Babette's Feast

In a world of plentiful, food can have many purposes. It can enlighten oneself through rediscovery of foods. Although there are many literature works on food, ethics and traditional values, Isak Dinesen’s “Babette’s Feast” and Lasse Hallstrom’s Chocolate are the best known. For Vianne in Chocolate and Babette in “Babette’s Feast”, food can be a useful and meaningful way of communication. They both exhibit some difficulties when facing a new environment. The two of them build a self-transformation in order to find the self-identity. The main characters Vianne and Babette enforce a human connection and difficulties of communication. They create a personal transformation when experienced an isolation. It is through the sharing of food that they
In the case of Babette, when Martine and Philippa told Babette “We will all remember this evening when you have gone back to Paris ”(Dinesen 45). Babette said that she is “not going back to Paris, what will I do in Paris? They have all gone. I have lost them all“(Dinesen 45). After the wonderful fest, Babette wants to develop her new life in this lovely town. She wants to stay here because she is carried away by the surrounding people’s emotions. They have a good relationship and Babette treats them like her family member. In this Danish village, she has lived for fourteen years with no intimate connections with anyone, but her adaptation and enjoyment shows that she finally find her self-identity among this magical feast. By the presence of the ten thousand francs, Babette has gained her self. Through the feast she has made manifest who she is: "I am a great artist"(Dinesen 46), she announces proudly to everyone at the end of the evening. She has won her own independence by given her identity as an artist. She declaims that “A great artist, is never poor. We have something, of which other people know nothing”(Dinesen 47). The author uses Babette’s appreciation of the food to emphasize that she is incomparable and Babette has moved more closely to her uniqueness and
In the last part of the film chocolate, there is a section said “My friends, let this Ester Day be for us, too, a rebirth”(Chocolate). Vianne presents the town with something they had never encountered before, and it changes their ways of celebrating the Easter Day. While the townspeople start to break down in their Lent resolutions and give into their own temptations, Vianne has been accepted in this village and she find her own value and self-identity. Indeed, when Roux first come to this village, nobody accepted him exclude Vianne. After a long journey of finding a new home, both Roux and Vianne decided to stay in this village and start their new