Resistance to the Interpellation of Normality: A Comparative Study of Forms of Refusal and Flight in “Bartleby, the Scrivener” and The Vegetarian

This study examines the patterns of resistance manifested in Herman Melville’s “Bartleby, the Scrivener” and Han Kang’s The Vegetarian. Despite emerging from vastly different spatiotemporal contexts - nineteenth-century America and twenty-first-century South Korea - both works feature protagonists who transform themselves through their rejection of societal norms and order. Specifically, Bartleby and Yeong-hye exhibit anorexia as a physical and psychological response to resist the capitalist labor system and the existing social order symbolized by the predatory consumptino and violence of meat-eating, ultimately culminating in self-annihilation. Rather than interpreting their eating behaviors as mere restrictions or deficiencies, this study positions their anorexia and vegetarianism as active forms of resistance against society’s expected selfhood and as catalysts for transformation into ‘other beings.’ The study first examines the sociocultural implications of eating disorders, then analyzes the resistance embedded in Bartleby’s “I would prefer not to” and the subversiveness of Yeong-hye’s embrace of vegetarianism. Through this analysis, the study explores how both characters reject calls to normality and transform themselves into beings that defy interpretation, ultimately illuminating the modes of resistance and literary significance presented in each work.