to community. The example of their lives--selfless, giving, and nurturing--is not enough to provide spiritual transformative direction. This is community adrift, group of professed believers who have lost their way. In Babette's Feast, Dinesen offers fictional example of ways which individuals and communities can recover hope. (7) The dramatic restoration of hope to this community occurs at end of story during an elegant feast that servant/artist/chef, Babette, prepares and serves. (8) Babette is an outsider. She is French, she is political exile, and she is Roman Catholic. The narrator tells us that it is indeed strange thing for a couple of Puritan women small Norwegian to have French maid-of-all-work (BF, 22). The people this small mountain town of Berlevaag, Norway, find explanation for Babette's presence in sisters' piety and kindness of heart (ibid.). This is partially true; sisters had taken Babette when she threw herself on their doorstep twelve years ago, cold, wet, and penniless, a friendless fugitive, almost mad with grief and fear (ibid.). However, narrator tells us early story that the true reason for Babette's presence two sisters' house was to be found further back time and deeper down domain of human hearts (ibid.), statement that resonates and echoes throughout story, and further reveals Dinesen's approach. Speaking of her narrative technique general, she writes, I know whole story before writing first word. actually carry my stories my head for long time, before write them. tell them and retell them to myself. (9) Babette's Feast moves back and forth time so that feast can be understood as an elaborate palimpsest for participants, chef, and readers. …