Contemporary Visions of the New Woman in Korean Literature by Mikayla George, Junior, Media the Concept Of

Contemporary Visions of the New Woman in Korean Literature By Mikayla George, junior, Media The concept of the “new woman” arose as a phenomenon in the early 20th century, emerging in Korea during the Japanese colonial period. This archetype was defined by a romanticism of the female as the most marginalized member of society, who could gain agency through modernization. In the Korean context, the new woman was associated with Westernization and modernity, and over time became ostracized and thought of as a negative consequence of modernity (Kim, 52). In contemporary Korean literature such as The Vegetarian by Han Kang, the colonial new woman archetype manifests in an individual whose disregard of traditional values leads to destructive consequences. Yeong-hye from The Vegetarian embodies the new woman through her subversion of traditional gender expectations and her struggle for bodily autonomy which culminates in a moment of transcendence of societal norms. In The Vegetarian, Yeong-hye’s subversions of gender norms are simultaneously fetishized and criticized, which echoes the treatment of new women during the colonial period. During the pivotal family dinner scene in Part I of the novel, Yeong-hye’s father forces a piece of meat into her mouth after slapping her and yelling at her repeatedly (Han 48). This moment of violence embodies not only her family and father’s disapproval of her transgression, but also the specific disapproval of her actions from men, and thus patriarchal society as a whole. This is represented through her father telling Yeong-hye’s husband and brother to hold her still when he force feeds her (Han 46). The only man in the scene who doesn’t participate in this act of violence is Yeong-hye’s brother-in-law, who carries her to the car after she slits her wrist (Han 48). Instead of enacting violence on her in this moment like the other men, he commits the act of fetishization of her transgression in Part 2 of the novel. His obsession with her Mongolian mark represents how he fixates on her difference as an object of arousal, illustrated through the scene where he masturbates to the thought of Yeong-hye in the shower, “...remembering how it felt to carry her on his back, her body pressed up against his and staining his clothes with her blood, the feel of her chest and buttocks, imagined himself pulling down her trousers just enough to reveal the blue brand of the Mongolian mark” (Han 73). The brother-in-law’s sexual attraction to Yeong-hye directly relates to the specific moment when Yeong-hye refused to comply with societal norms. This combined with another mark of her difference—her Mongolian mark—are what the brother-in-law is drawn to. Rather than genuinely seeing her as an individual searching for her own freedom from society’s constraints, he fetishizes how different she is from normal women in his life. He turns her attempt at self-discovery into his own sexual fantasy. Her embodiment of the new woman is not about her own feelings, but is attractive to him because he sees it as inherently perverse. Yeong-hye’s decision to abandon the societal norm of eating meat also becomes synonymous with her abandonment of gender norms related to men’s expectation of women’s bodies. As she stopped eating meat, “She grew thinner by the day, so much so that her cheekbones had really become indecently prominent. Without makeup, her complexion resembled that of a hospital patient” (Han 23). For Yeong-hye, the focus on her body as a site of transgression is a product of how her identity is constantly constructed by outside forces. This identity construction is best represented in the scene of her husband speaking over her at the company dinner, making up a reason for her vegetarianism (Han 34). In this instance, he deprives Yeong-hye of her own vegetarian identity, and constructs a new one which is more acceptable to society broadly. This constant intrusion into Young-hye’s journey of self-discovery causes her to retreat to her physical form as a place to find control and agency over her own identity construction. For Young-hye the embodiment of the new woman trope culminates in her eventual enlightenment and transcendence of societal norms and authority. This happens in Part 3 of the novel, when she begins to abandon her human form entirely and retreats into the primitive world of nature. Her desire to escape humanity and embody the energy of a plant is showcased when she says to In-hye, “I’m not an animal anymore, sister. I don’t need to eat, not now. I can live without it. All I need is sunlight” (Han 159). Yeong-hye’s fervent obsession with discarding her humanity is conveyed through language that is ethereal and dreamlike, reflecting a spiritual transcendence. She explains