Summary
The narrator films himself painting Yeong-hye's body with flowers, stems, and leaves. He cannot help but film her face, too, despite having promised not to. Afterwards, they eat at a restaurant serving Buddhist vegetarian food. The narrator asks Yeong-hye why she refrains from eating meat and she says it's because she dreamed of a face.
In-hye calls her husband after he arrives home after 9 p.m., and he tells her that their son is sleeping so deeply that he intends to go to his studio. He stays up all night editing the video, calling it "Mongolian Mark 1—Flowers of Night and Flowers of Day." Tortured, he thinks about what he would film for Part 2: a painted man and woman having intercourse.
When the narrator calls Yeong-hye to set up another day to film, she tells him that she never washed the flowers off because they stopped her dreams from coming. He asks if a man can participate in the next session, and Yeong-hye eventually says yes, so he recruits another artist named J. When J becomes uncomfortable to the point of quitting the endeavor, the narrator pressures him to stay for as long as possible.
The flowers painted on J's body arouse Yeong-hye, and later the narrator tries to have sex with her. She says no, pushes him away, and laughs when the narrator asks if she would consent to having sex with him on tape if he painted flowers on himself.
Later, the narrator drives to see his ex-girlfriend, a female artist named P. She paints flowers all over his body. After, he immediately drives to Yeong-hye's apartment and has sex with her. He sets up the camcorder and they perform the act again. Yeong-hye hopes aloud that this will prevent her disturbing dreams from returning.
The next morning, the narrator wakes to find his wife sitting at the kitchen table, having watched the footage. She calls emergency services to come get her sister and her husband, both of whom In-hye believes need medical treatment.
Analysis
Although the narrator guesses that "things were happening inside [Yeong-hye], terrible things, which no one else could even guess at," it never once occurs to him that using her for his artistic project could potentially worsen her mental state. The narrator even calls Mr. Cheong, Yeong-hye's ex-husband, an "insensitive oaf" for his ignorance about what makes his wife unique, like the existence of her Mongolian mark. Ultimately, however, the narrator is using Yeong-hye for his own benefit without considering her well-being, just like Mr. Cheong did.
The narrator's conception of Yeong-hye utterly dehumanizes her. After painting flowers on her, he says, "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." Othering Yeong-hye escalates the situation into dark territory when the narrator eventually uses her to satisfy his sexual desires.
So far in the book, Yeong-hye's refusal to eat meat is the starkest example of a woman exercising her own volition. Yeong-hye's sister In-hye never confronts her husband about his neglect as both a husband and father. Instead, she shoulders all the burdens and responsibilities for the family (which include supporting them financially and taking care of their young son). When the husband tells In-hye that he intends to leave their son asleep at home alone to go to his studio, In-hye tells him, "If you want to go, then go." She submits to her husband's whims even when she clearly disagrees.
The men in this novel disregard the need for women's consent. For example, both Yeong-hye and In-hye's husbands forcefully have sex with them, but no one considers it rape since it occurs in the context of marriage. Yeong-hye's father also tries to physically force her to eat meat by shoving pork in her mouth. In all these cases, men exert their dominance over women with the intention of controlling them. In-hye's husband reveals the underlying mindset that justifies this behavior when he says, "he'd figured out by now that [Yeong-hye's long silences] generally signified consent."
When In-hye discovers what her husband has been up to, she calls emergency services so that both he and Yeong-hye can receive treatment. The boundary that the narrator trespassed was so egregious that In-hye intends to have him committed. The final image in Part 2 reveals just how damaging this whole experience was to Yeong-hye's mental state. With a blank expression, Yeong-hye walks out naked onto the veranda, her body still painted with flowers, and leans over the balcony to spread her legs towards the sunlight and wind. In-hye finally blames her husband when she calls him a bastard and points out how unwell her sister is.
