Veganism against Patriarchy

Non-Human Animal and Animalized Violence in The Vegetarian

Authors

  • Deborah Schrijvers University College Dublin

Abstract

In this article, Deborah Schrijvers examines the way in which veganism is portrayed as silent activism against violence targeting women and non-human animals in the South-Korean novel The Vegetarian. Through the concepts of the “animal gaze” by Jacques Derrida and the “face” by Emmanuel Levinas, she argues that the female protagonist recognizes her own suffering under patriarchal structures through that of non-human animals. As such, she acknowledges her interrelated precarity as woman and animalized other, effectively represented through her silence throughout the novel. By employing an ecofeminist perspective on the gendering of meateating, Schrijvers investigates how veganism is made to serve as an interrelated liberation of women and non-human animals.

Author Biography

  • Deborah Schrijvers, University College Dublin

    Deborah Schrijvers is an Ad Astra PhD scholar at University College Dublin within the department Environmental Humanities at the School of English, Drama and Film. She holds BA’s in Philosophy and Literary Studies and a RMA in Literary Studies. Her research project focuses on decolonizing extinction narratives with an emphasis on gender and race through analyses of contemporary, transnational literature, film and art.

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Published

2026-04-18

Issue

Vol. 34 No. 1 (2021): Literature and Activism

Section

Article

License

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

Schrijvers, D. (2026). Veganism against Patriarchy: Non-Human Animal and Animalized Violence in The Vegetarian. FRAME, Journal of Literary Studies, 34(1), 121-132. https://platform.openjournals.nl/FRAME/article/view/27199