Review Written and Edited by Peter Buller
Vegetarianism is paradoxically bound to both escape life's cruelties and further one's connection to it; or, maybe this is just my projection of those with carnivorous lifestyles. Regardless, this remains a contradiction that will incessantly mar the path of those pursuing vegetarianism, in spite of the plethora of (possibly) sound reasons to avoid eating meat. Our preoccupation with the consumption of flesh or vegetable manner seems to only complicate the connection between life to the sacred, rather than resolve the tension of life's double-bind to violence and intimacy. Han Kang's Booker prize-winning novel, The Vegetarian, explores the murky nuances of this contradiction. Her novel examines vegetarianism through the primal, animalist influences pulsing through our veins, and basks in the dark resplendence of the dream world.
The Vegetarian begins with Yeong-hye's husband describing her choice to become vegetarian. "Before my wife turned vegetarian, I'd always thought of her as completely unremarkable in every way." Mr. Cheong's reflection on meeting his wife, however, soon begins to reveal his own influences on her situation; from his shock to hear her father, "this patriarchal man," apologize for his daughter's vegetarianism, to tearing up when this patriarch then "affectionately" forces her to ingest the meat she now despises. Yeong-hye grows--first distant, then simply different--until, one by one, the grotesque burrowed within her recurring dream sprouts within herself, and then others. Seeds of her madness fixate on the desires of those closest to her, until they abandon her to the twisted fate she desires.
The psychic reverberations woven through the novel inspired reviewers to draw allusions to Kafka. Indeed, the horrifying landscape constructed in Kang's work reflects much of the psycho-mythic realm of Kafka's Metamorphosis. Yeong-hye's transformation into vegetable matter also drew comparison to Gregor, as well. However, these connections tend to omit key differences between the two works, striking up their similarities without highlighting their differences. Unlike Kafka's story, Kang's novel only gives us Yeong-hye's perspective fleetingly. One must digest her words through the lens of the three narrators, all of whom project their own desires atop Yeong-hye's voice. Although In-hye comes closest to "understanding" the source of Yeong-hye's metamorphosis, she only ever reaches the precipice, and seems to stumble wherever Yeong-hye has placed her own roots. Her incipient self grew from the wood of a different tree; and wishes, more than anything, to return to her old home.
Kang's more significant break from Kafka, though, concerns the metamorphosis itself. Gregor's sudden transformation into a cockroach horrifies through its imposition on his inter-personal relationships. Becoming a cockroach isolates Gregor from his family and friends, whose lives grow increasingly miserable, until he kills himself to improve their livelihood. Kafka's horror derives from a sudden change to the external self that ruins one's life with neither warning nor mercy.
Kang's metamorphosis, however, is entirely internalized within Yeong-hye. Her metamorphosis occurs not through spontaneity; but from regurgitation inspired by resentment. Through vomiting "all those butchered bodies" stuck "stubbornly to [her] insides," she can transform. Unlike Gregor, her metamorphosis does not inspire violence, but grows from and into violence.
"The saying goes that for a wound caused by a dog bite to heal you have to eat that same dog, and I did scoop a mouthful for myself. No, in fact I ate an entire bowlful with rice. ...I remember the two eyes that had watched me, while the dog was made to run on, while he vomited blood mixed with froth, and how later they had seemed to appear, flickering on the surface of the soup. But I don't care. I really didn't care."
This digression follows her father's attempt to force-feed her meat. Certainly it's true the novel establishes her as victim to patriarchy and abuses this system enables (moreso than In-hye, her husband, and even Mr. Cheong); yet I think this argument fails to address Yeong-hye's autonomy. One could imagine her as such a battered statue, a tragic symbol of the woman paralyzed by male authority and childhood trauma; but this reading neglects the crucial ties of her erotic agency in her transformation. A subaltern figure by Spivak's definition, Yeong-hye makes an intriguing case for the sheer insidiousness that ignores her voice. Even when she speaks, and even listened, her language is misunderstood.
Becoming vegetarian doubles, then, as a social and spiritual transfiguration. Yeong-hye's metamorphosis regurgitates violence to harm her abusers as much as herself. Whereas the ever-present forces external to human life change Gregor into a cockroach, Yeong-hye becomes a tree by her own will. From a desire to dislodge "all those butchered bodies... still stuck stubbornly to my insides," she achieves the opposite of what vegetarianism normally aspires; rather than assuming a non-violent lifestyle, she incarnates violence so as to expunge the spiritual affliction and social suppression rooted in her past.
Perhaps because her change is a violence against violence, Yeong-hye's sister is best positioned to understand her transformation. In-hye's appeals falter, however, by mistaking Yeong-hye's worsening condition as a need for greater support. Yeong-hye seeks neither comprehension nor compassion, and strives only to rid herself of the animals she's devoured, and whose violence now haunt her. Only through confrontation can she rid her mind of the nightmares, and only by embracing the pleasures of this animal primalism will she complete her transformation.
Despite the real danger becoming a vegetable poses--to herself, her sister, and others--Kang's novel suggests the undercurrents of violence overflow onto the everyday. Violence is not an outcome but a force that confers its power through twisted manifestations: the passive gaze of a tortured dog, the rich stream of blood flowing from a cut; the petals of a blue, Mongolian flower. The Vegetarian attunes one's lives to violence, as opposed to exacting a Buddhist separation from fate's wheel. Kang's prose leaves her readers "dark and insistent... as if waiting for an answer. As if protesting against something," resisting a force residing within us already, patiently anticipating our embrace.
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