Babette's Feast is a story of religion and the difficulty to give in to the temptations that drive your everyday life. Throughout the story, the two main characters, sisters Martine and Phillipa, are living a life based on their extremely strict Puritan values imposed on them by their father. They believe that giving up things that are pleasurable would benefit them in the afterlife, and their suffering would be rewarded. They dressed in plain clothes everyday, and they even denied their feelings for the men that tried to seduce them. But there was only one thing that was able to cause the girls to temporarily forget their religion and experience pleasure: food.
When Babette decided to prepare a feast for the congregation, everyone was reluctant to eat the food for fear of being glutenous. To be polite, they agreed that they would eat the food, but not discuss any part of the meal so they don't display any form of excitement. When General Lorens Lowenhielm showed up to the feast, however, he did not know of these plans. As a non-Puritan, he had no hesitations about openly discussing the meal. Though they never admitted it out loud, General Lowenhielm's praises of the food were a reflection of what everyone was feeling, and for a moment the mood was lightened. For the first time in their lives, the girls and the rest of the congregation saw food as a beautiful delicacy rather than just something you needed to survive. Food is a very powerful tool, and a good meal causes people to come together and experience joy and excitement in almost any situation.
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