THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION
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NGUYEN THUY QUYNH
INITIAL RESEARCH ON THE LITERARY CAREER OF NAM XUONG - NGUYEN CAT NGAC (IN TWO GENRES: LITERARY SCREENPLAY AND SHORT STORY)
Major: Vietnamese Literature Code: 60.22.34
MASTER'S THESIS IN LITERATURE
SCIENCE GUIDE
Associate Professor - Dr. Tran Thi Viet Trung
THAI NGUYEN – 2008
INDEX
Introduction 2
Chapter I: Some features of Vietnamese social and cultural life in the period
early 20th century and author Nam Xuong - Nguyen Cat Ngac 9
1.1. Vietnamese social and cultural life in the first half of the 20th century was influenced by
to the formation of Nam Xuong pen - Nguyen Cat Ngac 9
1.2. The life and literary career of author Nam Xuong
- Nguyen Cat Ngac 17
Chapter II. Some characteristics of the content and art of the script
of Nam Xuong - Nguyen Cat Ngac 26
2.1.Summary of the scenarios of Nam Xuong 26
2.2. Some outstanding features of the ideological content of
Nam Xuong Drama - Nguyen Cat Ngac 31
2.3. Some outstanding features of art
of Nam Xuong drama - Nguyen Cat Ngac 49
Chapter III. Some characteristics of content and art
Short stories of Nam Xuong - Nguyen Cat Ngac 67
3.1. Some features of the situation of short story writing
of Nam Xuong - Nguyen Cat Ngac 67
3.2. Some outstanding features of the short story content
of Nam Xuong - Nguyen Cat Ngac 69
3.3. Some outstanding features of the art of short stories
Nam Xuong - Nguyen Cat Ngac 93
Conclusion 107
Reference 110
INTRODUCTION
1. Reason for choosing the topic
With two famous scripts (early 20th century) namely Ong Tay An Nam and Chang Ngoc , over the past few decades, Nam Xuong - Nguyen Cat Ngac has been affirmed by literary researchers in Vietnam as one of the first authors to participate in building the foundation of modern Vietnamese drama. However, apart from the above affirmation, up to now, the career of Nam Xuong - Nguyen Cat Ngac has not been systematically and fully researched, even though after his death in the South in 1958, he left behind a rich literary legacy. In fact, apart from the general introduction of Nam Xuong's name in a number of research works on Vietnamese literature and theater in the early 20th century, his name is rarely mentioned, and researchers often consider him as a scriptwriter. But the life and career of Nam Xuong - Nguyen Cat Ngac is not only that. With a deep patriotism, from the beginning, he devoted himself to the patriotic movement, then joined the communists, he was twice sentenced to death by Japan and France, and finally he sacrificed himself in the South in 1958 as an intelligence soldier of the revolution. During that journey of activity, Nam Xuong - Nguyen Cat Ngac continued to compose in many genres, from screenplays to novels, short stories, and a few other genres, and the main part of this legacy has not yet been published. Therefore, researchers have not had the opportunity to access and examine all of his works, and that is the reason why his literary career has only been studied in a limited way.
Nam Xuong - Nguyen Cat Ngac began writing in the early thirties of the last century. During this period, the modernization of Vietnamese literature, as an objective requirement of history, formed from the transitional period, developed comprehensively. The birth of New Poetry, of novels and short stories, of visual arts, drama... created a new face for the country's literature and art, creating momentum for later developments. Therefore, a more thorough and complete study of the historical - social - cultural context, of the authors who pioneered in the early stages of the modernization of Vietnamese literature is extremely important and necessary. Nam Xuong - Nguyen Cat Ngac is one of such authors. By studying the literary career of Nam Xuong - Nguyen Cat Ngac, we hope to explore and affirm his position in contributing to promoting the modernization of Vietnamese literature in the early 20th century.
Because of our respect and love for the works of Nam Xuong - Nguyen Cat Ngac, especially having the good fortune to come into contact with his posthumous works that his family still preserves, we chose the topic of Initial research on the literary career of Nam Xuong - Nguyen Cat Ngac (in two genres: scripts and short stories) to initially survey him, with the intention of restoring a literary figure that few people know about. The restoration aims to introduce and give some initial comments on the creative characteristics of Nam Xuong - Nguyen Cat Ngac, thereby affirming his contributions in two genres: scripts and short stories. In addition to these two genres, he also composed in other prose genres, but within the scope of a master's thesis and due to limited ability, we only delve into the above two genres for research.
