Pets and Violence: Han Kang, The Vegetarian and Doris Lessing, On Cats

How are pets and violence connected, and why is memoir the best form to explore their strength and vulnerability? In Han Kang’s The Vegetarian, the female protagonist recalls a local custom of punishing disobedient pets. The dog that bit the heroine—perhaps due to her own neglect—loses its place of affection in the village and must be punished, chased after a motorcycle until its death. Before it dies, however, the dog is made to realize that this is not a game or a form of corrective punishment; it must die, abandoned and humiliated. Can animals predict the future consequences of their actions, or those of their often irrational caretakers? Can they hold their caretakers accountable? Doris Lessing’s memoir suggests they can. Is the relationship between pets and humans one of mere whimsy—a cycle of adoration and rejection—or is there potential for solidarity between vulnerable species, especially pets and people? Can a pet and a human form an alliance that, rather than being based on control or mastery, embodies vulnerability and ambivalence, as captured in Lauren Berlant’s concept of precarious subjects navigating the complexities of modern life? It may be perhaps appropriate – in a short autoethnographic moment – to refer to my novel Troika (Marpress, Gdansk 2024)—which evolved from a memoir-like account of my stay at a futuristic research center near Moscow in 2013—to attempt to answer these questions. One further question remains: Can a pet be a political refugee? A refugee not just from one country to another, but from the human world itself?