
On Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024, 17 years after its publication, Han Kang’s utterly groundbreaking novel “The Vegetarian” won the Nobel Prize in literature. This is a remarkable feat for Kang, as she is both the first author from South Korea and the first Asian woman to be awarded this esteemed prize.
The story follows Yeong-hye, a young housewife who abruptly chooses to abstain from consuming meat altogether after suffering gory nightmares. This decision sets off an irreversible, cataclysmic chain of events that leads to the deterioration of the protagonist’s mental health, physical health and familial relationships.
With engrossing poetic prose revealing the story’s morbid subtext, Kang crafts a haunting social commentary that speaks not only to the cruelty of humanity, but also the extreme lengths that one will take to escape it, even when it comes at the cost of one’s sense of self.
Although focused on the violence a young woman undergoes, Kang said in an interview with the Literature Translation Institute of Korea that she derived inspiration from the tragic 1980 Gwangju Uprising that occurred in the city where she grew up. Thousands of protestors were injured, arrested or killed after protesting the South Korean military government. The “sense of guilt” Yeong-hye, her protagonist, feels in “The Vegetarian” is tied to Kang’s horrific memory of when she discovered the tragic event.
In a 2016 interview with The New York Times, Kang delved into how her moral revelation about the human condition and its nature of cruelty formed the foundation of the novel.
“‘I was thinking about the spectrum of human behavior, from sublimity to horror, and wondered, is it really possible for humans to live a perfectly innocent life in this violent world, and what would happen if someone tried to achieve that?’” she said.
The abusive patriarchal figures present in Yeong-hye’s life compel her to subvert power dynamics. As a form of resistance, she deprives herself of her physiological needs to achieve a life no longer tethered to man-made suffering. She longs to live a tranquil existence as a tree that is free from the societal structures that subjugate her to sexual violence and physical abuse.
Set in South Korea, the book is separated into three novellas: “The Vegetarian,” “Mongolian Mark” and “Flaming Trees.” Each novella is told from the perspective of a family member — her husband, Mr Cheong, her unnamed brother-in-law and her sister, In-hye, respectively — but never the protagonist herself, except for a few passages dedicated to personal anecdotes. This chilling narrative choice underscores Yeong-hye’s lack of autonomy.
Kang’s novel leaves one to morbidly contemplate death and existence as it depicts the gradual decline of Yeong-hye’s will to live. Her desire to completely detach from life seems exceedingly peculiar where the reader initially feels like a distant pitiful observer, but Kang’s carefully interwoven passages of Yeong-hye’s nightmares give the reader a peek into what plagues her mind.
Graphic depictions of sexual violence are described in great detail several times throughout the book. The intensity and multiplicity of the scenes made it incredibly difficult to read through and recognize their service to the plot at times. However, once I arrived at the end of the book, I realized the grave emotional weight I experienced allowed for a deeper and grimmer understanding of Yeong-hye as a character. To take away these scenes would undoubtedly have made for an easier reading experience, but it would also have chipped away from the ethical dilemma one has while reading the novel. Her petrifying thoughts and memories entangled my desire for her to survive with the hope that she will be free from pain, leaving me in spell-binding moral deliberation.
“The Vegetarian” is told through the perspective of Mr. Cheong, whose misogynistic thoughts and blatant mistreatment of his wife indicate to the reader that he is an unreliable narrator. Passages outlining his disgust for his wife even when she is doing the most mundane tasks foreshadow the abuse that lies ahead.
Her decision to not wear a bra because of the garment’s discomfort is overanalyzed and atypically characterized as sexually arousing. With frequent mentions of her naked body, Kang demonstrates that in countries with entrenched sexist norms, even the most pragmatic choices women can make for themselves are made to seem unfavorable to men. This voyeuristic lens robs Yeong-hye once again of her autonomy and is made especially evident in a dinner scene with Mr. Cheong, his boss, his boss’s wife and Yeong-hye.
“She was wearing a slightly clinging black blouse, and to my utter mortification I saw that the outline of her nipples was clearly visible through the fabric. When the other guests surreptitiously craned their necks, no doubt wanting to be sure that they were really seeing what they thought they were, the eyes of the executive director’s wife met mine. Feigning composure, I registered the curiosity, astonishment, and contempt that were revealed in turn in her eyes,” Kang wrote.
The gradual decline in her health is made visible through her frail appearance and is a characteristic that her family members and husband stress over but not for the reasons one wants to believe. They vehemently blame her for her health issues, attributing it to their daughter’s absurdity and stubbornness instead of her severe mental illnesses. The climax of the first novella results in her unnamed father hitting and force-feeding her meat, leading a traumatized Yeong-hye to react by slashing her wrist. In the aftermath, she is sent to the hospital, is divorced by her husband and abandoned by her parents. The familial shame they feel is reflective of South Korea’s collectivist culture, which Kang critiques.
The second section, “Mongolian Mark,” is told from the perspective of Yeong-hye’s unnamed brother-in-law who is a visual artist. He becomes enthralled with Yeong-Hye’s strikingly abnormal behavior, as well as the Mongolian mark on her body; this invokes his desire to paint flowers on her naked body and film her having sex with a man as a performance art piece. He claims this act is out of pure artistic expression instead of sexual gratification. His disinterest in his marriage to In-hye and growing infatuation with Yeong-hye shows how even when women play subservient roles in society, they still do not match societal expectations. Despite staying meek and fulfilling her responsibilities as a mother and wife by preparing meals and taking care of their son, In-hye is still perceived as sexually inadequate in the eyes of her husband.
Kang displays an attitude toward women through the brother-in-law’s behavior that’s different from Mr. Cheong’s overt misogyny, showing how women can be sexualized in multiple ways. After several attempts to convince Yeong-hye to have sex with him, she agrees and he films them. The novella ends with In-hye finding the footage of their intercourse, prompting her to call medical services because of her sister’s poor psychological state. Yeong-hye’s brother-in-law tries to commit suicide by jumping over a balcony, but is stopped before doing so.
The last novella, “Flaming Trees,” takes place after the events of “Mongolian Mark” and is told from In-hye’s perspective. Now estranged from her husband and left to raise her child as a single mother, she also looks after Yeong-hye who has been admitted to a psychiatric ward. Yeong-hye’s mental and physical health has reached rock bottom — she refuses to eat all food and barely speaks. She has fully committed to the idea of becoming a tree. The overwhelming stress from all of In-hye’s newfound responsibilities causes her to consider isolating herself, but her responsibilities ground her in reality. Her perspective offers a bleak, grim approach in which she is also trapped in an oppressive reality. The novel ends with Yeong-hye in an ambulance looking out at the window and admiring the trees.
The oppression of women in “The Vegetarian” causes one to rethink the meaning of life and the crushing pressures that come with meeting societal expectations. It is a timeless testament to how the harrowing effects of systemic inequality can obliterate people’s will to live, making self-destruction seem like the only way to reclaim agency in a world plagued by senseless brutality. Kang creates a gut-wrenching personal story of a woman’s battle with survival while illustrating the grandiose implications of social conformity and severe violence.
Rating: 9.5/10