His time was a struggle in human thought to choose harmony and unity for a common sacred and noble purpose. Father Vinh was a priest who graduated with a thesis on "The relationship between the Kingdom of Heaven and earthly life" from the Parisian Buddhist order of the Sulpice. When returning to the country, Father Vinh had to face the reality of the country during the war. The conflicting issues between religion and people, life, and nation tore his thoughts apart. Carrying in him the thoughts of the church, flowing in him the blood of the nation, Father Vinh chose the path of struggle to contribute to the harmony of religion and nation. Father Vinh's front line was the ideological front line of struggle to both protect the true value of religion and liberate the nation. " I am also a priest who received baptism twice, as in a story he wrote. The first time at the church to become a child of God. The second time in the rubber forest to become a child of the nation, of humanity" [66]. Father Vinh spent his whole life “ dedicating everything that belongs to me to the church” and even higher, he dedicated himself to the nation. Carrying within himself a belief in God, a belief in dedication, “Loving to dedicate, loving to sacrifice for fellow human beings, passionate about the vision of a harmonious nation, a harmonious humanity, where humans have only one concern worthy of it, which is to reach the ultimate Goodness and Ultimate Beauty” [66]. Father Vinh saw the political plots that used religion as a springboard for power. He fought bravely to protect the true value of religion. Father Vinh stopped the plot of Ngo Dinh Can and priest Thuan, preventing priest Thuan from Nha Trang from taking up the important responsibility at the Saigon Buddhist Archdiocese right after the day the South was liberated. The failure of the reactionaries continued with Ngo Dinh Can’s words “ That’s really the end, Thuan ”. Father Vinh and his friends broke up the political plot in the Ngo family, breaking the authoritarian and theocratic family regime.
The war ended and peace returned. Father Vinh still fulfilled his wish to dedicate himself to the people and to the new regime. Father Vinh still regularly took care of
caring for the church, for the missionaries everywhere, encouraging the spirit of building socialism. Because that is the right choice in the path of his own. With Father Vinh, the national religion has surpassed all religions of the people "A new page of history opens about a positive voluntary harmony between the Vietnamese church and the revolutionary state" , the socialist religion has become the most beautiful religion in Father Vinh, Ba Hue, Quan, Mr. Hia Rieng... that is the most precious time.
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Nguyen Khai's artistic style in novels after 1980 through three novels: Human Time, A Tiny Human World, God Laughs - 15 -
Narrative art in Vietnamese short stories after 1975 through short stories by Nguyen Minh Chau, Nguyen Khai, Ma Van Khang - 15 -
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Narrative Language in Nguyen Bac Son's Novels -
Philosophy in Nguyen Khai's Works Through the Aspect of Topics, Subjects, Timeliness, and Forecasts
2.3.4. INDIVIDUALS AND NATIONS
In A Tiny Human World , Nguyen Khai mentioned the issue of people in choosing their ideals and political paths in the political life of the nation. Mo Vu is a typical character for the main theme of the writer. When he was young, Mo Vu enthusiastically searched for his ideals. Stemming from patriotism and the desire to liberate the nation, Mo Vu joined the Nationalist Party. His choice of political path marked a turning point in his life. The Nationalist Party was disintegrated, Mo Vu had to flee to China. He returned to work in the Saigon puppet regime and held an important position in the Nationalist Party. The country was unified, Mo Vu was arrested and placed under house arrest. When he was old (90 years old), he was brought back to house arrest in his hometown. Mo Vu's whole life was a runaway, a runaway right in his own country. "But no place is familiar, no place at all. A life of wandering everywhere, no place is truly attached, every place is temporary. Living in one's own country but still thinking of living off others" [66] When old, being brought back to the homeland where one was born and raised, one is still strange and lonely. Lonely in front of the homeland, strange to everyone, difficult for children and grandchildren to understand. But the grandchildren have never met, and are all implicated because of the grandfather's background. When returning to the homeland to live with the 70-year-old daughter, with fierce opposition from the granddaughter. Mo Vu is forbidden from interacting with people, under the supervision of the commune government... Mo Vu's life is lonely, living is miserable but dying is not possible. "At home
With children and grandchildren also suffering, they cannot rely on fame, nor earn profit, only being a servant is very miserable. I also know that but do not know how to escape. My husbands accused me of provocation. There are many people who want to live very hard, and there are many people who want to die also not easy" [66]. The unfortunate fate of Mo Vu is the choice of the wrong political path in the past. The tragedy of Mo Vu was a sentence hanging over the heads of his descendants. He himself had to flee and pay with his life. A tiny human world is the problem of choosing one's own political path with the politics of the nation. One must know how to put the individual in unity with the nation. One's own political choice is on the unified side in the common interests of national politics, otherwise people will have to pay the price. Each person has the right to choose their own political path and then must clearly recognize the correct political path, that is what Nguyen Khai wants to say in this novel.
