Shujie Liang

Shujie Liang

30 December, 2024

Han Kang, The Vegetarian, Carl Gustav Jung, Archetypal Psychology, Female awakening

Han Kang’s novel The Vegetarian revolves around Kim Yeong-hye, a woman who commences to become a vegetarian after one nightmare and revolts against all the opposition desperately but persistently from society. This paper aims to decipher the writer’s deep-level writing motivation in her unconscious as well as the antithesis of personalities of three major characters, Kim Yeong-hye, her sister and her brother-in-law, from the perspective of Carl Gustav Jung’s Archetypal Psychology. In this story, each character can’t be simply defined as female or male according to the biological gender and thus they both entail gender analysis on the level of psychology. The combination of archetypal analysis and social gender identity can provide a new understanding perspective for this novel.  In terms of the author herself, this text also explores the linkage between her personal unconscious and Korean women’s collective unconscious, which unintentionally prompts her to reveal females’ survival dilemma in South Korea, demonstrating their self-awareness awakening in post-modern society.

© 2024, the Authors. Published by ISCCAC

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license