Babette's Feast

Karen Blixen (1885-1962) was born in Denmark. Her father, Wilhelm Dinesen, was also a writer and fought in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. He witnessed and wrote about the Paris Commune, which was a short-lived government led by the French National Guard that controlled Paris for around three months in 1871. Blixen was close to her father, but he died by suicide when she was only nine years old.

Wilhelm Dinesen’s family was wealthy, conservative, and connected to Danish nobility. Blixen’s mother, Ingeborg Westenholz, came from a wealthy bourgeois family in which the women were Unitarian. This meant they believed individuals should take personal responsibility for their relationship with God instead of relying on salvation through Jesus Christ. They also embraced creativity and diversity. Blixen’s views on religion and other important matters, such as women’s rights, were honed during her education by the Westenholz family.

Blixen herself did not share the ascetism of her main characters in “Babette’s Feast.” On her first trip to the United States, for example, she ate oysters every day. She was also a heavy smoker and said, “They don’t like me too much in Denmark—perhaps I’m too fantastic” (“A Tale-weaving Sorceress.