Abject Bodies and
Fragmented Selves: A Study of Bodily Resistance in Han Kang’s The Vegetarian
Esha Dasgupta
Independent Researcher
Kolkata, West Bengal, India
Abstract: This paper argues how patriarchal culture
distorts bodily agency in females by patronizing decisions. This, I argue,
results in loss of bodily autonomy leading to creation of the abject ‘self’ and
a consequent psychopathological fragmentation as seen in the literary
representation in Han Kang’s The Vegetarian. I utilize a feminist and
psychoanalytic lens in the study. These constructs bestowed upon women are
manifold and make the female body a contested site of struggle. Susan Bordo opines how women’s bodies have
always existed in a cultural time and space where there has been recurring and
powerfully invasive demands on them. It is generally depicted as passive with
its lack of agency. The dualism of male activity and female passivity has
become the norm by which society lives and has led to the construction of the
female ‘self’ within a vast patriarchal culture. In this thesis, I espouse that
these constructs lead to the loss of bodily autonomy. This paper contends that
Yeong-Hye’s refusal of food and increasing dissociation are symbolic of
resistance, positioning her as an abject figure in Julia Kristeva’s terms- a
cast out for violating normative structures and societal order. I also use
Raymond Williams’ idea of utility value to show how women are reduced to their
domestic function. Studies by Kim
Chernin and Susan Bordo point out to the development of psychopathological
fragmentation in women due to such invasive demands on their body. Lastly, I
explore how Han Kang depicts the female body- as a site of repression or site
of resistance.
Keywords: Bodily
Agency, Abjection, Psychopathological fragmentation, Resistance
Introduction:
“It was nothing but sheer obstinacy to go against the
wishes of her husband as mine had done” -The
Vegetarian (Han Kang 9)
Susan Bordo has long highlighted the tendency to view
life in binary terms. Men are often associated with logic, reason and intellect
while women are shown to represent the illogical aspects of the mind (148). The
constant relegation of women, their emotions, gestures, needs, desires and
decisions to ‘illogical’ is a cultural phenomenon. The constant need to coerce
their decisions while keeping them under the perpetual illusion of self-made
decisions is a patriarchal strategy.
This not only takes away bodily agency but also renders
them passive. “Women’s bodies have always existed in a cultural time and space
where there has been recurring and powerfully invasive demands on them” (Bordo xx). It is generally depicted as
passive with its lack of agency. The dualism of male activity and female
passivity (Bordo 12) has become the norm
by which society lives and has led to the construction of the female ‘self’
within a vast patriarchal culture.
The loss of bodily autonomy leads to the creation of a
fragmented self and intense psychological distress as is evident in Yeong-Hye
in The Vegetarian.
In Han Kang’s The
Vegetarian, we see how Yeong-Hye’s single decision to stop eating meat and take
up vegetarianism has laid open the façade of agency that is presented to a
woman. Her decision is contested by the patriarchal figures in her life who
distort her bodily agency and render her passive. It leads to psychological
fragmentation in her as she develops Aneroxia Nervosa. The attempt to subdue
the spontaneities of the body in the interest of control only succeeds in
constituting her identity as ‘alien’ or the ‘other’.
Distortion of
Bodily Agency:
In Discipline and
Punish, Michel Foucault brings in the concept of a ‘docile body’, a body
trained to function within and serve the hegemonic structures. He says that a
human body could be understood as a “surface of inscription” of past and
current systems of political power, making the body an object in the study of
history which is discernable and legible. All hegemonic structures work to
exert and inscribe their power on it, leaving the body in question, docile and
compliant.
This power exercised to suppress the body is manifested
in The Vegetarian where from the
outset Han Kang’s Yeong-Hye is portrayed as passive, lacking agency as her
husband, Mr. Cheong says:
“The passive personality of this woman in whom I could
detect neither freshness nor charm, or anything especially refined, suited me
to the ground”(Kang 2)
In an almost derisive tone he says there was no need of
intellect to win her over. The lines are brazen with misogyny and Yeong-Hye is
dismissed as ‘ordinary’.
Her agency is constantly snatched at and met with
judgment from people like her own husband who even takes a dig at her decision
to opt out of a bra. He calls this
‘hypersensitivity’ of hers.
