Soup represents love, comfort, and community. It’s Queen Rosemary’s favorite food, and when she dies while eating it, King Phillip bans soup (as well as soup-making implements like kettles and soup-eating implements like spoons and bowls) for everyone in the kingdom. Because he lost the person he loved most, he tries to express his love and his grief for her by taking soup away from everyone—everyone will then have to share in his loss and hopefully understand the depth of his grief. As the narrator notes, the king’s action is absurd, but this only reinforces the narrator’s assertion that love itself is absurd.
However, making soup illegal doesn’t stop soup from being a positive thing capable of bringing people (and mice and rats) together. After the Princess Pea goes missing, Cook sneakily makes soup late at night. When Despereaux comes upon her stirring the soup, the soup pot’s steam seems to create a halo around Cook’s head, suggesting that the soup can make even a hard, violent woman like Cook seem helpful and angelic. And Cook then goes on to set aside her hatred of mice to give Despereaux some soup, thereby giving him the physical and emotional strength he needs to brave the dungeon and rescue the princess. Soup creates an improbable alliance between Cook and Despereaux, highlighting its ability to bridge divides. Later, in the dungeon, Roscuro finally reveals his true plan and his true desires (he wants to possess light for himself) once he smells the soup on Despereaux’s whiskers—it leads him to essentially confess his sins and ask for help, and it stops him from continuing down his evil path. And when the Pea forgives Roscuro for his actions, it’s significant that she invites him upstairs to eat soup together. The novel’s final chapter details a meal of soup shared by the king, the princess, Mig, Roscuro, and Despereaux. The soup itself—and the love and forgiveness it represents—brings several unlikely friends together around the same table, highlighting again its ability to create community.
Soup Quotes in The Tale of Despereaux
“Go back to the dungeon” was what the look she gave him said. “Go back into the darkness where you belong.”
This look, reader, broke Roscuro’s heart.
Did you think that rats do not have hearts? Wrong. All living things have a heart. And the heart of any living thing can be broken.
If the rat had not looked over his shoulder, perhaps his heart would not have broken. And it is possible, then, that I would not have a story to tell.
But, reader, he did look.
But, reader, we must not forget that King Phillip loved the queen and that without her, he was lost. This is the danger of loving: No matter how powerful you are, no matter how many kingdoms you rule, you cannot stop those you love from dying. Making soup illegal, outlawing rats, these things soothed the poor king’s heart. And so we must forgive him.
“Most foolish,” muttered Gregory as he lifted the cover off the plate, “too foolish to be borne, a world without soup.”
Cook smiled. “See?” she said. “There ain’t a body, be it mouse or man, that ain’t made better by a little soup.”
And the smell of soup crashed through his soul like a great wave, bringing with it the memory of light, the chandelier, the music, the laughter, everything, all the things that were not, would never, could never be available to him as a rat.
“Soup,” moaned Roscuro.
And he began to cry.
[…]
“Kill me,” said Roscuro. He fell down before Despereaux. “It will never work. All I wanted was some light. This is why I brought the princess here, really, just for some beauty…some light of my own.”