Throughout part one of The Vegetarian, Yeong-hye recounts vivid and disturbing dreams filled with blood and meat. As you read Han Kang’s novel, think about the IB Learner Profile and consider how things might have turned out differently for Yeong-hye if some of the people in her life were just a little more caring, and a little less selfish, than they are. Only her sister appears to care about Yeong-hye, visiting her in hospital and belatedly coming to understand why Yeong-hye is willing to suffer so much. Her brother-in-law appears to have sympathy with Yeong-hye – but later he exploits her vulnerable condition for his own benefit. Her father and mother are even worse, trying to force her to eat meat against her will. He makes no effort to understand her, or ask how she feels. When Yeong-hye makes her decision not to eat meat, her husband’s immediate reaction is to call her crazy. In an interview, Han Kang revealed her obsession in college with a line from Yi Sang, a poet who lived through the Japanese occupation of Korea: “I believe that humans should be plants” - a line which became a source of inspiration for The Vegetarian. She wrote The Vegetarian in 2007, and following its translation and publication in English by Deborah Smith, Han Kang won the Man Booker Prize. Han Kang was born in Gwangju, South Korea, and studied Korean literature at Yonsei University. When she determines to quit eating meat, all of society, including her own husband and family members, turn their backs against her and become her enemy.
So her decision backfires into a devastating conflict against an almost indomitable enemy: the reigning norms of the patriarchal Korean society of which she is also a member. Yeong-hye’s refusal to eat meat therefore brings considerable embarrassment to her husband and father.
However, in Korean society, social conformity is regarded as one of the most important social virtues. The story begins when Yeong-hye, seemingly from out of the blue, tells her husband she will no longer eat meat and proceeds to throw all the meat in their house away. It tells the story of Yeong-hye as related through the eyes of three members of her family: her husband, her brother-in-law, and her sister In-hye. It is not a story about a vegetarian per se rather, it is a work that investigates what constitutes suffering. Han Kang’s The Vegetarian is one of the most internationally well-known Korean novels. Han Kang and her translator, Debora Smith, discuss The Vegetarian after this novel won the Man Booker International prize in 2016.
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