Yeong-hye’s Father Character Analysis

Yeong-hye, In-hye, and Yeong-ho’s father. Yeong-hye’s father is described as a strict and violent Vietnam War veteran. At the end of the novel, In-hye reflects on the fact that Yeong-hye is the only one that Yeong-hye’s father had beaten growing up, and she had internalized this violence. This assertion is given more proof when Yeong-hye remembers an incident in which she had been bitten by a dog, and Yeong-hye’s father ran the dog until it died of exhaustion, strangled and bloody. Yeong-hye is haunted by the image of the dog and how she ate its meat afterward. This and the other similar dreams are what prompts Yeong-hye to decide to give up eating meat, seeing it as a violent facet of human existence. Yeong-hye’s father and mother, however, view this as obstinate disobedience toward her husband and a poor reflection on them as parents, which prompts him to slap Yeong-hye and force her to eat meat. In response, she cuts her own wrist open, again trying to assert autonomy over her body by any means necessary.