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Mr. Cheong
Yeong-hye’s unnamed brother-in-law and In-hye’s husband, who provides the narrative perspective in the second section of the book. The brother-in-law is a video artist, while In-hye is both the primary breadwinner and the primary caretaker of their young son, Ji-woo. In-hye and her husband’s marriage is largely joyless, as the two are revealed to understand each other very little. When the brother-in-law learns from In-hye that Yeong-hye still has a Mongolian mark, he becomes obsessed with images of naked men and women having sex, their bodies covered in painted flowers. He asks Yeong-hye to model for him, then asks her to return to pose with a fellow artist named J. When he asks J and Yeong-hye to have sex for real, J storms out, refusing to do it. The brother-in-law then has flowers painted on himself and films himself and Yeong-hye having sex—even after she revokes her consent to do so. When In-hye finds the tape of the two of them having sex, she calls emergency services on the brother-in-law, assuming that he is not in his right mind. He then tries to throw himself off of a balcony railing, proving how overwhelming isolation and feelings of being misunderstood can often lead to madness. The brother-in-law is then forced to go into hiding and In-hye refuses to allow him to see Ji-woo, proving the harsh consequences that society provides for breaking its conventions.
The Brother-in-Law / In-hye’s Husband Quotes in The Vegetarian
The The Vegetarian quotes below are all either spoken by The Brother-in-Law / In-hye’s Husband or refer to The Brother-in-Law / In-hye’s Husband. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 1: The Vegetarian Quotes
Before my wife turned vegetarian, I'd always thought of her as completely unremarkable in every way.
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Chapter 2: Mongolian Mark Quotes
In precisely that moment he was struck by the image of a blue flower on a woman’s buttocks, its petals opening outward. In his mind, the fact that his sister-in-law still had a Mongolian mark on her buttocks became inexplicably bound up with the image of men and women having sex, their naked bodies completely covered with painted flowers. The causality linking these two things was so clear, so obvious, as to be somehow beyond comprehension, and thus it became etched into his mind.
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When it was all over, she was crying. He couldn't tell what these tears meant—pain, pleasure, passion, disgust, or some inscrutable loneliness that she would have been no more able to explain than he would have been to understand. He didn't know.
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Seeing how utterly baffled he was, she laughed quietly. A melancholic laugh. “Didn’t I say you wouldn’t understand?”
He couldn’t ask: in that case, why did you use to bare your breasts to the sunlight, like some kind of mutant animal that had evolved to be able to photosynthesize? Was that because of a dream too?
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She rubbed her neck against J’s like they were two birds caressing, almost as if she’d seen his sketches and knew exactly what he wanted her to do.
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He stood up, stepped close to her and pushed her still-fevered body up against the wall. But when he pressed his lips firmly against hers, probing with his tongue, she shoved him away again.
“Why shouldn't we? Because I'm your brother-in-law?”
“No, it’s nothing to do with that.”
“Then why not? Come on, you said you were all wet!” She was silent. “Did you fancy that kid?”
“It wasn’t him, it was the flowers . . .”
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He held her at the waist and stroked the mark, wishing that he could share it with her, that it could be seared onto his skin like a brand. I want to swallow you, have you melt into me and flow through my veins.
“Will the dreams stop now?" she muttered, her voice barely audible.
“Dreams? Ah, the face…that's right, you said it was a face, no?” he said, feeling drowsiness slowly creep through his body. “What kind of face? Whose face?”
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He had to rush out onto the veranda, now, and throw himself over the railing against which she was leaning. He would fall down three floors and smash his head to pieces.
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Chapter 3: Flaming Trees Quotes
“I don't know you,” she muttered, tightening her grip on the receiver, which she’d hung back in the cradle but was still clutching. “So there's no need for us to forgive each other. Because I don't know you.”
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If her husband and Yeong-hye hadn't smashed through all the boundaries, if everything hadn't splintered apart, then perhaps she was the one who would have broken down, and if she'd let that happen, if she'd let go of the thread, she might never have found it again.
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The Brother-in-Law / In-hye’s Husband Character Timeline in The Vegetarian
The timeline below shows where the character The Brother-in-Law / In-hye’s Husband appears in The Vegetarian. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1: The Vegetarian
At the family gathering at In-hye’s apartment, In-hye and Yeong-hye’s brother-in-law are introduced. Mr. Cheong describes how In-hye is the primary breadwinner in the family, managing...
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Mr. Cheong, In-hye, the brother-in-law, Yeong-hye’s father and mother, and Yeong-hye’s brother Yeong-ho all make pleasant conversation over lunch, but...
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...then picks up a fruit knife and slices her wrist open, blood spurting out. The brother-in-law grabs the knife and tries to stop the bleeding, picking up Yeong-hye in his arms...
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...the hospital, now out of critical condition after being brought by Mr. Cheong and the brother-in-law. Yeong-ho, his wife In-hye, and Mr. Cheong are all watching her sleep. Yeong-ho’s wife comments...
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Chapter 2: Mongolian Mark
This section is narrated by the brother-in-law, who is attending a dance piece two years later. He is disappointed by the performance:...
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The brother-in-law knows he should go home to Ji-woo and In-hye, but he instead goes to the...