Yeong-Hye chooses vegetarianism and this does not go down
well with her family members. Her husband says:
“So all because of some ridiculous dream, you’ve gone and
chucked out all meat?” (Kang 9)
Yeong-Hye is seen as a docile body that must function in
accordance with the hegemonic social order. Mr. Cheong who had highlighted her
‘passivity’ at the very beginning of the narrative seemed to now lose his calm
over Yeong-Hye taking up the reins of her life. In his effort to comprehend
this sudden turn of passivity to activity, he says that “she selfishly did as
she pleased” and this very act made her seem unreasonable beyond reason.
As Patricia Meyer Spacks highlights “the good woman
serves, she subordinates herself to the will of others”(124). So when Yeong-Hye pursues Vegetarianism
relentlessly, without caring for Mr. Cheong’s needs, to her family members she
becomes hysterical, unfathomable. It was unfathomable that Yeong-Hye should go
against his wishes and establish her own stance. Her sudden exercise of agency
baffled her husband and other members of the family. The exercise of mental as
well as bodily autonomy does not seem to go well within the family. This is
accompanied by stripping away her identity and soon Yeong-Hye becomes ‘this
woman’ from ‘my wife’ as Mr. Cheong says:
“I really didn’t have a clue when it came to this
woman.”(Kang 10)
In Culture and
Society, Raymond Williams critiques how a capitalist society reduces
individuals to their utility value, their personal worth. In a similar manner,
a patriarchal society reduces women to their utility value, depending on their
worth within the domain of domesticity. Yeong-Hye becomes “this woman” because
according to Mr. Cheong she longer serves the purpose she is required to
fulfill within the domestic sphere.
The authority and agency that Mr. Cheong wants to
exercise over Yeong-Hye and her body is again brought up when he asks her to do
her makeup again. Yeong-Hye fails to comply or fulfill the requirements of a
‘docile body’ leaving her robbed of her ‘utility value’ within the patriarchal
culture. There on, she is put under public scrutiny as she accompanies her
husband to an official dinner party. Yeong-Hye’s agency is once again taken
away as she quietly does what she is told. Mr. Cheong’s boss’ wife even tells
her that vegetarianism goes against human nature, trying to re-mould her
decision. She is even called ‘narrow-minded’. These are some of the
unfathomable responses towards Yeong-Hye’s single decision to turn into a
vegetarian. Their judgments and snide remarks are in an effort to superimpose
their decisions over hers. Even Yeong-Hye’s own parents presume to dictate her
and advice Mr. Cheong in a patriarchal tradition:
“Surely you can always tell her not follow this
diet.”(Kang 18)
The phraseology and choice of “always tell” once again
takes a dig at Yeong-Hye’s mental and bodily agency. Her parents declare that
they are thoroughly ashamed of her. Violation of her bodily agency and desires
also take place when her husband, Mr. Cheong forces himself onto her. The
transgression of her body is actively resisted by Yeong-Hye. This particular
episode can also be construed as a form of punishment Yeong-Hye receives for
exercising her autonomy. Her body becomes a site of dehumanization.
Transgression and bodily violence also occur when food is
thrust into her mouth despite her clear, emphatic reinforcement of “I won’t eat
it”. The violence is symbolic of the coercion, manipulation and domination
exercised by the patriarchal structures in her life.
In the Korean tradition, food is deeply symbolic of
respect, tradition, culture and Yeong-Hye’s rejection of meat is a moral
transgression and an exercise of autonomy, and can be seen as bodily
resistance.
Female agency is once again questioned as Yeong-Hye’s
sister, In-hye asks herself if there was anything she could have done to
prevent it all.
“Was there really nothing she could have done to stop
their father’s hand that day?...After all that terrible thing that her own
husband had done to Yeong-Hye…was there really nothing else she could have
done?”(Kang 94)
Towards the end of the story once again Yeong-Hye’s body
is transgressed as she is fed intravenously.
The Abject ‘Self’
in The Vegetarian:
Julia Kristeva in Powers
of Horror- An Essay on Abjection claims that the abject is both repulsive
and fascinating at the same time and disrupts the system, identity or social
order of things. The abject has only one quality of the object, which is, being
opposed to ‘I’. She states that
abjection is immoral or sinister. The abject does not ask questions about
identity but rather about the location or position in society. The world of the
abject is fragmented as Kristeva calls is “essentially divisible, foldable and
catastrophic” (8). The abject is based on the principle of exclusion, distance
and redefinition.
