Vegetarian Gothic

Vegetarian Gothic analyses the representation of vegetarianism in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818), the World War I writings of Arthur Machen, and Han Kang's The Vegetarian (2007). These texts from different eras (and nations) are placed into critical dialogue through the application of ideas drawn from object-oriented ontology (OOO), and theories of ecological awareness. The vegetarian is represented in highly ambivalent ways. At one level the vegetarian is associated with Gothic otherness but also represented as potentially bringing together humans and animals in a complex holistic, utopian understanding of the natural world. This model of belonging to nature is at odds with a Gothic dystopia which seeks to demonise the radical potential of vegetarianism.