![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Haraway asserts that sex, infection and eating are old relatives whose material and syntactic intra-actions make the cuts that birth kin and kind (287 emphasis added). She becomes the focus of his increasingly erotic and unhinged artworks, while spiralling further and further into her fantasies of abandoning her fleshly prison and becoming – impossibly, ecstatically – a tree.įraught, disturbing and beautiful, The Vegetarian is a novel about modern day South Korea, but also a novel about shame, desire and our faltering attempts to understand others, from one imprisoned body to another. In her influential text When Species Meet, Donna J. The first section, The Vegetarian, features a recurrent focus on Yeong-hye’s nipples whichunlocksmanythematicintricacies.Herhusbandnotesthatprior toherveganism,theonlytroublingaspectofthechildlesscouple’smar- riage was that she never wore a bra, because he worried that others wouldstareatherbreasts(ch.1). She unknowingly captivates her sister’s husband, a video artist. His cruelties drive her towards attempted suicide and hospitalisation. Her passive rebellion manifests in ever more bizarre and frightening forms, leading her bland husband to self-justified acts of sexual sadism. In South Korea, where vegetarianism is almost unheard-of and societal mores are strictly obeyed, Yeong-hye’s decision is a shocking act of subversion. The acceptable flatline of their marriage is interrupted when Yeong-hye, seeking a more ‘plant-like’ existence, decides to become a vegetarian, prompted by grotesque recurring nightmares. He is an office worker with moderate ambitions and mild manners she is an uninspired but dutiful wife. Yeong-hye and her husband are ordinary people. ![]()
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