Summary
In-hye wonders whether she is also mentally deteriorating due to her pain and exhaustion. Moments with her son Ji-woo keep her afloat. However, she also keeps having visions of undulating forests in which she cannot understand what the trees want to tell her. She only knows that their words are not meant to comfort her.
In-hye watches the medical staff move Yeong-hye to another ward, bind her to a bed, and insert a feeding tube into her body against her will. Unable to stand it, In-hye intervenes and forces the staff to stop. Yeong-hye vomits blood, and her doctor sends the sisters away in an ambulance with instructions for In-hye to get her sister admitted to the general hospital in Seoul.
In-hye feels ashamed at how she easily "abandons" her son to look after Yeong-hye. As the ambulance rounds the bend and leaves Mount Ch'ukseong, In-hye speaks to her sister about dreams and reality.
Analysis
As In-hye continues to care for Ji-woo, Yeong-hye, and her business, the intense stress and exhaustion she experiences cause her to wonder if she is going down the same path of mental deterioration as Yeong-hye. The "pain and insomnia" that "has In-hye in its grip" results from having to be a caregiver without any support system herself. Any one of these responsibilities (caring for a child, looking after a relative with mental health issues, or running a business) could already be a significant obligation, but In-hye must reckon with all three by herself now that the rest of the family has abandoned both her and Yeong-hye.
Nature continues to appear in In-hye's consciousness. Although she cannot decipher what the trees in her visions are trying to tell her, she knows with certainty that "there had been no warmth in it." Instead, she says, "the words were frighteningly chilling, mercilessly insistent upon life." Here, life is a much more brutal message than longing for death. As Yeong-hye stated earlier, "why, is it such a bad thing to die?" In-hye begins to open herself up to this perspective.
In-hye notices how much authority the doctors hold at the psychiatric institution. The place resembles a prison because the patients are "not free to leave," for the sake of their own safety and sometimes that of others. While on the one hand, In-hye notices that Yeong-hye's doctor seems angry that he cannot bend Yeong-hye's will, In-hye also sees him do his best to appease patients and their family members. Ultimately, though, In-hye comes to see the psychiatric hospital as a prison where the staff violates Yeong-hye's boundaries. In-hye feels immensely guilty "over having had Yeong-hye incarcerated there."
In-hye accuses herself of abandoning her son in order to accompany Yeong-hye to the hospital. Perhaps it is not so much the action of leaving her son with a neighbor in this emergency situation as it is about how easily In-hye made the decision. This is supported by the fact that In-hye supposes that she herself would have mentally deteriorated had her husband and sister not crossed the line first.
Dreams continue to blend with reality. In-hye remembers a dream Ji-woo had in which she was a white bird with hands. He cried while recounting the dream, and In-hye comforted him. However, upon reflection, In-hye questions whether it had "really been just a dream, a mere coincidence." The very last image of the novel (where In-hye stares down the flaming trees with a "dark and insistent" look in her eyes) similarly remains ambiguous. Not only is it up to the reader's interpretation as to whether In-hye is following in her sister's footsteps; the whole notion of sanity and reality is brought into question.