2. Problem history
As someone who participated in modern Vietnamese literary and artistic activities quite early and left his mark through two plays, Ong Tay An Nam and Chang Ngoc (in which, "ong Tay An Nam" has become a type of Vietnamese idiom when referring to Vietnamese people who are foreign-minded and ridiculously imitate the West), but due to many events in his life, Nam Xuong - Nguyen Cat Ngac's career has not received much attention from researchers. Moreover, because Nam Xuong - Nguyen Cat Ngac's works were mainly published in the temporarily occupied areas when he was publicly active in the inner city of Hanoi and then went to the South to work as an intellectual, collecting Nam Xuong - Nguyen Cat Ngac's works is very difficult. According to our initial survey, up to now, there have been the following research works referring to the author Nam Xuong:
1. Initial research on the history of Vietnamese drama before the August Revolution (Phan Ke Hoanh - Huynh Ly, Culture Publishing House , Hanoi, 1978)
2. Dictionary of Literature, entry in Nam Xuong (1984 edition)
3. Dictionary of Literature (new edition) , entry on Nam Xuong (2005 edition)
4. Vietnamese Literature of the 20th Century , edited by Professor Phan Cu De, Education Publishing House, Hanoi, 2004 (the script part was done by Associate Professor Dr. Phan Trong Thuong).
5. Anthology of Vietnamese Literature , volume 23, edited by Professor Dinh Gia Khanh, Social Sciences Publishing House , Hanoi, 1997.
6. Vietnamese Drama in the First Half of the 20th Century , edited by Professor Ha Minh Duc, Stage Publishing House , Hanoi , 1997.
7. Article About the author of the play Mr. Tay An Nam (Nguyen Hoa, Journal of Literary Research - Institute of Literature, No. 7, 2001)
In these sources, the two dictionaries only introduce Nam Xuong's life and career in a rather brief way. In the Dictionary of Literature , the entry for Nam Xuong , Tran Huu Ta introduces: "Nam Xuong participated in the revolution from August 1945, was admitted to the Indochinese Communist Party
1948, he worked secretly in the cities of Nam Dinh and Hanoi. 1954, he was sent to Saigon to work and died in 1958. During his time working in the temporarily occupied Hanoi area (1948 - 1954), he wrote a collection of short stories with positive critical value ( Bui phon hoa ), two historical novels imbued with national spirit ( Bach Viet , Hung Vuong ) and a play ( Tay Thi ). Under the name of an imaginary publishing house "Que huong", he was able to print two books, Bui phon hoa and Bach Viet , to encourage readers in the city to turn to justice" [5, p.11].
We would like to introduce some assessments of researchers in the above works:
In the opening article of the book Vietnamese Drama in the first half of the 20th century , titled “Vietnamese Drama, the early period of formation and development”, Professor Ha Minh Duc wrote: “Nam Xuong did not directly attack the colonial invaders, but criticized and attacked their shadow through monsters like Cu Lan, an intellectual who studied abroad in France and completely lost his roots”. “The comedy in Nam Xuong’s play Ong Tay An Nam is revealed in the depth of the conflict and the author knows how to lead the characters to expose their own paradoxes and absurdities. This can be considered a successful comedy in the general atmosphere of this period” [22, p.12]
In the work “Initial study of the history of Vietnamese drama” by Phan Ke Hoanh and Huynh Ly, it is written: “At the end of this period (1927 - 1930, according to the periodization of the two authors above - NTQ), Nam Xuong also left two notable plays, the play The Fool and the play Ong Tay An Nam . Through the play Ong Tay An Nam , Nam Xuong criticized a group of unpatriotic intellectuals. Also through these two plays, people see that Nam Xuong was knowledgeable about classical drama and had a knack for comedy”.[13, p42] Also in the above book, Phan Ke Hoanh and Huynh Ly emphasized the position of Nam Xuong drama in the contemporary drama stage: “... in the development that can be said to be chaotic,
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In the years 1929, 1930, 1931, people rarely found plays that resonated in the theater, except for plays by Nguyen Huu Kim, Vi Huyen Dac, Tuong Huyen and especially by Nam Xuong" [13, p. 44].
