Vol. 3, Issue 7, Part A (2017)

Abstract
Han Kang is a South Korean writer who won the Man Booker International prize for fiction for her novel, The Vegetarian in 2016. It is about a woman, Yeong-hye who decides to stop eating meat, which has a disastrous effect on her life and changes her from inside as a person. Written in three parts, The Vegetarian, Mongolian Marks and Flaming Trees the story is told through the voice of her husband, her brother-in-law and later her sister, the narrative is from the male point of view, which indicates the patriarchal structure of power that traps her. Kang’s The Fruit of my Woman, is a short story about a woman who expresses a strong yearning to escape from the hopelessness of modern city life, failing which she gradually undergoes a metamorphosis and becomes a plant. Her husband then takes upon herself the responsibility of planting her in a flower pot and watering her regularly. At the end she bears a fruit, some seeds of which are consumed by her husband and the rest sown in flower pots and placed adjacently. This paper analyses the workings of the female protagonists’ mind, living in a patriarchal society, wanting to liberate themselves from the oppressive societal conventions and finding their identity as they become one with vegetal life.