PARASITIC INTERVENTIONS IN WORLD LITERATURE AND HAN KANG’S THE VEGETARIAN

Abstract

There persists in world literature scholarship, even in the more celebrated or cutting-edge ones such as those of Pascale Casanova, David Damrosch, Franco Moretti and Pheng Cheah, a ‘center vs. periphery’ model. That model sustains a disproportionate hierarchy, leading – unintentionally, to be sure, in the abovementioned theorists, yet inadvertently – to a privileging of certain countries in terms of literary status, which undermines the purpose and ethos of world literature. Although Emily Apter’s theory of world literature can be considered as a critique of this center-periphery hierarchy, it is insufficient in leveling the hierarchy. This thesis will not attempt to dissolve the center-periphery model, recognizing that it is a product of the historical unequal allocation of resources, which has influenced the balance of literary power among countries as they participate in the evolution of world literature. Rather, this thesis will argue that the asymmetry of the center-periphery hierarchy can be mitigated by Michel Serres’s theory of the parasite. The circulation of Han Kang’s The Vegetarian instantiates the presence of parasitism between the center and the periphery, and reading the novel through Serres’s theory empowers the metaphorical ‘periphery’ in the novel from subordination to the ‘center’. This thesis will thus show how Serres’s theory helps bring to light the mutual parasitism and interdependence of the world literature center and periphery, dismantling the existing hierarchy between them.