"This is unbelievable. You're telling me not to eat meat?"
"I couldn't let those things stay in the fridge. It wouldn't be right."
How on earth could she be so self-centered?
Rather than express curiosity about his wife's decision to suddenly refrain from eating animal products, Mr. Cheong immediately focuses on how her decision affects him. While this is a natural impulse that many people might share, it also shows Mr. Cheong's priorities. He married Yeong-hye because he thought she would support his comfortable existence. What strikes him as her dramatic and selfish antics disrupt their unspoken dynamic. Mr. Cheong uses words like "selfish" and "unreasonable" to describe his wife's refusal.
"Do you remember those mummified human remains they recently discovered? Five hundred thousand years old, apparently, and even back then humans were hunting for meat—they could tell that from the skeletons. Meat eating is a fundamental human instinct, which means vegetarianism goes against human nature, right? It just isn't natural."
The dinner with Mr. Cheong’s colleagues proves to be a disaster. Yeong-hye puts a spotlight on herself as the only vegan present. Mr. Cheong's colleagues bond over criticizing Yeong-hye's dietary choice, and as an extension, Yeong-hye herself. Diet can be a sensitive topic for some people, particularly when others deviate from or challenge those decisions. Since people ingest and metabolize food, it is no wonder that it is such a personal topic. In other words, we are what we eat because the nutrients from food form the building blocks of our bodies.
I was beginning to get sick and tired of this stubborn “maternal affection.”
When Yeong-hye is hospitalized after attempting to commit suicide, Mr. Cheong expresses revulsion and disgust for his wife. This extends to the care Mrs. Kim shows her daughter. Maternal affection is a natural impulse in response to one's child becoming sick or injured. However, Mr. Cheong feels that he himself is the victim in this situation.
He studied his wife, a picture of responsible compassion as she carefully approached their son with the medicine. She's a good woman, he thought. The kind of woman whose goodness is oppressive.
This quote demonstrates that In-hye—despite being the picture of perfection as a woman, wife, and mother—dissatisfies her husband. For some reason that he cannot quite put his finger on, In-hye's husband prefers Yeong-hye over her sister. The paradoxicality of his statement suggests that there is no acceptable way to be a woman in this society.
Her calm acceptance of all these things made her seem to him something sacred. Whether human, animal or plant, she could not be called a "person," but then she wasn't exactly some feral creature either—more like a mysterious being with qualities of both.
Although Yeong-hye herself intends to eradicate her humanity and transform into a plant, this quote demonstrates the dehumanizing lens through which her brother-in-law views her. He puts her on a pedestal as something "sacred" that he would like to capture and consume.
Their parents, whom the saga seemed to have greatly aged, didn't make any further effort to visit Yeong-hye, and even severed contact with their elder daughter, In-hye, who reminded them of their animal of a son-in-law. The two sisters' younger brother, Yeong-ho, and his wife were no different. But she, In-hye, could not bring herself to abandon Yeong-hye.
In-hye alone shoulders the responsibility of supporting Yeong-hye when the rest of the family cuts off contact with them. Though In-hye does not linger on describing the estrangement, it is clear that the compounding stress begins to take a toll on her well-being. In-hye is the only character in the novel who attempts to truly empathize with and care for Yeong-hye.
He seems worn out, trying to conceal the anger he feels toward those patients who fail to live up to his expectations.
Here, In-hye describes the demeanor of Yeong-hye's doctor at the psychiatric hospital. When Yeong-hye does not comply with her treatment plan, the medical staff respond with derision and force. However, the word "conceal" in this quote shows that the doctor attempts to hide his anger and adopt a professional bedside manner.
"I'm not an animal anymore, sister," she said, scanning the empty ward as if about to disclose a momentous secret. "I don't need to eat, not now. I can live without it. All I need is sunlight."
In her desperation to escape being a human and specifically, a woman, Yeong-hye imagines that she metamorphoses into a plant. Her psychosis shunts her into a different reality, and she fights tooth and nail to enact her agency. Ironically, however, this agency will inevitably starve her to death.
It's your body, you can treat it how you please. The only area where you're free to do just as you like. And even that doesn't turn out how you wanted.
In this quote, In-hye intertwines agency with the physical body and one's perception of it. She acknowledges that her sister's actions (widely perceived as strange, dangerous, and unacceptable) are actually an attempt at enacting agency. However, Yeong-hye fails in her attempts due to life-saving medical intervention.
Quietly, she breathes in. The trees by the side of the road are blazing, green fire undulating like the rippling flanks of a massive animal, wild and savage. In-hye stares fiercely at the trees. As if waiting for an answer. As if protesting against something. The look in her eyes is dark and insistent.
Han ends the novel with this ambiguous image of In-hye gazing fiercely at the woods. She opens her eyes to the world and the moment before her in such a way that blurs the definition of reality. Whether In-hye begins to follow in her sister's footsteps or not, she remains grounded in her own defiance.
