The Vegetarian by Han Kang
A novel that examines the role of women and the restrictions imposed by Korean society through the story of Yeong-Hye, an ordinary housewife who decides to become a vegetarian and gradually dissociates from the world around her. The book was awarded the Man Booker International Prize in 2016.
Structure
The novel is divided into three parts, each narrated from the perspective of a different character:
- The Vegetarian — Yeong-Hye’s husband
- Mongolian Mark — Yeong-Hye’s brother-in-law
- Flaming Trees — Yeong-Hye’s sister, In-Hye
This structure ensures that the reader never hears Yeong-Hye’s own voice directly. Her interior life remains inaccessible, filtered entirely through the perceptions of others.
Plot Summary
Part One: The Vegetarian
Yeong-Hye abruptly stops eating meat after a series of nightmares. Her husband, who married her precisely because she was “ordinary,” is embarrassed and angered. He values outward conformity above all else, as shown during a dinner with his co-workers where her vegetarianism becomes a source of shame.
The husband’s indifference escalates into violence. He blames her for mundane failures such as not waking him on time or ironing his shirt. He eventually rapes her while she dissociates, no longer protesting. Her family responds to her refusal to eat meat with force: her father slaps her and attempts to feed her meat by hand, while her mother tries to trick her with black goat soup. No one makes any genuine attempt to understand her position.
Part Two: Mongolian Mark
After her husband leaves her and she is discharged from a psychiatric ward, Yeong-Hye’s brother-in-law becomes obsessed with her. His fixation centres on her Mongolian mark — a birthmark that typically fades in late adolescence but has remained on her body into adulthood.
The brother-in-law interprets her mental state as an aesthetic object to be exploited. He paints flowers on her naked body and uses her dissociation to manipulate her into sexual acts. His wife, In-Hye, tolerates his behaviour while carrying the family’s practical burdens alone.
Part Three: Flaming Trees
Yeong-Hye is now institutionalised. In-Hye is the only family member who still visits. She reflects on their childhood, recognising that her own conformity to Korean Confucian expectations protected her from their father’s abuse while Yeong-Hye absorbed the brunt of it.
Yeong-Hye has undergone a Kafkaesque transformation: she believes she is becoming a tree. She refuses all food, attempting to survive through photosynthesis. She stands on her head, claiming roots need to grow downward. Her body wastes away as she pursues this final rejection of the human condition.
Key Themes
- Bodily autonomy as resistance: Yeong-Hye’s escalating control over her own body — refusing meat, bras, clothing, and eventually food — is the only domain of agency available to her.
- The invisibility of women’s interior lives: The novel’s tripartite structure, with male narrators for the first two parts, underscores how women’s experiences are mediated and distorted by external perception.
- Familial and institutional violence: Family, marriage, and psychiatric care function not as support systems but as enforcement mechanisms that punish non-conformity.
For a deeper analysis of the philosophical arguments embedded in the novel, see Philosophy of Han Kang’s The Vegetarian.