Edible Resistance: A Feminine Rebellion Through Culinary Representation in The Vegetarian by Han Kang

Food Patriarchy plays a significant role in Korean culinary culture, and in addition, it has social and historical importance.Tracing history, Korean agricultural society relied on meat as a source of protein, but the association of meat to social status and attributing the meat-eating business to men to gain strength and power and the role of women in the traditional Korean culture of being confined to their homes, where they were expected to perform domestic chores especially in cooking and serving meat questions the gendered division and authority in Korean culture.The Vegetarian is a novel written by Han Kang, a prominent South Korean Writer.The novel offers a nuanced exploration of gender and identity.It challenges the traditional gender roles, especially with the protagonist Yeonghye's decision to opt for a vegetarian diet, and it is a means through which she expresses her resistance towards patriarchy and also through which she reclaims her identity by disrupting societal norms and criticisms.The study cross-examines the use of Vegetarianism as a literary technique to expose the rigid gender constructions through which the author rebels against patriarchal authority and challenges gender power dynamics in Korean Culture.It throws light on the gaining traction of the plant-based lifestyle in Korea.It also examines how the rejection of the traditional role by the protagonist is perceived by other characters in the novel.The study adheres to a qualitative mode of inquiry where Judith Butler's theory of gender performativity and Mary Douglas's theory of food as a system of communication serves as a theoretical framework.This analytical paradigm stresses the importance of studying the relationship between women and food, whereas, in the novel, the protagonist Yeong-hye uses Vegetarianism as a form of feminist resistance to establish her own agency.The responses of the other characters in the novel signify how the refusal to normative conformity would eventually create otherness.The author emphasizes asserting one's identity irrespective of the face of opposition through her novel.