Original scientific paper

Reading Karen Blixen’s “Babette’s Feast”

Susan C. Brantly ; University of Wisconsin, Madison

Abstract

Karen Blixen (known as Isak Dinesen in America) wrote tales described as puzzles, labyrinths, and multi-layered texts, which bring forth new perspectives upon each re-reading. Blixen approved of imaginative readers, who could participate in creating the meaning of the text and included “blank pages” in her stories, moments where the narrator falls silent and the reader’s imagination is expected to fill in the gap. A number of narrative devices (tales within tales, unreliable narrators, etc.) are deployed in her stories which undermine narrative authority, again nudging readers to figure out things for themselves. Among various interpretations of the well-known tale Babette’s Feast, the author focuses on religious, demoniacal, postmodernist, psychoanalytic, Marxist and political, respectively. The author contends that the tale abounds with rich and unexpected meanings, still not fully uncovered.

Keywords

reading perspectives; Isak Dinesen; postmodernism

Hrčak ID:

190154

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/190154

Publication date:

1.12.2017.

Article data in other languages: croatian

Visits: 953 *