sighing as thin as the smoke rising from a cup of tea. Like a leaf drifting along the long river, just waiting for the day to reach the river's edge" [20, p71]. As a model of a traditional woman, possessing all the traditional beauty of the people of Trang An, Mrs. Minh has a slim, small figure, walking leisurely and slowly. As the eldest sister in the family, she is very good at everything from cooking to sewing. Mrs. Minh is a disciplined, exemplary and meticulous person in her lifestyle, "becoming an example for all her younger siblings, children and grandchildren, especially when her grandparents have passed away. Although she is a woman, her younger siblings always ask for her opinion on big and small matters in the family and relatives" [20, p9]. None of her children know how to appreciate or preserve the beautiful traits she still retains. No matter how neat, skillful and thoughtful Mrs. Minh is, her only daughter is just as careless and clumsy. “Mrs. Minh and her daughter are like day and night. Why can’t Vien be a little bit like Mrs. Minh?” “Vien is just like that, walking beside Mrs. Minh. Innocent, without rules, without limits, without manners” [20, p100]. As for her son, he is weak and selfish. Mrs. Minh’s loneliness and disillusionment is the loneliness between the ideals of the older generation on one side and the lifestyle and indifference to the traditional values of the younger generation on the other. The loneliness and inner conflict make this woman always “think too much”. She can only relive the past through stories.
The character Trinh - a newly graduated journalism student who is always talkative and smiling, but there are times when this character becomes pensive and lost in thought. After her mother passed away, she always lives in beautiful childhood memories with her mother and brother "my mother always loved the sun like this, the yellow sun, bright and warm. My mother would take my brother and I's blankets out to dry... At night, my brother and I would crawl into the blankets and stick our necks out to ask if your blanket is warm? Is my blanket warm? So happy" [20, pp. 156,157]. After the events of her life, Trinh seemed to lose faith and doubt life. There were times when Trinh felt helpless before the difficult life ahead even though she was at the age of " giving life to those who are
dream”. “Uncle, have you ever felt bored with this life?... Have you ever wanted, really wanted something but couldn’t get it, like me?[20, p161]. Trinh – a girl from a poor rural area tried hard to go to Hanoi to study with the hope that after graduating she would get a decent job, dreaming of a better life. But after graduating from journalism school, she struggled so much that she could only get an unpaid probationary contract at the Ward Committee, responsible for designing a website that “ has everything ”. Working in that environment, the young graduate had to endure a lot of pressure at work and in relationships at the office. Trinh once thought that after graduating, she would try to stay in Hanoi “to work for a few years, try to earn some money” [20, p99] and then bring her mother here to live. But there is a huge gap between reality and dreams. To be able to live in this city is a struggle to make a living, let alone thinking about buying land and building a house. Chinh Phuong, when hearing Trinh speak, sighed and thought to himself, "A girl in her early twenties, with an income below average, not knowing her father, and her mother having cancer, how will she continue to live in this land?" [20, p99]. Loneliness has made Trinh older, she no longer listens to music, no longer sways to the music, Trinh also smokes. Trinh's loneliness is the loneliness between the aspirations of youth and the harsh reality. The desire and effort to leave her hometown to study in the city to have a good future, but after graduating, to find a job in her major with a salary enough to cover her life and the urgent needs of food and accommodation is already good enough, let alone something more luxurious. The character Trinh is the embodiment of many young people from the provinces who leave their hometown to go to the city.
It can be seen that the negative side of the market economy and industrial civilization is like a whirlwind that floods every corner of life, making people in general and urban people in particular become helpless because they cannot adapt to the situation. People live among friends, family, colleagues,
community but still feel lost, carrying loneliness. Living in the middle of a crowded city but not finding the warmth of human love and true sharing. People live but always feel like they are on the sidelines of life and realize that they are a "redundant person", a "out of date" person. The images of Mrs. Minh, Vien, Trinh are just very real examples in this life, there are so many people like the characters in the novel... Do Bich Thuy has successfully portrayed lonely people in the mentality of a person today, living in the city, also influenced by life and circumstances.
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CHAPTER 3
CONTEMPORARY CITY IN NOVELS
LAUNDRY SHOP - VIEWED FROM ART FORM
3.1. Narrative point of view
According to the Dictionary of Literary Terms , artistic viewpoint is “the position from which the narrator looks out and describes things in the work. There can be no narration without viewpoint because it shows the attention, interest and characteristics of the subject in creating an artistic view. The value of artistic creation is partly due to giving the viewer a view of life. The change of art begins with a change in viewpoint” [9, p. 113]. Artistic viewpoint is one of the leading factors of artistic creation. Belinsky once said that “when standing in front of a beautiful landscape, there is only one viewpoint that allows us to see the whole picture and its depth. Standing too close or too far, leaning too far to the right or left will also make the landscape lose its integrity and perfection” [16, p. 310].
There are many ways to classify artistic viewpoints. In terms of narrative perspective, narrative viewpoints are divided into two types: the narrator's (author's) viewpoint and the character's viewpoint. The narrator's viewpoint narrates according to the observations and understanding of the narrator standing outside the story. It is not limited, bringing maximum objectivity to the narrative [16, p310,311]. The character's viewpoint narrates according to the viewpoint of a character in the work, limited by the status, understanding, and stance of that character. But this type allows the introduction of personal viewpoints, psychological nuances, and personality into the narrative, with strong subjectivity, enhancing lyricism or satire [16, p311].