In The Vegetarian Yeong-Hye’s
exercise of agency makes her an abject, an outcast. She is repulsive to all the
patriarchal figures in her family as well as outside because she is immovable
on the decision she has made and constructs herself as an ‘abject’ the moment
it disrupts their belief that they have
the power to coerce her decisions. Her decisions and her constant rejection of
food make her seem immoral, selfish and rattles up their false idea of possession
of power by her father or even her husband.
In a way she constructs herself as an ‘abject’ whose identity becomes
fragmented and is constantly on the boundary between acceptance and rejection.
She meets exclusion and banishment as she reinforces her choice to reject meat.
The violation of a ‘docile body’ and the consequent depreciation of her
‘utility value’ happen simultaneously. Yeong-Hye’s fragmented self can be
traced to this construction of the self as the ‘abject’. There is
re-construction of the self, she constantly finds resistance and her identity
becomes re-figured around her abjection. She feels discomforted from the tense
situation that arises due to the ambiguity she is met with outside and her
conflict inside. Both her mind and her body try to resist the inscriptions of
patriarchy and as a result readers can find that soon Yeong-Hye not only
rejects meat but refuses food in all its totality.
Psychopathological
Fragmentation:
The female subject that is now an ‘abject’ and not only
rejects but also resists the regulations of patriarchy is inevitably met with
reverse force of resistance and undergoes fragmentation of the ‘self’. A part
of this can be attributed to re-structuring of the self within a new system and
an existing tension with and struggle against the old system.
Psychopathological disorders stem from the “… disdain for
the body, fear of loss of control over our future to the disquieting meaning of
contemporary beauty ideals in an era of greater female presence and power than
ever before” (Bordo 140). Yeong-Hye develops
Anorexia Nervosa as she constantly rejects food. Her intense
psychological fragmentation is seen and in her sleep sees leaves growing out of
her body. Although this has brought many eco-critical analyses, this can be
seen to be further internal disintegration.
Yeon Hye’s repressed self emerges soon through her
dreams. In one of her dreams she seems to confess that she had worked hard to
keep her nerves in check. She attempts to take her life when force-fed and later
vomits which can be construed to be a bodily resistance against coercion,
oppression and societal pressure. She stops speaking and internalizes all. She
is sent to the psychiatric ward and Mr. Cheong has decided that her
vegetarianism was proof she would never be “normal”. She is even seen as
hysterical by her husband who uses it to describe her so called absurd mode of
behavior.
Yeong-Hye’s willingness to shoot naked signifies an
alliance with unconventional norms and her nudity signifies being free from the
artifice of socio-cultural bindings. Her family construes this to be a sign of
madness but it is her passive resistance to express herself. Even her
brother-in-law exploits her and takes advantage of her vulnerability. He does
not respect her ‘no’.
She becomes increasingly distant and dissociation through
trauma in a patriarchal structure is quite evident. She had altogether stopped
sleeping and had lost her body weight. Her deterioration had forced the doctor
to feed her intravenously.
CONCLUSION: Body as
A Site of Repression or Resistance?
Yeong-Hye’s body becomes a battle ground as she keeps
rejecting not just food but docility or submissiveness. In a way she not only
disrupts the patriarchal order but also the capitalist order of consumption and
consumerism. Her abstention from food, her silence and constant attempts at
reconnection with nature make her body a palimpsest of resistance. To the world
she appears as an ‘abject’ who must face banishment, and be categorized as
hysterical to be put in asylum and be put under surveillance. However Yeong-Hye
transcends as if ‘limits and boundaries no longer held any meaning for her’
(Kang 123). Her defiance can be seen as her refusal to be a docile body. It is
a direct refusal to be repressed by the patriarchal hegemony that those around
her intend to exercise on her.
Works Cited
Bordo, Susan. Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture and the Body.
University of California Press, 2003.
Chernin, Kim. The Obsession:Reflections on the Tyranny of Slenderness. Harper and
Row,1981.
Kang, Han. The Vegetarian. Translated by Deborah Smith, Hogarth Press, 2016.
Kristeva, Julia. Powers of Horror:An Essay on Abjection. Translated by Leon S.
Roudiez, Columbia University Press,1982.
“Understanding Foucault’s Concept of Docile
Bodies.” Easy Sociology, 15 May 2024,
https://easysociology.com/sociology-of-power/understanding-foucaults-concept-of-docile-bodies/.
Accessed 1 July 2025.
Spacks, Patricia Meyer. The Female Imagination. Routledge, 1975.
Williams, Raymond.Culture and Society:1780-1950. Columbia University Press, 1983.