A Book Review on The Vegetarian by Han Kang

by Prisha Mehta

Content Warning: This analysis discusses themes and scenes involving graphic imagery, including gore, blood, self-harm, sexual violence, and psychological trauma.

Reader discretion is advised.

When we hear the title The Vegetarian by Han Kang, one assumes it’s literally about vegetarians. However, there’s a much more profound meaning behind it. It shows how an ideal life begins to fracture after the protagonist becomes vegetarian. It isn’t about whether one eats meat or not, it is about how a vegetarian is perceived in society.

As a novel itself, it’s a difficult read, and I had to re-read a couple of parts to truly grasp the intensity of the meaning and understand the finer nuances of the book. The language was easy and simple, yet the way it's written evokes a myriad of feelings in the reader's mind.

The novel is set in South Korea where shifting to vegetarianism is seen as an act of social rebellion. Yeong-hye is first shown as an ordinary, submissive housewife, living quietly and never questioning social expectations. Her life begins to unravel after a series of violent dreams compel her to give up meat, setting the stage for her eventual mental transformation into a tree. The novel is centred around Yeong-Hye, yet her voice is never directly heard.

The book is divided into three parts, initially we see it through the protagonist’s husband’s lens. The story starts with perfect domestic scenes, which shifts when the usually docile Yeong-hye gets a grotesque dream and stops eating meat. The moment her refusal and opinions are seen, we see how quick he is to dismiss her. He entrenches this objectification when he says “My wife, in other words, was completely unremarkable in every way.”, erasing her individuality. His callousness towards her is shown when he asks her to stop dreaming, as if she could attempt to control the unconscious. Furthermore, his insensitivity emerges when he insists she attend the dinner with his boss, dismissing her discomfort, and again when he forces himself upon her at night, as though her resistance were irrelevant to his desires.

In the second part, she is yet again decentralised. Part two is narrated from her brother in law’s perspective, and she is once again seen as an object. Her brother-in-law sees Yeong-hye as a sort of means to an end, since he fantasised about her Mongolian mark, an apparent artistic obsession. We see his indifference towards her mental health and emotional well-being or consent to an extent. His interest lies in her as a sexual object, fantasising about her and her emaciated body.

The third part is narrated by her sister In-hye, and she takes us back to Yeong-hye’s childhood through flashbacks. These flashbacks show how patriarchy impacted their household, from being brutally beaten up by her father to the silent compliance from the mother. This early violence, both physical and psychological, had such an impact on Yeong-hye that we see the sudden traumatic dreams she’s inflicted with. The psychological effect must have run so deep that it inadvertently led to her refusal to eat meat.

The author’s incorporation of the graphic imagery, particularly in the vivid details of Yeong-hye’s dream, leaves an imprint in the reader’s mind; it reinforces the violence’s allegorical significance. The grotesque sequence “A long bamboo stick strung with great blood-red gashes of meat, blood still dripping down. Try to push past the meat, there’s no end to the meat, and no exit”, creates a claustrophobic confrontation with flesh. This is once again intensified by lines like “Blood in my mouth, blood-soaked clothes sucked onto my skin” and “Pushed that red raw mass into my mouth, felt it squish against my gums, the roof of my mouth, slick with crimson blood.” The repetition of “My bloody hands. My bloody mouth” restates the sensory violation as an identity marker, once again illustrates how deeply the trauma is imprinted upon her body and psyche.

It is a mental transformation into a tree rather than a physical metamorphosis, one that unfolds as a psychological and metaphorical process. This transformation symbolizes Yeong-hye’s gradual withdrawal from human society, and it can be read in two ways, either as her descent into complete madness or as a radical rebellion against humanity itself. She begins to reject food, seeking instead only sunlight and water, and comes to describe her veins as roots burrowing into the ground. These moments cause the line between reality and imagination to blur. This is when she reached the point of an absolute breakdown, dissociating from humanity completely.

This leaves such a strong psychological impact on her that she not only stops eating meat, we see she thinks of herself as a tree. We see a mental metamorphosis as a result of a mental breakdown. The consequences of her actions percolate and affect her family members mentally, emotionally and physically. This shows us the importance of mental health and lack of concern towards it evolves into a sort of paranoia.

The novel fits partly into post-humanism, which challenges human-centred thinking by recognising the agency of the external environment, and then entirely into non-humanism, where animate and inanimate things exist on the same continuum. Yeong-hye challenges the traditional humanist view, that humans are central to the universe. It expands our sense of consciousness to include rocks, nature and even inanimate matter. It also acknowledges animal consciousness and communication abilities. It also challenges how humans have treated animals throughout history. Yeong-hye shifts towards a more fundamental connection with the universe through a simplified almost pre-linguistic mode of being.

Ultimately, The Vegetarian is not an easy read. Its unsettling imagery, fragmented narrative, and emotional intensity require patience and reflection. But it is precisely this difficulty that makes the novel unforgettable. Kang forces us to confront questions about autonomy, gender, violence, and what it means to exist beyond humanist boundaries.

A disturbing yet profound meditation on the body, identity, and freedom, The Vegetarian lingers long after the last page leaving readers questioning not just Yeong-hye’s world, but their own.