Nguyen Du's Treatment of the Poetry Group Implicitly Hiding Thuy Kieu's Fate in Kim Van Kieu Story

First, he put her in a very special situation, all night long, alone with herself, worrying and fearing when thinking about her fate as a “floating flower and drifting duckweed” . The lines of internal monologue appeared very naturally:

Alone, hesitating for hours, Thinking of the future on the long road, I was terrified: "Flowers drifting and duckweed drifting is a given,

Know your fate, know your destiny, that's all!

(Sentence 217 – 220)

The 3/3/2 rhythm, the repetition of the syntax “know your fate/know your destiny” and the phrase “that’s all” at the end of the eight-line verse “ Know your fate, know your destiny, that’s all!” makes the verse read like a sad, painful sigh.

and her helplessness. And then the poem ends, describing Thuy Kieu's state of mind after having an unlucky dream, with the image of a lonely Thuy Kieu whose soul is in turmoil, restless, and constantly worried and afraid when thinking about fate and destiny:

My own sorrow is layer upon layer of waves,

Thinking of a fit, I sobbed again.

(Sentence 221 – 222)

Nguyen Du's treatment of the 8 verses from Kinh Mong Giac

In Kim Van Kieu story , revolving around the disaster of Thuy Kieu's family, Thanh Tam talented person told in great detail her actions to save her father and brother throughout 3/20 chapters. Through her actions, readers see her decisive, strong, rational and filial character, but through 8 verses from Kinh Mong Giac , readers also partly see her haunting fate.

In The Tale of Kieu , Nguyen Du omitted and rearranged some details and showed his own creativity in this part. He used all his pen power to highlight her difficult and tragic situation. Therefore, first, he delved into Thuy Kieu's inner self at some important points in time: when she decided to sell herself to redeem her father, when she was sold as a commodity, when she convinced her father to accept her selling herself, and when she gave her love. Second, he rearranged the order of some details: instead of letting Thuy Kieu decide to sell herself and then immediately give her love like Thanh Tam Tai Nhan, he pushed the giving of love scene to after Thuy Kieu sold herself. Third, he did not let Thuy Kieu write a letter, including a farewell poem, to Kim Trong like Thuy Kieu of Thanh Tam Tai Nhan. Fourth, on the evening after Thuy Kieu sold herself, when her filial piety was fulfilled, instead of letting her have an unpleasant dream and composing 8 verses from Kinh Mong Giac to highlight Thuy Kieu's unfortunate fate like Thanh Tam Tai Nhan, he

leaving her alone all night thinking about her love affair with Kim Trong, in the end she had no choice but to ask Van to repay him. In our opinion, due to the different creative purposes of the two authors, the way of handling the story situation in the two works is also different, but at the same time, they are also proof of Nguyen Du's creativity compared to Thanh Tam Tai Nhan. With his way of doing things, Nguyen Du not only emphasizes the tragic and ironic nature of Thuy Kieu's fate but also describes her inner thoughts in a very logical psychological process.

3.3.2. Nguyen Du's treatment of the group of poems with the role of depicting the inner self, personality, and talent of the character Thuy Kieu

3.3.2.1. Nguyen Du's treatment of the group of poems expressing Thuy Kieu's multi-sentimental personality

Nguyen Du's treatment of the two poems Kieu visiting and consoling Dam Tien

In Kim Van Kieu story , Thuy Kieu's thoughts and actions when meeting Dam Tien's grave are recounted by the author in quite detail, emphasizing her sentimental side in contrast to Thuy Van and Vuong Quan.

In the Tale of Kieu , Nguyen Du created more: festival scenes, spring scenes, described the cemetery in the evening and changed some points as follows: changed the completely objective narration of Vuong Quan into a narration with subjective nuances, emphasized more on Thuy Kieu's poetic feelings, transferred the blame of Thuy Kieu from Vuong Quan to Thuy Van. In particular, we noticed that the rhythm of time in this section of the Tale of Kieu seemed to slow down. The spring afternoon from "Ta ta bong nghi ve tay" to "Bong ta nhu tuoc con buon" , "bong ta" was mentioned 4 times, the objective time seemed short but was stretched out by Thuy Kieu's passionate affection for Dam Tien and Kim Trong with many events. At the same time,

We noticed a flexible movement of internal and external perspectives when describing the inner self of the character Thuy Kieu. All of these changes and innovations helped Thuy Kieu's inner self to be portrayed more realistically and clearly, and created a psychological and personality contrast between the two sisters Thuy Kieu - Thuy Van.

Phan Ngoc wrote: “For Nguyen Du, there are 5 different types of green grass. In the cheerful, gentle morning of spring, we see “Green grass reaching to the horizon” . But the grass on Dam Tien’s grave has a different green color, “Sad, half-yellow, half-green grass” . Then in the afternoon light, “A patch of grass in the shadow of the setting sun” [37, pp. 160-161]. Thus, the natural scene is also unusual, signaling something ominous. In front of the small, lonely “mound of earth” , cold and smoky with incense on the road, with lifeless yellow grass, if Thuy Van was completely indifferent, Thuy Kieu could not hold back her sadness and pain, so she cried beside Dam Tien’s grave in the gloomy afternoon sky. Dam Tien’s unfortunate life seemed to appear before her eyes:

My heart was already filled with sorrow, Suddenly hearing Kieu, my tears flowed.

Alas, the fate of women!

The saying "unlucky" is also a common saying.

.... The people in the underworld know.

(Sentence 81 – 94)

She expressed her pain and sorrow about the fate of a beautiful woman in general and the fate of a prostitute in particular. That prostitute lived as “everyone’s wife” but when she died, she became a “husbandless ghost” . After her death, her grave was left desolate and unattended. In the gloomy afternoon scene of “grass in the setting sun” , “a few reeds blown by the wind” , with that pity, she composed a poem to pay her respects to this prostitute. After finishing the poem, she still could not escape

The more sad she was, the more she choked up. The phrase "the more" placed at the beginning of three consecutive sentences further emphasized her pain and pity for this prostitute:

More and more fascinated by the mind,

Standing still and hesitant.

The more gloomy the flower is,

Sorrow flows in pieces, the pearls are short and long . (Verse 101 - Verse 104)

Tran Dinh Su wrote: “The author builds an environment of love in the work. Almost all the positive characters or those with a little kindness more or less show love. Kieu is the one with the strongest love, love for others and love for herself” [54, p. 250]. The pain and sorrow in Kieu seemed to grow bigger and bigger, she still cried beside that small, lifeless grave. In contrast to Thuy Kieu's sadness, Thuy Van spoke up to blame her sister in a very realistic way, “Skillfully having too many tears to cry for the people of the past” . The reason Thuy Kieu had such feelings was because of Dam Tien's unfortunate fate, Thuy Kieu thought of herself, worried about her future. Not only that, she thought that she and Dam Tien could understand each other, treat each other with kindness, so “love meets love” , Dam Tien had shown her kindness, so she thanked Dam Tien with a poem.

Perhaps similarly, Nguyen Du read Kim Van Kieu story , sympathized with Thuy Kieu's unfortunate fate, so he thought of himself, pondered his own life, and borrowed the plot of Thanh Tam talented person, transformed it into his own work to convey his own thoughts.

Like Thuy Kieu, perhaps because Lam Dai Ngoc ( Dream of the Red Chamber ) has beauty.

beautiful

to her

buried flowers, and then got the poem Buried Flowers . In the poem, she borrowed

The image of falling petals is a metaphor for one's own life.