“Green fire”

“Green fire” names a recurring image of the trees as they blaze with green light in the rain and summer sun. At the end of the novel, it gives the roadside landscape an intensity of its own while In-hye rides with Yeong-hye in the ambulance, leaving the image suspended between natural radiance, animal force, and protest.

Appearance and Recurrence

In the waning afternoon, rain glitters on the dense, luxuriant summer woods beyond the ambulance windshield, kindling a green fire. The phrase makes reflected light seem to burn: the trees remain trees, but the shifting brightness gives them a forceful, almost animate presence. Rather than offering a calm backdrop to the journey, the woods press into the scene through their vividness.

The image returns as the ambulance leaves Mount Ch’ukseong. In-hye breathes in and watches the roadside trees, where green fire undulates like the rippling flanks of a massive animal. The comparison shifts the image from light toward bodily motion: the trees appear wild and savage, with a presence that cannot be reduced to scenery.

In-hye’s Encounter with the Trees

In-hye’s gaze at the trees follows her attempt to speak to Yeong-hye. She suggests that their situation may be a kind of dream, then tells her sister that she too has dreams and could let herself dissolve into them, but wonders whether waking must still be possible. The ambulance rounds the last bend in the road, and In-hye sees a black bird fly toward dark clouds; sunlight dazzles and stings her eyes until she can no longer follow its flight.

The trees hold her attention after that failed effort to follow the bird. In-hye stares fiercely at their blazing movement, as if waiting for an answer and as if protesting against something. Her dark, insistent look does not resolve what she is protesting or what answer she expects. The image gathers that unresolved pressure without turning it into a conclusion.

Ending and Significance

The final image links the novel’s ending to its title, “Flaming Trees.” Green fire is at once a description of rainlit foliage and a charged vision encountered at the edge of departure from Mount Ch’ukseong. Its animal-like movement gives the natural world a force that seems to meet In-hye’s gaze, rather than merely reflect her feelings.

The ending leaves In-hye between her sister’s absorption in dreams and her own insistence that waking may remain possible. The green fire supplies no answer; its undulating, savage vitality intensifies the question she carries into the final moment. As the last image, it preserves both the brightness of the trees and the unresolved strain of her protest.