Han Kang's novels transcend the concern for human life, delving deeply into the plight of non-human beings and framing violence as a form of exploitation between humans, as well as between humans and nature. Academic research on Han Kang's ecological narratives often adopts an eco-feminist perspective, yet her works encompass richer ecological implications. By exploring themes such as bodily toxicity and environmental injustice, she unveils the cultural roots of environmental crises, exposing how power structures dominate marginalized groups and the natural environment. Han Kang's ecological vision surpasses the boundaries of gender, class, generation, and species, focusing on the vulnerable within power dynamics. Her perspective on the marginalized is influenced by Eastern Buddhism and shamanism, offering a critical pathway to re-examining the relationship between humans and nature.

Pathological Life: Passive Deformation Under Structures of Violence

During the rapid industrialization of South Korea in the 1960s, excessive resource extraction led to ecological devastation. Han Kang's novel The Black Deer exposes the environmental impact of coal mining. Humanity's predatory exploitation of nature strips barren valleys of their intrinsic meaning, reducing them to mere instrumental value. Environmental pollution becomes severe, and Han Kang reflects this destruction through depictions of bodily mutations, showcasing nature's agency and trans-corporeality. In The Black Deer, the bodies afflicted by pollution mostly belong to the underclass, highlighting issues of environmental injustice. Han Kang also examines cross-species persecution, using The Vegetarian to critique the violent practice of consuming dog meat, revealing the inherent brutality of carnivorous culture. The shadows of commodification and instrumentalization loom over both animals and humans, as consumerism reduces all to vessels of material desire. Modern individuals are trapped in the mire of instrumentalization, transformed from active subjects into disciplined objects. Depleted coal mines, polluted environments, and slaughtered animals—all are victims of the power structures dominated by humans, capital, patriarchy, and adults, exposing how structural violence oppresses the vulnerable. Han Kang focuses on those struggling under the weight of oppressive power, portraying marginalized humans resisting coercion and attempting to dismantle violence, urging the rule-makers and beneficiaries of oppressive systems to re-examine the complex relationships between self and other.

Becoming Plant: Active Mutation Toward the Vulnerable

This section explores the manifestations of ecological narratives in Han Kang's fiction, particularly through the connection between characters and nature, as well as vegetarianism, reflecting care for the vulnerable and resistance to violence. In The Vegetarian, Yeong-hye's hidden connection with a suffocated bird symbolizes the plight of marginalized groups within violent systems. Han Kang's novels seek a glimmer of hope for the vulnerable—on one hand, by forging ties with nature to escape violence, and on the other, by reflecting on atrocities against nature to reshape values. The natural environment provides individuals with spaces for recovery and introspection, helping them escape the alienation of urban existence. Vegetarianism in the novel becomes a profound means of deconstructing violence, involving reflections on male oppression of women, adult discipline over children, and human exploitation of animals. Yeong-hye's choice to become vegetarian embodies the resolve of the vulnerable to resist power by controlling their own bodies, while also revealing self-awareness of internalized violence. In The Vegetarian, the wife's transformation into a plant completes her act of escape, leveraging the traits of plants to dismantle the shame imposed by social discipline and attain freedom beyond human judgment. The plant's insensibility, silence, and lack of thought allow the wife to flee from sensory pain and the torment of desire. Becoming-plant symbolizes a complete severance from the capacity to inflict violence. Han Kang's profound understanding and identification with the essence of plant life, as well as her advocacy for plant ethics, reflect a critique of human speciesism and the power of civilizational criticism.

From Empathy to Flux: Ecological Vision Inheriting and Transcending Eastern Religions

Han Kang's novels are deeply influenced by her father's Buddhist teachings, embodying Buddhist ecological consciousness, such as non-violence, vegetarianism, and the release of captive animals. Marginalized groups in her works, such as women and children, are more attuned to nature's suffering under anthropocentric oppression, forming affective cross-species relationships. However, such empathy-based ecological care has limitations—for instance, in No One Writes Back, In-seon's concern for a parrot stems from an emotional bond with a pet, failing to transcend egocentrism. Han Kang employs "metamorphosis" techniques, such as the wife's plant transformation in The Vegetarian, to propel a leap in ecological thought—from empathy-based thinking to a systems-oriented ecological view that respects the otherness of life. In The Vegetarian, the husband's empathy shifts from projecting human emotions onto his wife to recognizing the life rhythms of plants, surpassing similarity-based empathy and moving toward cross-species understanding. Han Kang's ecological philosophy unfolds through transformations of life forms, such as the cross-species flux in The Black Deer, which breaks species boundaries and embodies the Buddhist concept of cyclical existence. Her metamorphic narratives are shaped by Buddhism and shamanism, yet they are not escapist but rather a means to re-examine human-nonhuman relations and reimagine human existence. Though Han Kang's ecological narratives have limitations, they offer profound insights for reconstructing ecological relationships—curbing the spread of violence through an understanding of plant-life philosophy, revealing the fluidity of subjects within ecosystems, and constructing logical footholds to dismantle violent systems.