“뵈프앙도브”(Boeuf en Daube)—등대로의 성찬 음식

Abstract

Virginia Woolf’s novel To the Lighthouse (1927) describes an exquisite moment of eating a dish called “Boeuf en Daube,” which is beef stew cooked according to a French recipe. Boeuf en Daube is the main dish at a dinner party designed by Mrs. Ramsay, a middle-aged woman who evokes a Victorian angel in the house. Represented as an altruistic woman having compassion toward poor and solitary people, Mrs. Ramsay wants her guests to acquire a moment of bliss at her party. Through a lot of hard work, she accomplishes a well-made Boeuf en Daube. Mrs. Ramsay serves the cuisine to family members and guests who have suffered from emotional hunger. Through this scene, the novel creates an analogy between Mrs. Ramsay’s dinner and the Last Supper, suggesting that the people eating Boeuf en Daube are consuming the flesh and blood of a woman who has devoted herself to feeding others. In previous studies that analyze the dining scene, there are two opposing interpretations. Some critics praise Mrs. Ramsay’s spirit of compassion and her creative ability to engender a moment of joy through food. Other critics are dissatisfied with Mrs. Ramsay’s domestic role, asserting that she reinforces a servile subjectivity that was internalized in Victorian England. This paper argues that both interpretations fail to articulate the deep and complex implications of Boeuf en Daube. In seeking to unravel the layered meanings of food in the novel, this paper offers an opportunity reconsider the identity Mrs. Ramsay, and thus offers a fresh approach to To the Lighthouse.