The article by literary critic Nguyen Hoa wrote: “With two plays, Ong Tay An Nam (1930) and Chang Ngoc (1931), Nam Xuong - Nguyen Cat Ngac, together with Vi Huyen Dac, Vu Dinh Long, Nguyen Huu Kim... became the first artists to lay the foundation for the birth of Vietnamese dramatic art. Although only a few lines, the name of Nam Xuong - Nguyen Cat Ngac is often mentioned in research works on the history of literature and the history of Vietnamese theater in the first decades of the 20th century.”, “It can be said without exaggeration that Nguyen Cat Ngac is one of the few first authors to have literary works about a historical period very far from us, the Hung King era - an era whose historical records are currently mainly in legends... Up to now, Nguyen Cat Ngac's short stories have not been thoroughly examined. It can be said that these are short stories written quite elaborately, organized in a script style, with twists and turns. In particular, the author often subtly exploits situations that can portray the ridiculous image of those who sell out their country and harm their people. ”[14]
It can be seen that: most of the above research works have only stopped at brief and general assessments of Nam Xuong - Nguyen Cat Ngac, mainly in the role of a scriptwriter in the early 20th century in the general context of the whole literature or specifically the field of drama; and there has only been an article by literary critic Nguyen Hoa about the life and career of Nam Xuong. The entire literary career of Nam Xuong in general and the prose part in particular have not been surveyed or researched. The article by literary critic Nguyen Hoa - although mentioning his prose part, has only stopped at giving
Initial comments. There has been no systematic and complete study of Nam Xuong's literary career. Therefore, research on Nam Xuong is very necessary.
3. Research purpose
- Learn some basic characteristics of content and art in Nam Xuong's works in two genres: scripts and short stories.
- Affirm Nam Xuong's contributions to the formation and development of modern Vietnamese literature in the early 20th century in the two above genres.
4. Research subjects
- All of Nam Xuong's works, focusing on studying scripts and short stories.
- Related documents: scripts and short stories from his time; research works mentioning Nam Xuong's works.
- Theoretical and theoretical documents related to the research topic.
5. Research tasks
- Point out the content and artistic characteristics of Nam Xuong in the literary script genre.
- Point out the content and artistic characteristics of Nam Xuong in the short story genre.
- Affirm the position, role and important contributions of Nam Xuong in the early stages of the modernization of the country's literature in the two above genres.
6. Research method:
To carry out the thesis, we will use research methods.
rescue:
- Analysis and synthesis method
- Interdisciplinary research methods
- Comparison and contrast method.
- Systemic research method
7. Thesis layout:
In addition to the introduction, conclusion and reference list, the thesis consists of 3 chapters.
Chapter I: Some features of Vietnamese social and cultural life in the early 20th century and the author Nam Xuong.
Chapter II . Some characteristics of the content and art of Nam Xuong's script.
Chapter III. Some characteristics of the content and art of Nam Xuong's short stories
Chapter I
VIETNAMESE SOCIAL AND CULTURAL LIFE IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE 20TH CENTURY AND THE AUTHOR NAM XUONG - NGUYEN CAT NGAC
1.1. The social and cultural life of Vietnam in the first half of the 20th century influenced the formation of the pen of Nam Xuong - Nguyen Cat Ngac
1.1 . 1 . The penetration of Western culture and its changes
in Vietnamese social and cultural life
By the end of the 19th century, the French had basically completed the process of invading Vietnam. The policy of divide and rule and the formal formation of the three regions of Bac Ky, Trung Ky and Nam Ky allowed the French to thoroughly promote the colonial exploitation in "French Indochina", aiming to collect all material wealth from the colonies, and on the one hand to compensate for the heavy losses from the wars in which France participated, on the other hand to increase resources to create strength for France in international relations. The result of that economic policy was that the natural, self-sufficient economy for thousands of years was broken, the capitalist economy was formed and developed; our country became a colony that was exploited to the utmost for material wealth, and at the same time became a consumer market and a supplier of raw materials for French industrial and commercial capital. Along with this situation, the Vietnamese peasant class was impoverished, the petty bourgeoisie and craftsmen had no conditions to develop, becoming a large and cheap source of labor for French trading companies, plantation owners, and contractors.
Politically, the unprecedented semi-feudal colonial regime in Vietnamese history gradually took shape throughout the territory. It continued to suppress
It hinders the country's development in another form, but its very presence disrupts and causes great upheavals in Vietnamese society, which has been "closed" for thousands of years under the Eastern feudal regime.
