The Vegetarian

The second part of the novel is written from the perspective of Yeong-hye’s brother-in-law, who is never named in the novel. He is watching a dance performance that he had chosen to attend because of the provocative posters depicting men and women who were painted “from the napes of their necks right down to their bottoms with flowers” (63). He is stunned that “the image that had possessed him for almost a year now had also been dreamed up by someone else” (64) and leaves the performance feeling unhappy with the director’s choices. After the show, he takes the train and ponders his reflection in the glass, which shows a “middle-aged man” (65) of average looks. 

Instead of going home, he goes to his art studio, which he shares with three other artists. He takes out his sketches and the master tape that contains the originals of his video art pieces. As he looks through his sketches, he thinks more about the bodies of the dancers that he has imagined in his drawings. The image, which deviates from his traditional style, came to him by chance when his wife commented on their son’s Mongolian mark and casually mentioned that Yeong-hye may still have hers as well: “just a thumb-sized thing, blue” (67).