Dr. Jignesh Chavda & Dr. Yogini Kelaiya
VOLUME-12 / YEAR -12 /
ISSUE –1 / JAN-2025
This
paper explores Han Kang’s The Vegetarian
through the theoretical framework of vegetarian ecofeminism, emphasizing the
novel’s critique of patriarchal, speciesist, and anthropocentric norms.
Yeong-hye’s decision to renounce meat catalyzes a series of personal and social
ruptures that expose the interwoven oppressions of gender, consumption, and
bodily autonomy. Drawing on Carol J. Adams’ theory of the absent referent and
Marti Kheel’s feminist-ethical critiques of speciesism, the paper situates
Yeong-hye’s vegetal transformation as an act of embodied resistance. Rather
than interpreting Yeong-hye’s food refusal as madness, this reading foregrounds
it as a radical challenge to dominant systems of control. Through the lens of
vegetarian ecofeminism, The Vegetarian
emerges as a powerful literary interrogation of violence, care, and posthuman
subjectivity.
Keywords:
Vegetarian
ecofeminism, Han Kang, The Vegetarian,
Carol J. Adams, speciesism, posthumanism, gendered violence, care ethics
Introduction:
Han Kang’s The Vegetarian is a haunting and multifaceted literary exploration
of dissent, bodily autonomy, and vegetal transformation that incisively engages
with the ethics of consumption and the politics of embodiment in a patriarchal
and anthropocentric society. Through a minimalist yet emotionally charged
narrative structure, Kang unfolds the story of Yeong-hye, a seemingly docile
woman who, after experiencing a grotesque and visceral dream involving blood
and meat, chooses to stop eating animal flesh. What initially appears as a
trivial, even eccentric, dietary shift soon unravels into a full-blown
rebellion against the deeply rooted sociocultural structures that define her
existence. Her refusal to consume meat becomes the catalyst for familial rupture,
social isolation, and psychological estrangement, as her husband, family
members, and medical professionals interpret her transformation not as ethical
resistance but as mental illness.
At the heart of Yeong-hye’s transformation
is an act of radical refusal: a refusal to conform, to comply, and to consume.
Her vegetarianism is not simply a nutritional or health-related decision but a
profound and embodied political act that unsettles the norms of femininity,
domesticity, and species hierarchy. Her quiet but unwavering resistance exposes
the normalized systems of control that discipline women’s bodies and
desires—systems that are both gendered and speciesist. In this sense, The Vegetarian does not merely tell the
story of an individual’s descent into madness or withdrawal from reality;
rather, it narrates the painful unraveling of a subject who is no longer
willing to participate in a world governed by violence, dominance, and
consumption.
This paper examines The Vegetarian through the critical lens of vegetarian
ecofeminism—an activist and interdisciplinary theoretical framework that
articulates the interconnections between the oppression of women, nonhuman
animals, and the environment. Rooted in intersectional feminism, vegetarian
ecofeminism critiques the patriarchal logics that undergird hierarchies of
gender, race, class, and species. Unlike earlier strands of ecofeminism that
often focused on symbolic or mythic parallels between women and nature,
vegetarian ecofeminism insists on addressing the concrete materialities of
suffering—particularly the institutionalized violence inflicted on animal
bodies and the commodification of female reproductive labor. By centering the
ethical implications of dietary choices and the corporeal experiences of both
human and nonhuman others, vegetarian ecofeminism presents a deeply embodied
critique of normative ethics and anthropocentric humanism.
Central to this framework is Carol J. Adams’
influential theory of the “absent referent,” a concept that reveals how
language and culture function to obscure the realities of violence behind meat
consumption and sexual exploitation. In meat-eating cultures, the animal who
has been killed is rendered invisible through euphemistic language—“beef,”
“pork,” “meat”—which dissociates the act of killing from the act of eating.
Similarly, in patriarchal societies, the suffering of women—particularly in
contexts of sexual and reproductive violence—is often abstracted, ignored, or
symbolically displaced. Adams draws critical parallels between the
objectification of animals in the meat industry and the objectification of
women in a consumerist, male-dominated world. Both are reduced to consumable
bodies, stripped of agency, and rendered voiceless.
In The
Vegetarian, the logic of the absent referent operates with disturbing
clarity. Yeong-hye’s decision to stop eating meat—and later, her increasing
identification with plants—becomes a literal and metaphorical challenge to the
systems of commodification that seek to silence her. Her family, particularly
her domineering father and indifferent husband, cannot accept her rejection of
meat because it simultaneously represents a rejection of their authority, their
values, and the culturally sanctioned norms of femininity and obedience. As
Yeong-hye’s body becomes thinner, quieter, and more vegetal, the people around
her grow more violent in their efforts to restore her to “normalcy.” Her bodily
refusal is interpreted as illness, her silence as pathology, and her
transformation as madness—all of which reflect the systemic inability of
patriarchal culture to recognize non-normative forms of ethical agency.
