34 pages • 1 hour read
Han KangThe Vegetarian
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2007A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Kim Yeong-hye
Yeong-hye’s choice to become vegetarian is the catalyst for all events in the novel. The survivor of significant physical abuse by her father, Yeong-hye is married to a man who views her as “completely unremarkable” (11) except for the fact that she never wears a bra. Yeong-hye’s husband begins raping her after she stops satisfying his physical needs. Throughout the novel, Yeong-hye descends deeper into her belief that she can lose her animal self and escape her terrifying dreams if she stops eating meat.
Despite being the center of the novel’s plot, Yeong-hye rarely speaks or narrates. Her silence makes it difficult to know how she feels, and as her behaviors become stranger, she becomes more disconnected from normal life and convention. Each of the other characters struggles to understand Yeong-hye’s choices, acting out their own fears and desires on her body either through imagination or physical interaction with her.
In-hye
Yeong-hye’s older sister, In-hye, is married to an artist and has a son, Ji-woo. Over the course of the novel, In-hye’s feelings about her sister, husband, and child shift as she works through her internal conflicts. In-hye runs her own cosmetics shop and is the sole provider for her family.
At the climax of the novel, when In-hye’s husband cheats on her with Yeong-hye, In-hye takes resolute action and has them both committed to a psychiatric hospital. However, after months of visiting her sister in the hospital, In-hye begins to realize that perhaps she could have done something like what Yeong-hye has. In this realization, In-hye finally begins to find resolution for the loneliness she has felt throughout the novel.
Mr. Cheong
Mr. Cheong is the focus of only the first part of the novel, as he struggles with his wife’s decision to become vegetarian. A man who prefers the “middle course in life” (12), Mr. Cheong relies on his wife to clean, cook, and do his laundry. He is preoccupied with the way people perceive him and is frustrated when his wife’s physical appearance isn’t what he wants. Even when his wife appears to be in real distress, Mr. Cheong equates her to a stranger and mostly keeps his distance. After Yeong-hye is hospitalized, Mr. Cheong divorces her and doesn’t speak to her again.
The Brother-In-Law
The brother-in-law remains nameless despite his importance to the novel’s plot. At first, described through Mr. Cheong’s lens, the brother-in-law appears to be almost useless, living solely off of his wife’s income. As his artistic practice emerges in the second part, the brother-in-law is revealed to be more complex, constructing his fantasy of bodies and painted flowers. The brother-in-law is portrayed as similar to Yeong-hye in his “silence” (136), and his choice to have sex with Yeong-hye is the reason that both end up alone and hospitalized. The brother-in-law pays little to no attention to his wife and child, except for one night when he forces himself on In-hye, imagining that she is her sister.
Father
Yeong-hye and In-hye’s father is a “patriarchal man” (37) with a violent temper. Yeong-hye has several disturbing memories of her father forcing her to witness or experience violence. In the present day, her father also acts violently toward Yeong-hye, slapping her and force-feeding her. While her father only appears in one scene in the text, his behavior toward Yeong-hye seems to be the primary cause of her choice to stop eating meat.
