Generous acts can dramatically improve lives. At least, that is what the readers of Banana Yoshimoto’s Kitchen and Karen Blixen’s “Babette’s Feast” are made to understand. The former is a story about a young adult learning to live despite the loss of her last relative, and, latter, is about the loss of a newfound mother figure. “Babette’s Feast” is the story of an isolated religious community in Norway whose infighting is resolved following a great feast cooked by a French refugee. Both stories show a nuanced view of generosity, showing how selflessness and self-interest interact to produce generous acts. Ultimately, these stories suggest that whether or not a generous act is purely selfless is irrelevant.

To begin with, Kitchen shows very little nuance in its message surrounding generosity. The first few pages describe the protagonist, Mikage, losing her grandmother and being invited to live with Yuichi Tanabe, a young man who sold flowers to her grandmother, and his mother, Eriko Tanabe. This is depicted as a selfless act, as Yuichi tells Mikage that he and his mother “were thinking [she] ought to come to [their] house for a while” (Yoshimoto 6). The use of the words “ought to” is important, as it implies that Yuichi and Eriko believe that it would be best for Mikage to stay at their house to get back on her feet following the death of her grandmother. Importantly, this citation does not suggest that there is any ulterior motive, which is reinforced when Eriko tells Mikage that she does not need to pay rent, instead jokingly asking her to “make [them] soupy rice once in a while” (20). The only time self-interest is implied is a page before, when Eriko says to Mikage: “having you here makes me truly happy” (19). However, this quote comes after she and Yuichi had already invited Mikage to live with them. This means that Eriko is willing to shelter Mikage, who was a stranger to her at the time, without knowing whether or not she enjoys her company, emphasizing that this is a selfless act. In fact, this degree of generosity is implied to be somewhat otherworldly, through Mikage describing that she “thought [she] heard a spirit call [her] name” (6), when Yuichi invites her to stay with them, later adding that he “seemed to glow with a white light” (7). Additionally, she describes Eriko as being so beautiful she “gave off a marvelous light that seemed to vibrate with life force” and that she “didn’t look human” (11). Whether this is magical realism or metaphor, these descriptions give the Tanabes an otherworldly feeling, which suggests that their selfless generosity is not expected of regular humans.

In contrast, there are many moments in the story that show that generous actions can exist alongside self-interest. This can be seen in an important piece of advice given by Eriko to Mikage: “[i]f a person wants to stand on her own two feet, I recommend undertaking the care and feeding of something. It could be children, or it could be house plants […]. By doing that you come to understand your own limitations” (41). This statement indicates that she believes that it is important to undertake the generous act of caring and feeding “something” to improve your own life by coming to “understand your own limitations”. Using this interpretation, Eriko is also saying that it is important to consider the self when choosing to participate in a seemingly selfless act. This might seem to put into doubt her selflessness that was discussed previously, but the fact that Eriko already raised Yuichi to adulthood and lives in a house filled with plants seems to show that this is advice coming from someone who has already “come to understand [her] own limitations” (41). In addition, Mikage is an adult who can already care for and feed herself. Another important moment where self-interest and generosity mix is when Mikage decides to deliver Katsudon to Yuichi near the end of the story. This moment happens as they are grieving the death of Eriko, with both of them having gone to different places in order to put some distance between them and their grief. At this point in the story, there is tension between the characters, who both question whether or not they should engage with each other romantically. A motivating factor in her decision to deliver the Katsudon is her intuition that she and Yuichi would “forever just remain friends” (91) if she does not do something soon. Despite her self-interest, the generosity and thoughtfulness in the decision she made to deliver the Katsudon is shown to greatly impact Yuichi, who returns from the inn he was planning to spend an indeterminate amount of time at in order to escape his grief. With everything taken together, Kitchen seems to be communicating that pure
selfless generosity is rare and unexpected, and that it is okay to consider your self-interest when pursuing generous actions. It also conveys that, ultimately, the motive does not change the fact that generous actions can dramatically improve the lives of those receiving them.

Similarly, “Babette’s Feast” shows generosity and self-interest co-existing in the actions of the characters. The theme of generosity only truly appears with the introduction of Babette, a political refugee who escaped France to avoid persecution for her participation in a communist revolution. She knocks on the door of the heads of a small religious sect, the sisters Philippa and Martine, with hopes of finding refuge. The decision of both parties is framed as being generous, the sisters deciding to take in a refugee belonging to a completely different culture and religion, and Babette saying that she would work as a housekeeper and “serve [them] for nothing” (Blixen 21). There is also self-interest for both parties: the sisters get a skilled housekeeper, while Babette gets safe refuge. To be clear, their self-interest is not explicitly stated, and these actions are framed as selfless. In fact, Babette’s decision to work for nothing reflects the sect’s culture of self-sacrifice, which symbolically serves to show that she is already a part of the community despite having just arrived. Babette is well received by the community, and her generosity is genuine, as she works hard to complete her duties as a housekeeper. As a cook, she acclimates to the community’s choice of food quickly, and her cooking is said to hold a “mysterious power to stimulate and strengthen their poor and sick” (22). This foreshadows the revelation that she was a professional cook, and shows that she applies herself to her work.

Babette’s greatest act of generosity comes twelve years after she first appears in the village, when she wins the lottery. She asks to “cook a celebration dinner on the [previous leader]’s birthday” using her own money (43). The sisters reluctantly agree to let her do it after she reminds them that she had never asked for a favour since the day they had met. This is framed as being a final farewell, though it is later revealed that the feast she cooked cost all of her winnings. This is initially perceived by the sisters as being a grand act of self-sacrifice; however, Babette tells them that she did not do it for their sake or for the sake of the community, but for her own, exclaiming that she is “a great artist!” (43). She expresses to them that she “will never be poor” (43) because she is a great artist. To Babette, cooking the feast is an act of artistry and the money she won is an opportunity to practice her art. In a sense, Babette paints herself as a person entirely driven by her expensive and wonderful cooking. This is further implied when she talks about how she hates the people she served when she was a cook: “those people whom I named, Mesdames, were evil and cruel. […] They had been brought up with greater expense than you, my little ladies, could ever imagine or believe, to understand what a great artist I am. I could make them happy” (43). This citation proves that Babette did not care who she served, as she only wished to practice her art, particularly because she knew that her cooking made her customers, whom she held in great contempt, happy. Through all of these revelations, her feast is greatly self-indulgent, rather than a generous act of self-sacrifice. Despite this, the feast mystically solves many of the community’s issues; people’s longstanding interpersonal conflicts are forgiven and resolved, while many of the villagers’ ailments are suddenly cured. Ultimately, Babette’s story communicates that pursuing the great arts is worthwhile, and that it can be a great boon for those who consume it, even if the art is created for the pleasure of the artist.

In conclusion, both “Babette’s Feast” and Kitchen communicate that the degree of self-interest present in a generous act does not matter if the act is beneficial to those who receive it. Kitchen is more generally a reflection on the process of grief, and learning to love again despite it. The generosity of the characters moves the story forward and acts as a vehicle of positive development in the characters who receive it. In the case of “Babette’s Feast”, the story seems to focus more on gratitude and forgiveness rather than the generosity of the characters. However, a large part of the story is dedicated to artistry and the value of pursuing it. After all, it is Babette’s art that helps mend the community’s rifts and, in a way, this story becomes a reflection on the power that art has to heal the mind and bring people together. In this sense, art itself is generous, and Babette becomes a generous character because of her dedication to art.

Works Cited

Yoshimoto, Banana. Kitchen. Translated by Megan Backus, Grove Press.

Blixen, Karen. “Babette’s Feast”. The Trinity Forum.