The Vegetarian - Knowledge Organiser

The Vegetarian by Han Kang - Knowledge Organiser

Context

Characters

Han Kang

Han Kang was born in Gwangju, South Korea in 1970.

The Gwangju massacre

On the 18th May, 1980, hundreds of citizens in Gwangju demonstrated against the growing military dictatorship in South Korea at the time. The response from the armed forces was brutal, many protesters were arrested, injured, or killed. More citizens joined the demonstration, and by May 27th the city of Gwangju was filled with troops; it is estimated that 2,000 citizens were killed. Han Kang has said that memories of Gwangju—her family lived in Gwangju until a few months before the massacre— has influenced much of her writing.

Femininity in South Korea

Cultural values and vegetarianism

During the 20th century, women were primarily confined to their houses to take care of their families. They also needed to uphold their beauty and delicateness for the sake of their husbands and reputation. Society in South Korea has modernized somewhat and women have stepped out of the household and into the workforce. Nonetheless, there is still a feeling of needing to behave in a certain manner if you are female. This often manifests in behavior or in the way many dress.

Differences from the majority are discouraged and looked down upon in Korean culture; everyone has a tendency to blend-in. Although Koreans are very proud of their huge selection of natural vegetables in their cuisine, including the iconic Kimchi, meat is still a crucial part of Korean culture. It is most likely that a vegan person will be seen as a peculiar outsider, and others will likely have a hard time understanding their motives and reasoning for this life choice.

Yeong-hye

Yeong-hye cooks and maintains the house for Mr. Cheong; her only oddity is that she doesn't like wearing a bra. When she starts to have violent and gory dreams, Yeong-hye becomes disgusted by eating meat and refuses to prepare or eat meat dishes. By the end of the novel Yeong-hye refuses to eat human food entirely, telling In-hye that she only needs sunlight to survive. The doctors continue to force her to eat, however, even resorting to sticking a tube down her nose and then tranquilizing her so that she doesn’t throw up the food. Even though Yeong-hye uses her body as a tool for resistance and refuge, she is ultimately unable to attain the life and innocence of a plant, which may highlight the inescapable violence of being part of the human race.

In-hye

In-hye is the most devoted to her sister as she goes through numerous traumatic experiences. This is despite the fact that In-hye doesn’t fully understand her sister’s strange behavior. But even though In-hye is supposedly saner than her sister, she, too, experiences bouts of mental instability. Her isolation from the people around her drives her to think about self-harm, and she even considers abandoning her family and walking into the mountains, never to return. Ultimately, however, In-hye recognizes the deep and dire consequences that face her husband and Yeong-hye for giving up their societal obligations, and she recognizes the importance of remaining tethered to reality and her young son.

Mr. Cheong

Mr. Cheong is a somewhat one-dimensional character who mindlessly expects Yeong-hye to cook and clean for him. They have a relatively normal, if loveless existence, though he often finds it odd that she refuses to wear bras. He recognizes that her refusal to eat meat is an act of resistance against him, and views her as obstinate, disobedient, and insane. He also grows frustrated when she refuses to have sex with him, saying that he “smells of meat”—another way in which she asserts autonomy over her own body. Mr. Cheong eventually divorces Yeong-hye, emphasizing Kang’s argument that those who break social conventions are doomed to be shunned by society.

Brother-inlaw

The brother-in-law is an unsuccessful video artist, while his wife In-hye is both the primary breadwinner and caretaker of their young son. Their marriage is largely stale, as the two are revealed to understand each other very little. When the brother-in-law learns from In-hye that Yeong-hye still has a Mongolian mark, he becomes obsessed with images of naked men and women having sex, their bodies covered in painted flowers. When In-hye finds the tape of the two of them having sex, she calls emergency services on the brother-in-law, assuming that he is not in his right mind.

Although conscious of his immoral thoughts, he is unable to overcome the desire to defile something as unique and natural as Yeong-hye.

Themes and motifs Social expectations

Madness

Nature

Human violence

The novel is set in modern-day Seoul, South Korea, a society that is still deeply steeped in traditions. The book explores the rigidity of certain social norms in a conservative, patriarchal society. People are expected to conform to arbitrary roles, and leaving one’s duties unfulfilled can have severe consequences on a person’s life or reputation. Through the characters of Yeong-hye and her unnamed brother-in-law, Han Kang shows that when people attempt to break, subvert, or escape the conventions of their society, they are often trapped, ostracized, or even destroyed by that society.

Throughout the novel, characters struggle to understand one another, particularly Yeong-hye’s decisions. Han Kang conveys a complicated relationship between this lack of understanding and assumed madness. Both Yeong-hye and the brother-in-law are misunderstood and labeled as crazy by those around them. The novel thus argues that misunderstanding of others tends to lead to isolation and, in turn, causes people to construct fantasy worlds and escape reality, spurring them to devolve into the very madness that others suspected was already there.

In contrast to meat, which represents violence, natural phenomena (mostly flowers and trees) represent Yeong-hye’s desire to lead an innocent life. After Yeong-hye throws out all of the meat in the house, she tries to live a more passive and gentle life. This is what leads her to want to model for the brother-in-law; the fact that he wants to paint her in flowers attracts her, as she feels connected to the gentleness and innocence of these symbols. The irony of the flowers, however, is that the brother-in-law sees them as a symbol of virginal sexuality, and he violates her innocence by having sex with her even when she cries and asks him to stop.

Over the course of the novel, the book tracks Yeong-hye’s journey away from reality as she expresses a desire to become a plant. This desire is spurred by the terrible and violent nightmares that she has, from which she starts to understand that humans are inherently abusive. Yeong-hye’s self-destructive pursuit of a life as a plant symbolizes the attempt to escape the rage, violence, and harm that comes with being a human. The novel thus argues that humanity is inherently destructive and that it is impossible to maintain or reclaim one’s natural innocence as part of this species.

Style and Terminology Triptych

a work of art that is divided into three sections.

Internal monologue

a narrative technique that shows the flow of thoughts going through a character's head. In this case, we can only see events from the 3 narrator’s point of view, never Yeong-hye’s.

Dream sequence

An interlude that features the details of someone’s dream in a story. Within this book, we are offered descriptions of the dreams that Yeong-hye has experienced and subsequently inspired her vegetarianism.

Patriarchal

a system of society or government controlled by and organised in favour of men.

Abstain

restrain oneself from doing or enjoying something.

Ostracized

excluded from a society or group.

Inscrutable

impossible to understand or interpret.

Taciturn

(of a person) reserved or uncommunicative in speech; saying little.