To exploit labor and plunder resources in the colony, the French expanded transportation, trade markets, and developed a unified commodity economy throughout the country. Along with that development was the expansion of old urban areas, the formation of new “Western-style” industrial zones, and then provincial, prefectural, and district capitals were built as local economic and cultural centers to serve the activities and lives of the “Western colonial” class, as administrative centers for governance, and at the same time as places for processing, trading, and consuming products obtained in the process of exploiting resources and taking advantage of cheap labor.
The urbanization process led to the breakdown of social structure. The system of classes that had existed for thousands of years, organized according to the model of "four classes" (scholars - farmers - workers - merchants) gradually broke down due to the appearance in society of the initial signs of a new type of production relations brought about by the capitalist economy from France. Unprecedented professions in the history of the nation such as interpreters, scribes, journalists,... to mechanics, printers, miners,... appeared one after another, and this situation also contributed to changing the occupational structure in society. A large number of farmers were impoverished due to the loss of land and had to leave their homeland to seek a living in the cities, forming a poor petty bourgeoisie class that grew and grew in the cities; a small number of others became miners and plantation workers, gradually forming the first parts of the Vietnamese working class. And thus, the French invasion led to the breakaway from the old way of organizing society, gradually creating a new type of Vietnamese society with the emergence of a number of new social classes.
In terms of social life, there has been a clear polarization between rural and urban areas, between the rich and the poor. An economy dependent on a number of goods from the West, along with a different lifestyle with strange cultural and civilized values, has led to a change in the mood and lifestyle in contemporary Vietnamese society. From boycotting what belongs to foreign countries, people are gradually forced to adapt to it. In both positive and negative aspects, the penetration of new things from the West has fundamentally changed the face of Vietnamese society, breaking the eternal peace under the green bamboo hedges, putting people in front of self-awareness in a complex and large society, struggling with calculations for survival in relationships that more or less bear the mark of a capitalist market economy, cold and "cash on delivery".
In terms of society and culture, colonial exploitation itself required an infrastructure system, a miniature cultural space of the mother country, not only to serve daily life but also to promote with high intensity, towards assimilating indigenous culture through the propaganda of Western cultural and civilized values, of which French culture and civilization were the representatives. The consequence of the process of "civilization" that the French carried out in Annam was the division in the spiritual activities of society. The most specific manifestation was the coexistence of the Confucian class, the intellectuals trained by the feudal state of Vietnam and the "Western-educated" intellectuals trained in colonial schools or trained in France. This situation led to the consequence of the introduction of new knowledge into the spiritual activities of the Vietnamese people in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This was also the period when, for the first time, the patriotic children of the nation were exposed to the progressive ideas of humanity at that time. They learned, they thought, and the will to revive the nation, the democratic and revolutionary ideas were discussed and publicly spread by patriotic scholars, becoming the target of some
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Progressive patriotic movements such as Dong Du, Dong Kinh Nghia Thuc,... showed the "transformation" in the awareness of the first generation of Vietnamese people exposed to Western science and civilization and also showed the decisive nature in the historical process of the nation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Also during this period, Marxism-Leninism, the most brilliant quintessence of humanity, was absorbed, combined with the patriotic movement and the revolutionary movement of the young working class, becoming the theoretical and practical basis for the birth of the Indochinese Communist Party, today the Communist Party of Vietnam - the vanguard force leading the cause of national liberation.
We present some features of the Vietnamese social and cultural context in the early 20th century as a basis for research on the life and career of writer Nam Xuong - Nguyen Cat Ngac, because these are objective conditions that have had a strong impact, and are the objects reflected in his works, as well as contributing to the formation of his ideology and artistic world.
1.1.2. The process of modernization of Vietnamese literature in the first half of the 20th century and its direct influence on writer Nam Xuong - Nguyen Cat Ngac.
The birth and development of the new economic - social - cultural model above has had a profound impact on all material and spiritual fields of society, and of course for literature, it also sets out objective requirements for the modernization process of Vietnamese literature. At the same time, literary life itself is also facing the requirement to innovate in the direction of modernity, because the participation of important economic - social - cultural elements has played the role of "midwife" for the modernization process of literature. And in fact, many cultural - social changes have taken place and are also the conditions for literature to develop.
First of all, there was the gradual replacement of Chinese and Nom characters with national script. During this period, national script truly became a bridge between literature and language.