you will need one of the two textbooks that need to be purchased for the course. Babette's Feast is available in Amazon for about $8.you will also screen the film adaptation of the novel, which can be found on Amazon streaming. The non-HD version costs $2.99.
Consider both the novella as well as the film in this week's discussion forum. While the chapter divisions in Babette's Feast help us to focus on the different characters and events, the film provides us with a visual interpretation. Respond to one of the discussion questions in your initial post.
Consider the major and minor characters--the reverend, his daughters and their lovers, the community, and Babette. What are the attitudes toward food we encounter as we learn about the different characters? What are the food attributes we associate with each? What meaning should we attach to these foods?
One of the themes that emerges when we analyze the novella is the idea of transformation. What are the different transformations that the novella brings to our attention. Do the effects of the transformations we observe the same for all or are there differences? What might their significance?
What are the major differences you noticed between the written text and the film? What may have motivated the director's interpretation of the text? If you were to produce a movie of Babette's feast, what would you emphasize differently? How?
One criticism of the tale I often hear from students is that the story unfolds very slowly. Consider the narrative structure of the novella as well as the movie and select two scenes in which readers may initially wish to speed up the action, but the slowness of the narrative and the long shots in the movie actually add an important element to our understanding. What is added and why is it significant?