Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
Of course, Han Kang’s ‘The Vegetarian’ wasn’t simply going to be about a Korean woman deciding to adopt a plant-based diet and reject meat completely. No, it disturbingly depicts what happens when a young woman raised in a patriarchal society, tries to take control of the one thing she has autonomy over: her own body. But she is ridiculed, oppressed, and force-fed.
Yeong-hye, a young Korean homemaker, is the central figure in ‘The Vegetarian’. However, the novel is divided into three parts, each narrated from the perspective of a different character, and guess what? None of them are Yeong-hye. This feels like a deliberate choice to deny the woman her own voice in her own story. In some ways, it’s a clever device, reflecting how little control she has over her life, but as a reader, you can’t help feeling robbed of a crucial point of view.
The first few chapters are told from the first person point of view of Mr. Cheong, Yeong-hye’s husband, a working man who just cannot fathom why his perfectly ‘normal’ wife would suddenly want to turn vegetarian. Upset over the fact that he isn’t served meaty dishes like always, Cheong calls up Yeong-hye’s parents and siblings, hoping they’d intervene and convince her to change.
Everyone in the novel treats Yeong-hye’s decision to go vegetarian as a strange whim, something she’ll eventually grow out of. What’s frustrating is how dismissive her family is about it. No one even tries to understand her choice, which also reflects how easily women’s preferences are ignored. She’s expected to start eating meat again, not because of any real concern about her nutrition, but simply because her decision inconveniences her husband.
The first act was simply draggy, over-dramatic, and it was absolutely hard to understand why everybody is so melodramatic in the way react to Yeong-hye’s decision to give up meat. What’s worse, they aren’t just not supportive, they’re downright mean and horrid about it. As the story unfolds, we learn how Yeong-hye had a difficult childhood, and her father was a strict, and even violent disciplinarian figure, exceptionally hard on her, versus her other two siblings. The more everybody pressures Yeong-hye to go back to meat, the less she eats, as if she is intent on starving herself to death.
The second act of ‘The Vegetarian’ is narrated in the third person through Yeong-hye’s brother-in-law, an artist. This section feels quite different from the opening chapters and carries a surprisingly erotic undertone, though it is never overtly provocative. A struggling, self-styled “avant-garde” artist of questionable talent, the brother-in-law becomes fixated on Yeong-hye, seeing her as both a muse and an object of desire for an unconventional art project. The two establish a bizarre artistic relationship that ends in an unfortunate turn of events.
Yeong-hye remains a bit of an enigma throughout ‘The Vegetarian’, a young woman plagued by violent nightmares and an overwhelming need to withdraw from the world around her. From the outset, her decision to become vegetarian signals a quiet but deliberate rebellion, an attempt to resist the rigid expectations imposed upon her. Her choice isn’t just about food, but a symbolic rejection of societal expectations from her. She begins walking naked through her home, indifferent to who might witness her. While the novel’s latter half avoids directly explaining her diminishing capacity for sound judgment, its subtext leaves little doubt that Yeong-hye is struggling with severe mental health issues.
The final act is seen through the eyes of Yeong-hye’s older sister, In-hye, who remains largely an invisible figure through most the novel. She seems almost indifferent to Yeong-hye’s fate, but the climactic chapters display a marked changed in the relationship of the sisters. In-hye finally takes up the role of the older, protective sister, but her compassion comes too late.
In its final chapters, ‘The Vegetarian’ turns relentlessly bleak and deeply unsettling. Its ending is sorrowful and cryptic, refusing to offer easy answers about the fate of its characters. Instead, the novel leaves the readers with uncomfortable questions about societal pressure, childhood trauma, patriarchal control, and the harsh reality that women in many parts of the world still have little say over what they can do with their own bodies.
Rating: 3.5 on 5 stars.
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