The Body, Agency, and Resistance Theme Analysis

The Vegetarian centers on Yeong-hye, a young woman living in modern-day Seoul, South Korea. The novel begins with her choice to become a vegetarian before tracking the fallout of this decision on Yeong-hye’s relationships with her family and husband. However, it is not so much the fact that Yeong-hye no longer wants to eat meat that troubles her husband, Mr. Cheong, and the rest of her family. Rather, it is the fact that she suddenly wants to have autonomy over her body, particularly when she goes against her family’s desires. As Yeong-hye becomes more and more defiant of those around her, Han establishes Yeong-hye’s body as a tool for her resistance against others, ultimately suggesting that bodily autonomy is the only way for a person to maintain any agency in his or her life.

Yeong-hye’s vegetarianism is the first step to asserting autonomy in her life, which has been very deferential up until this point. This newfound sense of authority over herself disturbs those around her greatly, as they have come to expect obedience from her. The novel begins when Yeong-hye starts to have dreams in which she is devouring bloody meat, torn apart with her own hands and teeth—images which become allegories for Yeong-hye’s feelings of being violated and the victim of violence. The graphic images nauseate and horrify her, and so she announces to her husband that she will no longer eat meat and will not allow it in their home. Mr. Cheong refuses to accept this decision, thinking, “it was nothing but sheer obstinacy for a wife to go against her husband's wishes as mine had done.” Thus, he sees her decision not as something conscious but as a way for her to assert her agency and resistance against him. When the rest of Yeong-hye’s family hears about her decision, they, too, view it as an affront to themselves, believing that her disobedience reflects poorly on how they brought her up. Yeong-hye’s mother, father, brother Yeong-ho, sister In-hye, and brother-in-law all visit her in order to try to coax her to eat meat. Yeong-hye’s father resorts to attempting to force-feed her the meat; he slaps her and jams a piece of pork into her mouth, but she spits it out. The episode proves how her family feels as though they have the right to decide what Yeong-hye does or does not consume; however, Yeong-hye recognizes that she can use her body as resistance against them. Yeong-hye feels so upset and violated by her father’s actions that she slits her own wrist with a knife in front of her family, less as a suicide attempt than a way in which she can make them stop trying to force-feed her. This is yet another way for Yeong-hye to resist: harming herself in order to regain some control over her own body.

Yeong-hye’s vegetarianism is not the only way in which she regains some sense of bodily autonomy: she also tries to regain some control over her sexuality. Although the men in her life continue to try to determine what she can and cannot do with her body and her desire, this becomes another arena in which she views her body as a tool of resistance. After Yeong-hye goes vegetarian, she also avoids having sex with Mr. Cheong because she says that his body “smells of meat.” This provides a parallel with her vegetarianism, reinforcing the idea that Yeong-hye does not want to consume another person, nor does she want to be consumed herself. Mr. Cheong, however, views this as another absurd and unnecessary form of disobedience, and so he pins her down and rapes her on several occasions despite her protests. Still, in attempting to stop him and in making it difficult for him to rape her, she is again asserting autonomy over herself and her sex life. Later, after Mr. Cheong has divorced Yeong-hye due to her behavior, she tacitly agrees to be part of her brother-in-law’s video art piece. She allows him to paint flowers on her naked body and then agrees to be filmed naked posing with another man referred to as J. Despite the fact that the brother-in-law only speaks to J during the filming and does not direct Yeong-hye, she takes initiative to do things like straddle J, crane her neck around his, and place herself in other sexual positions. Thus, the shoot becomes another way for Yeong-hye to control her own body and how it is viewed. Then, when the brother-in-law tries to seduce her after becoming aroused by her actions, she refuses and pushes him away, saying that she only acted in that way because she liked the flowers painted on J’s body. This incident becomes yet another means for Yeong-hye to dictate what she chooses to do with her body and what she will allow others to do to it.

In the final section of the book, Yeong-hye tries to assert even more agency over her own life: the ability to stop being human and to stop herself from living. As Yeong-hye continues to be haunted by images of violence, she refuses to eat entirely. When doctors try to they try to insert a tube down her nose, she violently resists, insisting that she doesn’t like eating. As In-hye sees this happen, she understands what Yeong-hye is doing. She thinks, “It’s your body, you can treat it however you please. The only area where you’re free to do just as you like.” In-hye’s realization sums up Yeong-hye’s perspective as well as Han’s argument: the body is the last source of refuge and the only means of resistance for this woman who feels as though she has no agency.