A construção da loucura feminina em A Vegetariana de Han Kang

Abstract

This master’s thesis aims to analyze the female madness as a social and discursive construction, historically associated with women who challenge gender roles within patriarchal societies. To this end, we will examine the contemporary novel "The Vegetarian" by South Korean writer Han Kang (2018), which depicts the determination of the madness of its protagonist, Yeonghye, when she refuses to comply with the context of violence to which she was subjected. The book reflects a society with conservative traditions, marked by histories of war, structured around human hierarchies and social exclusion. In this context, madness is defined by those who remain within the realm of a predatory rationality, establishing horror as a way of life. Thus, in the work to be analyzed, madness can be read as a literary device that holds within the text the memory, and reflects the intertwining of everyday realities and historical traumas that remain as a determining factor in the construction of the individuals. Throughout this master’s thesis, the relationships established by author Han Kang (2018) between her work and the history of her home country, South Korea, will be explored, and also how, through the narrated madness, she creates for her protagonist and her reader the possibility of a new existence.