Point of View

Each of the novel’s three parts is written from a different point of view. Part 1, "The Vegetarian," is written from the first person point of view of Mr. Cheong. He is a traditional and conservative husband of Yeong-hye, while she is a young woman who rejects certain types of conventional behavior and becomes, among other things, a vegetarian. The narrative point of view here is revealing of Mr. Cheong’s fundamental limitations on perspective. He wants things to be a certain way, and he thinks he has things the way he wants. However, when it turns out that things are changing, he fights to keep that change from happening. This first section also contains interjections of another point of view: that of Yeong-hye, whose short first-person narrations reveal the reasons and depths of her decisions and choices. Here it’s important to note that...