From a psychological perspective, one can distinguish between an internal and an external perspective. The internal perspective “allows narration through the lens of a particular state of mind, easily reproducing the processes in the character's soul.”
[16, p311]. The narrative point of view is outside the third-person narrative – the author. With this point of view, the narrator often hides his face (hides himself) to cover the whole story and then tells it according to his own opinion.
In the novel The Laundry Shop , Do Bich Thuy flexibly uses different points of view, alternating between the narrator's point of view and the character's point of view. There are details in which the writer continuously switches from the outside to the inside to reveal the thoughts of her characters. There are many passages in which Do Bich Thuy uses an outside point of view, calmly recounting the story she witnessed. The writer recounts the humorous dialogues of the characters. The following passage can be taken as an example:
“Vinh and Le were whispering to each other next to the charcoal clothes dryer.
Vinh:
- Do you like that sweater? I'll buy it for you! Le:
- Crazy!
- I'm serious. Your skin is white, it must look great in that shirt.
- Beauty or ugliness has nothing to do with you.
- It's irrelevant. I just like looking. (…)
- Hey, I'll buy you that sweater!
- No money to buy. Draw!
- We're getting paid soon. Ms. Oanh said she'll give us a raise this month because we have a lot of goods.
- Bring your salary home for your mother to buy Tet gifts.
- I'll bring it back. Don't worry.
- I have money too. I bought it myself.
- I told you I would give it to you.
- Suddenly giving away shirts. No problem. Give it to Tu.
- Tu is fat and short, even wearing a fairy dress, she's still ugly. Besides, I like giving it to you.
(…)
Le shouted:
- Watch your mouth. I'll slap you until your teeth break. Vinh chuckled:
- I don't know if I've ever paid anyone back, but I always threaten."
[20, pp. 87, 88, 89]
Throughout such a long passage, readers only see the dialogues between the characters Tu, Le, and Vinh. The writer recorded each dialogue very realistically and specifically, the characters' short, concise lines: " Crazy! ", "Slap yourself", "Draw!"... and even the daily language used in "Unrelated", "nha", "ma li", "khac"... Through those dialogues, readers see the humor of the young employees. Do Bich Thuy has created for herself a favorable perspective to record the scenes of life, the stories that are very rich in urban life with many relationships between family, friends and the community.
The novel The Laundry Shop is told in the third person from an outside perspective mainly, but there are many passages where the author moves the perspective from the outside in a very flexible way. Initially, the story is still told from the narrator's perspective, but then gradually interweaves the telling with the expression of mood, making the characters' stories more profound, creating a sedimentation for the story being told. Retelling Phuong's conversation with Trinh, starting from the dialogues of the characters, the author shifts the perspective:
“Trinh still turned her face outside, her hair fluttering, the sunlight surrounding Trinh like a backlit photo. Trinh said in a whisper:
- Uncle, do you ever get bored with this life? Phuong was startled, a sharp pain ran down her spine.
- Don't talk nonsense Trinh! Trinh turned back:
- Where do you think you're going? Are you afraid I'll follow my mother? Phuong stiffened in her chair:
- I would never do that. Living this life is a blessing, being the child of a mother like you is even more blessing.
Phuong remained silent.
- I ask you that because, not counting the things we have lost, there are also things we want but can never have. Wanting but can't have, wanting but can only be seen from afar, can only be kept somewhere, very deep, very far away, very obscure" [20, pp. 161,162].
In the above passage, through the dialogue of the characters, the writer not only stands outside to witness and narrate, but sometimes seems to enter the character, through Trinh's thoughts " not counting the things we have lost, there are also things we want but can never have. Wanting but can't have, wanting but can only stand from afar to look at, can only keep it somewhere, so deep, so far away, so obscure"; Phuong's thoughts: "Human beings, how many dreams, how many aspirations only burn brightly when they are young. But that happy, passionate youth, why does it pass so quickly" to express sympathy for the fate of the characters in his story.
The very ordinary stories that happen every day in life that the writer has recorded, through the flexible perspective construction of Do Bich
Thuy turns stories about everyday life into philosophical lessons of life. With a sense of responsibility and conscience as a writer, Do Bich Thuy quietly observed, sometimes standing far away, sometimes merging and transforming into the characters to witness the pain and happiness of the characters.
3.2. Language
Language “is the material, the means of expression that is characteristic of literature” . To put it more figuratively , “language is the coat of thought” (M. Gorky). And the source of raw materials to sew that “coat of thought” is none other than the reality of life, everyday language with people’s speech, folk songs, proverbs filtered through the aesthetic lens of each writer. To express a bustling, chaotic and overlapping urban area of complex relationships, Do Bich Thuy uses a language close to life. It is difficult to imagine a picture of everyday life through high-sounding, sweeping words. Life is inherently messy and simple, so just let it be itself in literature.
3.2.1. Narrator's language
In each regional space, writers have a rich vocabulary, suitable to describe the characteristics of that regional space. When writing about the history of life and people in the highlands, Do Bich Thuy writes in the simple, rustic language of the people. But when writing about urban areas, everyday language naturally flows into her writing. The laundry shop has a layer of specialized words, most of which are words typical of the digital age and information technology: electronic information, website, chat, gmail, nick, forward, electronic newspaper, tabloid, 3G phone, cable TV... and words that have only recently appeared: tabloid, clickbait, showbiz, Korean movies... Thus, modern language has dominated the narrator's speech.