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The images had come to the brother-in-law from a chance conversation: he had noted Ji-woo still had a Mongolian mark while giving...
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The brother-in-law had quickly become obsessed with the image, and back in the studio he decides that...
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When the brother-in-law returns home, he finds In-hye, exhausted. She had gone back to a full-time job at...
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In-hye tells him how overloaded she’s been, as she hadn’t heard from the brother-in-law all day, Ji-woo has a cold, and she’s worried about Yeong-hye, who was just served...
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It had been two years prior that Yeong-hye had cut herself. The brother-in-law is haunted by how she had screamed, and remembers carrying her and watching as she...
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When the brother-in-law took a car from the hospital, he had thought about his most recent video work,...
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In the present, the brother-in-law calls Yeong-hye and tells her that In-hye is worried. He recalls how, after she had...
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The brother-in-law drives to Yeong-hye’s apartment, bringing some fruit for her to eat. When he arrives, he...
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The brother-in-law apologizes for staring, but Yeong-hye says it’s okay, explaining that she just likes being undressed...
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The brother-in-law invites Yeong-hye for a walk and buys her a shaved ice from a nearby café....
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The brother-in-law sets up his paints, lighting, and camcorder in a friend’s studio. Close to 3 p.m.,...
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A few nights prior, after going to see Yeong-hye, the brother-in-law had been overcome by desire and pulled In-hye to him in bed. He put her...
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The brother-in-law brings Yeong-hye back from the station, and he instructs her to take off her clothes...
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When the brother-in-law is done painting Yeong-hye’s backside, he realizes something about her body: “this was the body...
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Yeong-hye and the brother-in-law take a brief break, after which the brother-in-law resumes painting, this time on Yeong-hye’s front....
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When the brother-in-law is finished, he asks Yeong-hye to lie on her side, and he films her body,...
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Yeong-hye and the brother-in-law find a Buddhist restaurant, which is more likely to have vegetarian food. During the meal,...
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The brother-in-law drops Yeong-hye off at her building and thanks her. She smiles in response, and the...
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The brother-in-law picks up the sleeping Ji-woo from his neighbor at 9:20 p.m. and carries him to...
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The brother-in-law works through the next day, cutting the tapes into a five-minute movie that he labels...
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The brother-in-law has a dream about Yeong-hye, lying in front of him, her whole body covered in...
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The next day, the brother-in-law calls Yeong-hye again, asking if she’s washed the paint off. She says she hasn’t, as...
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The brother-in-law calls In-hye, telling her that he’d be busy until the following night. She simply says,...
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When the brother-in-law shows J the tapes, J calls it the brother-in-law’s best work. The brother-in-law then asks...
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When the brother-in-law has finished painting, Yeong-hye takes her clothes off once more. She and J kneel together,...
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The brother-in-law continues to direct J and Yeong-hye, telling them to lie on top of each other....
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...continues, but his and Yeong-hye’s sexual tension has dissipated, and J’s movements are forced. The brother-in-law is frustrated: he can see that Yeong-hye’s body is “flushed with desire,” and he feels...
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After J leaves, the brother-in-law apologizes to Yeong-hye. She starts to laugh as she dresses; when he asks why, she...
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The brother-in-law quickly drives to a former girlfriend’s apartment, a fellow artist he refers to as “P.”...
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The brother-in-law returns to his studio, where Yeong-hye is waiting naked. Forgetting the lighting and the camcorder,...
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The brother-in-law apologizes; their sex had been very one-sided and hadn’t lasted five minutes. Yeong-hye turns on...
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When the brother-in-law wakes up at 1 p.m., Yeong-hye is still asleep. He puts on pants, then realizes...
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The brother-in-law puts on a shirt as he tries to explain, but In-hye stops him and tells...
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Chapter 3: Flaming Trees
...seemed like a total stranger.” She thinks, too, that this had been true of her husband: “in certain respects they were both baffling to her in exactly the same way.” She...
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In-hye recalls the day she first met her husband. He had come into her shop, completely worn out and looking for shaving lotion. She...
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In-hye found over their marriage that her husband respected her and was kind, but that his true love was reserved for his artwork....
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...goes into the bathroom and sits in the bathtub with her clothes on, as her husband once had. Feeling the coziness of the tub, she thinks that he might not have...
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...up the fruit knife, or dissuaded Mr. Cheong from casting Yeong-hye aside, or prevented her husband from taking advantage of her. She thinks that what her husband had done was unforgiveable.
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In-hye recalls the day she found her husband and Yeong-hye. Paramedics had gotten Yeong-hye into a straitjacket while she struggled, biting them. Her...
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In-hye’s husband had been held in a police cell after the hospital confirmed he wasn’t mentally ill....
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...could have done to prevent all of this from happening. She wonders again about her ex-husband, who has only called her once (around nine months ago) since they split, asking to...
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...anyone. It had happened two years earlier, in the spring of the year when her husband had made the video of Yeong-hye. In-hye had bled from her vagina for close to...
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After that summer had past, one night In-hye’s husband arrived in In-hye’s bed in the middle of the night after several days away and...
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...that even for a moment, she had thought to abandon Ji-woo. She wonders if her husband and Yeong-hye had not “smashed through all the boundaries,” that perhaps she might have been...
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