Yeong-hye, In-hye, and Yeong-ho’s mother. When Mr. Cheong calls and informs Yeong-hye’s mother that Yeong-hye is refusing to eat, she grows furious at her daughter’s disobedience, thinking it reflects poorly on her as a mother. She and Yeong-hye’s father help stage an intervention for Yeong-hye and try to force her to eat meat, but this backfires when Yeong-hye slices her wrist open. After Mr. Cheong serves Yeong-hye with divorce papers, Yeong-hye’s mother and father completely abandon her, providing one of the main negative consequences for breaking social conventions in this society.
Get the entire The Vegetarian LitChart as a printable PDF.
Yeong-hye’s Mother Character Timeline in The Vegetarian
The timeline below shows where the character Yeong-hye’s Mother appears in The Vegetarian. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1: The Vegetarian
That evening, after Yeong-hye goes to bed, Mr. Cheong decides to phone Yeong-hye’s mother. He tells her that Yeong-hye has become a vegetarian and has imposed the diet on...
(full context)
Yeong-hye’s mother and In-hye’s calls have no effect on Yeong-hye. The next weekend, Yeong-hye’s father calls, bellowing...
(full context)
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 Yeong-hye doesn’t touch her...
(full context)
Yeong-hye’s mother brings in an assortment of dishes with meat and fish in them, insisting that Yeong-hye...
(full context)
The next day, Mr. Cheong visits Yeong-hye at the hospital after work. Yeong-hye’s mother also visits, and she gives Yeong-hye goat soup (which she tells Yeong-hye is herbal medicine)....
(full context)
Yeong-hye thinks that she doesn’t know why “that woman” (her mother) is crying. She looks at her wrist, which she explains doesn’t bother her; instead, she...
(full context)
