The Vegetarian

In Part 3, In-hye visits Yeong-hye at the Ch’ukseong Psychiatric Hospital. It rains heavily as she travels by bus to the hospital, and In-hye spends the ride thinking about the past. Three months ago, Yeong-hye went missing from the hospital and was found in “an isolated spot […] standing there stock-still and soaked with rain as if she herself were one of the glistening trees” (131). 

As the bus ride continues, In-hye recalls that she only visited monthly before Yeong-hye had gone missing. Now, In-hye visits weekly. In-hye sometimes had moments where Yeong-hye would eat something that In-hye had brought to the hospital, and In-hye believed that these moments “never failed to lighten her heart” (135). In-hye reflects on Yeong-hye’s maturation into an adult who was “difficult to read […] like a total stranger” (135). In-hye believes that both her husband and Yeong-hye are “baffling to her in exactly the same way” (136). 

After getting off the bus, In-hye walks through a long dark tunnel toward the hospital. She thinks about her husband and his artwork, wondering if she had ever “really understood her husband’s true nature” (137). When they had met, she believed that she wanted to “use her own strength” to allow this tired man “to rest” (137).