Abstinence from Meat and Mate for Plant Life: A Resistance to Patriarchy in Han Kang’s The Vegetarian

Abstract

The aim of this study is to explore women domination and radical protest in Han Kang’s novel The Vegetarian. The author empowers the central character Yeong- hye to resist patriarchy. Yeong-hye has been under violence and has lived being suppressed with repressed feelings throughout her childhood and married life for five years. Not only to Yeong-hye, but also to her sister In-hye the author has given a strong role to resist patriarchy and support her sister. Both the sisters leave their husbands and live their life independently. The argument of this thesis is that the women can sacrifice their lives for resisting and to get rid of patriarchy. The protagonist finds that meat and mate are the means of female exploitation, so she abstains from them to revolt against patriarchal domination and later she stops eating any kind of food as she regards a plant to herself. Living plant life is to neutralize gender discrimination and to show equality between sexes. Throughout this work, radical feminism is applied as a theoretical tool to study the text. vi