Abstinence from meat and mate for plant life: A resistance to Patriarchy in Han Kang’s the vegetarian
Date
2020
Authors
BK, Avishek
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Faculty of english
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.
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Description
Keywords
English Novel, Women domination