In God, the main theme is the choice of each person for their own path in life. This is an autobiographical novel, the character is the shadow of the author. The writer uses himself as the subject of analysis and expression, with a view " from the outside" to express objective thoughts. His character represents that type of person. His life is full of misfortune and haunting childhood wandering, if he had not met the Party, he would not know what would happen "if he was lucky, he would not have become a criminal" . The Party gave him faith, ideals and saved his life so that he could become a revolutionary soldier, a famous writer. When he chose his revolutionary path, he devoted everything to that ideal. He went to the battlefield in bombs and bullets to write Soldiers, Road in the Clouds, Going to the Island, which resonated in people's lives. He was willing to go to thorny places, to the Catholic region to write the famous Conflict to encourage heroic people in the cause.
building a new regime, defeating the plots of hostile forces. Peace and national unity in development need new people, he is ready to go into reality to write District Chairman. It can be seen that it is his tireless dedication to the ideal and political path that he has chosen. As Nguyen Khai said, it is " paying the debt" to life.
2.4. IDEOLOGICAL CHARACTERS IN NGUYEN KHAI'S NOVELS AFTER 1980
2.4.1 IDEOLOGICAL CHARACTER AND ITS POSITION IN NGUYEN KHAI'S WORKS
Ideological character "a type of character that focuses on expressing an idea, a consciousness that exists in the spiritual life of society" [67]. This type of character can also have personality, fate, but personality and fate with all its vividness and diversity are not the focus of the writer's depiction. The main thing is to highlight the ideological life, the movement of human ideology in the complex diversity of life. The writer takes people as the central object but focuses on describing the ideology and the development of the complexity of human spiritual life. The ideological and ethical issues that the character carries within him are also generalizations about the community life of an era that the author consciously conveys to the character. The typical representative of the type of ideological character in world literature must be Dostoevsky's characters. In typical prominent ideological issues that cover the work, the writer becomes a thinker who directly proposes ideological issues through the system of characters in his work. But the typical character does not therefore become a loudspeaker for the author. It is not a bare frame for dry philosophies, and even more so “not simply a sketch that fits the author’s ideological intentions” [67]. The ideological character is mainly presented, illuminating the ideological life, the movement of people in the complex diversity of life.
Nguyen Khai's characters are mostly built in the style of ideological characters, typological characters closely combined with personal personality factors. Each Nguyen Khai character often focuses on discovering, exploiting, raising a certain issue and explaining its appearance and existence in society. Nguyen Khai's ideological characters often represent a concept, an ideology. The writer is interested in describing the ideological journey with its complex, diverse developments and hidden twists. Although the characters are from many classes and ages, they all have certain experiences. The characters analyze and philosophize about life's problems through their own experiences through the ups and downs of life. Or according to Nguyen Dang Manh, " Nguyen Khai's characters are rich in thought, love philosophy, and are good at arguing". This is also a prominent characteristic of ideological characters.
Considering Nguyen Khai's character as an ideological character, we want to determine the following two aspects:
One is: This is the type of character that is described and illuminated mainly in the human's mental and spiritual life in the movement and thought processes of the character. Humans appear as thinking beings rather than in normal communication relationships with life. For example, in Xuan Dieu's poetry, humans always have a desire to communicate with nature and life. The burning, intense desires to blend into life, to "bite into the pink spring ", to " suck the honey of life ", to be intoxicated in love. These are mainly emotional humans, moody humans. In some characters of Vu Trong Phung, there is an instinctive human being, such as Mrs. Pho Doan for example. To some extent, Nam Cao's characters such as Thi No and Chi Pheo are the same. With Nguyen Khai, he is interested in and follows the processes and conflicts in human thoughts and in society, and that leads to the type of ideological character.
Second: Through the ideological character Nguyen Khai aims to raise ideological issues of life (political ideology, ethical ideology, or philosophical issues of life). This has led to the situation where the character type Nguyen Khai is often incomplete, not fully developed, and sometimes "abandoned" by the writer when his role in the work's problem has ended. Nguyen Khai's characters are not without personality traits, in fact the writer is quite sensitive and sharp in discovering and capturing the character's personality right from the first appearance. But the important thing, the ultimate goal of Nguyen Khai is not to build personalities. He also does not lean towards individual fates to pity, sympathize, or comfort, but through the fates and lives of specific characters to draw out philosophies of life or raise life issues and ideological conclusions.