Yeong-hye’s progressive withdrawal from
meat, language, and eventually human identity can be read as a form of
posthuman ethical resistance. Her identification with plants—creatures often
dismissed as passive and insentient—reorients the novel’s moral axis away from
human exceptionalism and toward a vegetal ontology grounded in interdependence,
vulnerability, and nonviolence. Within this framework, Yeong-hye’s
transformation does not signify madness but an attempt to transcend the
hierarchies of domination that define human-animal relations and gender
politics. In rejecting the consumption of animal flesh, she simultaneously
resists being consumed—whether as wife, daughter, object of desire, or
psychiatric subject.
Ultimately, The Vegetarian offers a powerful narrative space in which to
interrogate the cultural scripts that normalize violence against both women and
animals. Through the lens of vegetarian ecofeminism, Yeong-hye’s story emerges
not as one of insanity but as a radical act of becoming—becoming-vegetal,
becoming-ethical, becoming-other. Her silent revolt calls into question the
structures that govern not only what we eat, but how we relate to bodies, to
nature, and to one another
I.
Vegetarian Ecofeminism: Theoretical Foundations:
Vegetarian
ecofeminism foregrounds the interconnectedness of all forms of
oppression—including sexism, racism, speciesism, and classism—arguing that
these systems are co-constitutive and maintained by patriarchal logic. Unlike
earlier ecofeminist thought, which emphasized symbolic parallels between women
and nature, vegetarian ecofeminism insists on the material suffering of animals
and the embodied nature of ethical resistance.
Carol
J. Adams’ theory of the absent referent is particularly useful in analyzing
literary representations of gendered and speciesist violence. In meat-eating
cultures, Adams argues, animals are transformed into abstractions—“meat”—thus
distancing the act of killing from the act of consumption. Similarly, in
patriarchal societies, women’s experiences are abstracted or silenced,
particularly in contexts of sexual violence. The same cultural mechanisms that
obscure the suffering of animals also sustain gendered hierarchies.
II. Embodied Resistance and the Ethics of Refusal
Yeong-hye’s
vegetarianism becomes a deeply embodied form of feminist resistance. Her
refusal of meat destabilizes not only her domestic role as an obedient wife but
also the larger societal expectations of femininity, duty, and consumption. Her
father’s attempt to force-feed her meat—resulting in a violent act of
self-harm—underscores the coercive authority exerted over women’s bodies, even
within the family unit.
As
Marti Kheel suggests, ethical choices are not abstract but rooted in lived,
bodily experience. Vegetarian ecofeminism insists that refusing to consume
animals is not only an act of compassion but also a rejection of systems that
objectify and commodify sentient beings. Yeong-hye’s eventual identification
with plants, though seen by others as madness, can be interpreted as a
posthuman refusal of dominant humanist frameworks—a turn toward what Elaine
Miller calls “vegetal life,” characterized by interdependence, passivity, and
nonviolence.
III. Language, Metaphor, and the Gendered Animal
The Vegetarian is saturated with
metaphorical language that aligns women with animals, reinforcing patriarchal
objectification. Yeong-hye is referred to as a “cow” or likened to “meat” by
those around her, reflecting how both women and animals are linguistically
reduced to consumable objects. Adams notes that such metaphors are not
harmless—they enact violence by normalizing the dehumanization and
de-animalization of living beings.
These
metaphors resonate with the logic of the absent referent: the more Yeong-hye
resists consumption, the more violently she is treated, both physically and
metaphorically. Her husband, brother-in-law, and even her sister struggle to
comprehend her transformation, each interpreting her behavior through their own
normative frameworks. Their failure to recognize her autonomy reflects the
broader cultural refusal to acknowledge the agency of those deemed
other—whether female, animal, or vegetal.
IV. Posthumanism and Vegetal Becoming
Yeong-hye’s
transformation into a plant-like state disrupts anthropocentric assumptions
about the self, identity, and agency. Her progression from meat refuser to
someone who imagines herself as a tree exemplifies a posthuman subjectivity
that challenges the primacy of human rationality and autonomy. Instead, her
becoming-vegetal suggests a new ethical model grounded in vulnerability,
interdependence, and care.
Vegetarian
ecofeminism aligns with posthumanist thought in critiquing the
human-animal-nature binary and emphasizing the fluidity of life forms.
Yeong-hye’s final state—lying motionless in a hospital, refusing all food—can
be interpreted not as passive surrender but as the culmination of a radical
ethical stance. She refuses to participate in a world structured by violence,
consumption, and domination.
Conclusion:
Han
Kang’s The Vegetarian offers a
profound literary meditation on the ethics of consumption, the violence of
patriarchal and speciesist structures, and the radical possibilities of
embodied resistance. Through Yeong-hye’s transformation, the novel dramatizes
the central tenets of vegetarian ecofeminism: the critique of interconnected
oppressions, the rejection of domination, and the embrace of nonviolence and
interconnection. Rather than pathologizing Yeong-hye’s withdrawal, this paper
has argued for a reading that recognizes her actions as a form of feminist and
posthuman dissent. Her vegetal becoming is not an escape but a confrontation—a
refusal that demands we rethink what it means to live ethically in relation to
others, both human and nonhuman.
Works Cited:
