In contrast to meat, which represents violence, plants (mostly flowers and trees) come to represent Yeong-hye’s desire to lead an innocent life. After Yeong-hye throws out all of the meat in the house, she tries to live a more passive and gentle life. This is what leads her to want to model for the brother-in-law; the fact that he wants to paint her in flowers attract her, as she feels connected to the gentleness and innocence of that symbol. The irony of the flowers, however, is that the brother-in-law sees them as a symbol of sexuality, and he violates her innocence by having sex with her even when she cries and asks him to stop.
This incident is perhaps what leads Yeong-hye to want to become more like a tree, with its strength and passivity. This desire becomes embodied as she tries to act like a tree, and calls the trees “brothers and sisters.” The fact that Yeong-hye is never fully able to achieve the life of a plant, however, illuminates Han’s argument that human beings can never be truly innocent.
Plants Quotes in The Vegetarian
In that barn, what had I done? Pushed that red raw mass into my mouth, felt it squish against my gums, the roof of my mouth, slick with crimson blood.
Can only trust my breasts now. I like my breasts, nothing can be killed by them. Hand, foot, tongue, gaze, all weapons from which nothing is safe. But not my breasts. With my round breasts, I’m okay. Still okay. So why do they keep on shrinking? Not even round anymore. Why? Why am I changing like this? Why are my edges all sharpening—what I am going to gouge?
Though In-hye sprang at him and held him by the waist, in the instant that the force of the slap had knocked my wife's mouth open he'd managed to jam the pork in. As soon as the strength in Yeong-ho's arms was visibly exhausted, my wife growled and spat out the meat. An animal cry of distress burst from her lips.
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.
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?
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.
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 . . .”
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?”
Look, sister, I'm doing a handstand, leaves are growing out of my body, roots are sprouting out of my hands…they delve down into the earth. Endlessly, endlessly…yes, I spread my legs because I wanted flowers to bloom from my crotch, I spread them wide…
Plants Symbol Timeline in The Vegetarian