In the creative stage before 1980, the prominent type of ideological character with political, moral, revolutionary thoughts under the light of the Party's revolutionary line. In Conflict, the divided characters show the fierce confrontation between the young revolutionary government and the reactionary religious forces that go against the interests of the nation and the people. The trio of communal cadre characters: Mon, Nhan, Thuy are three ideological characters. Nhan is always torn with the internal struggle "I cannot abandon my religion, but I cannot abandon my activities... I follow God, I follow the government, I follow both, why can't I?" [37]. Nhan's suffering clearly shows that it is difficult to be a good person, being both a devout Christian and a cadre absolutely loyal to the revolutionary ideal. In the life-and-death political struggle at that time, the issue of ideology was very important. Thuy was a Catholic intellectual with a thorough understanding of morality, voluntarily following the revolution, and his revolutionary ideals raised him above the circumstances in which he lived. The combat environment transformed Thuy from a monk with many outdated prejudices into a Party cadre, for the people and the country.
Being willing to sacrifice himself without any calculation gave rise to noble qualities in him that the church could not give him. However, just because he did not maintain his position, he hid the most noble purpose of his life to return to his original form before he joined the revolution. He changed both his thoughts and his appearance. Unlike Thuy and Nhan, Mon was steadfast in his position from beginning to end. It was not easy for him to join the revolution. It took Thuy half a year of persistent persuasion and persuasion for Mon to awaken and follow the revolution. Since then, Mon lived and died for the revolution. During the reform, because the reform team fell into the enemy's trap, Mon was unjustly arrested, his house was confiscated, his wife went crazy, and his child was sick! But after correcting his mistakes, Mon eagerly took on the work of the commune despite his wife's strong opposition. When the District Chairman came to the question of revolutionary qualities and production leadership capacity of rural cadres in the new situation. That was Hiep's constant concern as the district chairman. To reach the ideological conclusion, each person must overcome himself in order to meet the demands of life in the conditions of both production and combat. In Hiep's mind, there were often fierce debates between himself and himself, concluding his own actions, always questioning right and wrong: was his lack of determination towards the chairman of Dam commune right or wrong? Was his support and encouragement of the bold actions of the chairman of An commune right or wrong? Then he " anxiously sketched out a plan to correct mistakes" even though he himself "had not yet realized what mistakes he had made, but only had many impressions that he had certainly made many mistakes" [37]. Focusing on depicting the process of perception from incorrect to correct in the internal movement of the character through practical activities was Nguyen Khai's way of getting used to it.
In his works from 1980 onwards, social life has partly created conditions for the development of individual consciousness. The contemplation and search for truth are encouraged by personal experiences and beliefs, the writer has discovered
different layers of thought intertwined in social ideology. That is the complexity of human consciousness. That is the interweaving of conservative, stagnant, daring, innovative and socially progressive thoughts. However, revolutionary thought is still the one that Nguyen Khai is most interested in discussing.
In Father and Son and ... Father Thu is a character who represents the progressive thoughts of a Catholic intellectual who dares to live his own way: " I have to look closely at everything, have to understand everything. Is our presence useful or useless? Is it for us or just to take away? Am I a citizen or am I still a reactionary? Then I also found that answer with many stumbling blocks and sometimes felt stuck. Finally, after knowing his origin, knowing that his sister was still alive helped him gain a deep understanding of the people and parishioners of Nhat parish."
The time of the people is the unity and consistency in the thoughts of the characters. The consistency in the revolutionary thoughts of Quan, Ba Hue, Father Vinh, Mr. Hai Rieng is the revolutionary ideal that they have chosen and their whole life is dedicated to that revolutionary ideology. During the fierce war years, they had to face between life and death, their revolutionary ideal was tempered, when peace was restored, they devoted their ideal to the people of the country by promoting the state's policies, searching for the right directions in the way of doing business in the renovation period. Ba Hue, a brave revolutionary soldier, was ready to sacrifice for the revolution and the nation. During the resistance war, Ba Hue was imbued with the revolutionary ideology that she had chosen. When peace was restored, she participated in the revolutionary government, and was a leader of the district. Ba Hue always thought, worried, and cared for the people's lives. She maintained the ideological stance that she devoted her whole life to. Mr. Hai Rieng is the same, his whole life is attached to rubber trees, his whole life is infatuated with it. During the French colonial years, he worked as a coolie for the Dau Tieng rubber plantation, his love for the tree gradually permeated.