Starving Spirits: Food Practices and Gender Violence in Diana Evans’s 26a and Han Kang’s The Vegetarian

Abstract

This article examines the conflicts experienced by the protagonists of 26a (2005) by British-Nigerian Diana Evans and The Vegetarian (2007) by South Korean Han Kang, which are related to patriarchal violence and reflected in their changing dietary habits, ranging from vegetarianism to starvation. Their changes in food practices are interpreted from feminist, food studies, and ecocritical perspectives as stemming from their rebellion against patriarchal abuse and sharing important connections with the natural world, also a traditional object of male dominance and domestication, which are emphasised through frequent references to trees, flowers and fruit