one of her dreams to In-hye, saying, “...I was standing on my head...leaves were growing from my body, and roots sprouting from my hands...so I dug down into the earth. On and on...I wanted flowers to bloom from my crotch, so I spread my legs; I spread them wide…” (Han 154). Rather than transcending society’s constraints by answering to a divine force, Yeong-hye wishes to abandon society by transcending humanity by regressing to the primal state of a plant. Yeong-hye’s journey of self-discovery ends ambiguously, with the reader left to assume that she has died. The last paragraph of the novel illustrates this, narrating In-hye’s actions: “Quietly, she breathes in. The trees by the side of the road are blazing, green fire undulating like the rippling flanks of a massive animal, wild and savage. In-hye stares fiercely at the trees. As if waiting for an answer. As if protesting against something. The look in her eyes is dark and insistent,” (Han 188). In-hye seems to protest against the world that destroyed her sister with its rules of conformity. The comparison of the trees to animals hints that Yeong-hye reached that point of assimilation with nature in the end. Yeong-hye’s rebirth must come in the form of her earthly body’s death, and her spirit’s melding with nature. For her, the journey of becoming a new woman must end with her complete autonomy over her body, even if it means destroying it. Examination of Young-hye’s character reveals that the price of subverting societal norms—especially those related to gender—is the complete annihilation of oneself. Yeong-hye’s autonomy was under such attack that she had to revert to something pre-human in order to obtain agency over herself. Through her character, the struggle of the new woman’s journey to assert herself in a patriarchal society is illustrated. Comparing the colonial archetype of the new woman with a contemporary incarnation reveals that the modern Korean woman’s path to personal freedom has perhaps become even more complicated and fraught with violence; a violence that is less explicit but just as corrosive and destructive as the violence the new woman experienced in the colonial period. Works Cited Han, Kang. The Vegetarian. Translated by Deborah Smith. New York: Hogarth, 2015. Yung-Hee, Kim. “Analysis of Kyonghui.”Questioning Minds: Short Stories by Modern Korean Women Writers. Ed. Yung-Hee, Kim. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2010. 51-54. Project MUSE The Power of Dehumanization By Veronica Coffey, sophomore, East Asian Languages and Cultures and International Studies Dehumanization is a complex and common phenomenon used in literature as a means of justifying prejudice and abuse towards another human being. Furthermore, this literary device is used to enforce injustices onto a group of people that usually represent a particular gender, race, or sexual orientation in an unfavorable light by portraying them as inferior and sub-human. While this mechanism primarily operates to cast negative characteristics and stereotypes onto those viewed as wild and savage, Han Kang flips the narrative by describing the heroine, a woman who transforms from a human to a mere being of nature, as peaceful and natural, while the humans are depicted as callous and barbaric. Historically, women have been dehumanized by men in patriarchal societies for them to be portrayed as sexual objects, which leads to sexual abuse and oppression among women. However, in Han Kang’s novel, The Vegetarian, she critiques this trope by using dehumanization as an instrument for which the protagonist, Yeong- hye, can achieve complete liberation from social constraints and expectations in a male- dominated society by abandoning her man-made world for one created by her and nature. Kang emphasizes that humans, particularly men, constantly prioritize themselves and have a widely held belief that they are superior, therefore allowing them to do as they please to women and other animals. Yeong-hye begins to recognize the faults within this patriarchal system and identifies with the natural world that lacks this pretentious societal classification and oppression. Young-Hye recognizes that, as a woman in a patriarchal society, she is being treated as second-rate and inhuman. She learns to recognize that the human race, particularly men, have no more significance in this world than plants and animals. She chooses to become vegetarian primarily because she realizes that animals are just as essential and complex as humans, and she no longer needs to identify as a human. The only way for her to escape from being domesticated and controlled by the men in her life is to disassociate herself from society and transform into a wild part of the natural world where she can be free of those societal constraints.

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