Ethics of eating meat
Ethics of eating meat has provoked a lot of arguments and even made people to divide into two groups. The first one doesn’t think that they should stop eating meat just because of animals’ suffering. They say that we are predators and not eating meat might be dangerous for people’s health. The second group brings up the problem of the environmental impact of animal production, animals’ rights and even that meat is unfit for human consumption. Yeong-hye ‘s decision to stop eating animal products is absolutely based on ethics. She suffers from bad dreams that are filled with blood and loses a sense of real world, for it is based on cruelty to animals and environmental destruction. It is not a coincidence that Yeong-hye wants to be a tree, for it can harm no one.
In sickness and in health
Marriage vows are a beautiful part of a wedding ceremony. They are sweet, touching, beautiful but – unfortunately, more often than anyone would like to admit – these words are futile. It is easy to love somebody when the person is healthy, happy and pleasant to deal with, but a life with a sick person might become a burden. Mr. Cheong’s decision to leave his wife in order to save his reputation and make his life as comfortable as it used to be proves that some people – notwithstanding the fact that they are married – are not ready to stay with their partners when problems appear on the horizon.
An unbearable life
In-hye’s story is as tragic as – if not even more tragic than – her sister’s. She has to be stronger and kinder than other members of her family only to break under the weight of responsibility a little bit later. Her story proves that even the most ordered life could shatter in a blink of an eye. It doesn’t mean that everyone is bound to disappoint in a life sooner or later, the story just teaches us to be attentive and not to miss the signals that the subconscious send us.
Desolation and Desperation
The characters in Yeong-Hye's family all experience desolation and desperation in varying degrees. For Yeong-Hye, she experiences desolation as soon as she begins having her vivid and brutal dreams. She begins to withdraw mentally, emotionally, and socially from her family and all aspects of life. This extreme isolation she faces soon turns into desperation as she tries to get her family members to understand what she is going through and her reasoning behind everything. The desolation Yeong-Hye feels reaches an all time high when her father's attempt at force-feeding her leads to a suicide attempt.
For Yeong-Hye's brother-in-law, his desolation lies in the fact that he is unsatisfied in his marriage, and seeks erotic art to fill the desires that his marriage does not fill. This craze and loneliness in his personal life leads him to having an affair with Yeong-Hye which wrecks his relationship with his wife and family. Yeong-Hye's sister, In-Hye, is desperate to contain her sister's madness and prevent it from spreading elsewhere. While she does not fully understand her sister's crazed state, she does try to prevent their father from force feeding Yeong-Hye. Her loneliness stems from the infidelity and betrayal by her husband and having to "corral" her sister into normalcy.
