Yeong-hye's Dream
In Part 1, a brief section written in italics delves into Yeong-hye's disturbing dream where she struggles to escape a room filled with meat. This dream is abundant with violent images that evoke disgust, such as "blood in my mouth, blood-soaked clothes sucked into my skin." When Yeong-hye talks about "that vivid, strange, horribly uncanny feeling," the nausea from her dream bleeds into real life. Han writes this section in short, poetic phrases that often don't use conventional grammar. This technique condenses the images to make them even more striking.
Carnality
Han evokes carnal imagery that often juxtaposes the acts of eating (particularly meat) and intercourse in a violent way. For example, when Yeong-hye's brother-in-law sexually fixates on her, he fetishizes her dried blood as "the dark, matte burgundy of red bean soup" and expresses his desire to "swallow" and absorb her (Part 2). In addition, the scene where Mr. Kim force-feeds pork to his daughter parallels the scene where her brother-in-law “[pushes] her legs wide apart and [enters] her.”
Flora
Han's ample use of plant imagery tracks the way that Yeong-hye estranges herself from her humanity and entangles herself in the plant world. In "Mongolian Mark," In-hye's husband fulfills his fantasy of painting flowers on Yeong-hye's body and filming them having sex. The flowers take on a life of their own, with "half-open buds, red and orange, [blooming] splendidly on her shoulders and back, and slender stems [twining] down her side" (Part 2). Later, after Yeong-hye is institutionalized in Part 3, In-hye both dreams and hears her sister describe her catatonic arboreality: "I'm doing a handstand; leaves are growing out of my body, roots are sprouting out of my hands...I spread my legs because I wanted flowers to bloom from my crotch." Yeong-hye practices becoming a tree, and In-hye wonders if her sister's body really "metamorphosed into a sturdy trunk, with white roots sprouting from her hands and clutching the black soil" (Part 3). Stress, exhaustion, and the realization that her life had never truly been her own also lead In-hye to commune with plants. In the novel's final image, In-hye defiantly gazes upon "the trees by the side of the road," which "are blazing, green fire undulating like the rippling flanks of a massive animal, wild and savage" (Part 3).
The Psychiatric Hospital
As In-hye travels to visit her sister at the psychiatric hospital, she notices how "in the rain, the hospital buildings stand dreary and forlorn" (Part 3). The "gray concrete walls" and "iron bars over the windows" resemble a prison, and indeed In-hye comes to view the place as such.
