Poetics of Vietnamese short stories in the post-war period 1975

Quy's adventures, her love affair with the regimental commander are the mainstay throughout the story. Around it are many love affairs with Hau, with Doctor Thuong, with Ph. Nguyen Minh Chau still pays attention to building complicated, tense situations but to reflect the depth of the character's psychology. He once openly expressed his view on the role of short story structure, not to create a thrilling, complicated plot in a formal way but to create a capacity for the thematic ideology. Besides Nguyen Minh Chau, we encounter Nguyen Khai, Nguyen Quang Sang, Le Van Thao, Tran Manh Hao who have more or less changed, bringing freshness to short stories in the way they are constructed.

Many short stories written about the theme of war follow this structure, the writers help readers perceive the fierceness of the war. Behind the brilliant victories are many silent sacrifices, painful losses. However, overcoming those pains, the Vietnamese people always show their compassion and tolerance, especially towards those who once stood on the other side of the battle line. Many short stories written after the war have gone into this aspect, thereby continuing to affirm the noble humanity of revolutionary soldiers, while at the same time expressing faith in those who once went astray. In the story The Storm by Nguyen Minh Chau, Quang is a traitor to the Fatherland right when our resistance was at its most difficult stage. As a talented person, he thought he could not live without, could not endure harsh circumstances. He could become a good person, a steadfast revolutionary, if the revolution was in a favorable phase and satisfied his desires. Therefore, when the revolution encountered difficulties, he did not hesitate to surrender to the enemy and once devoted himself to helping the enemy capture and viciously torture his comrades. After peace, he was sent to study in a re-education camp and unexpectedly met Thang again, a former comrade. He was the one who captured Thang and was also the one who opened the

The road for him to crawl back to the base, while he was seriously injured, with the intention of letting Thang exhaust himself and die on the run. But he also did not expect that Thang had steadfastly returned to his ranks, moreover, he was now a battalion commander. In the moment of unexpected meeting, Thang did not want to bring up the old story and did not say anything about his wife's past, but also encouraged her to help her husband reform. That is also the belief in humanity that Nguyen Minh Chau has put into almost all of his works, especially stories with linear structure.

Next, with this type of structure, Xuan Thieu built in the short story Emotional Distance . The story is about the love story of Hai and Van, when they were students at Quoc Hoc school. The two of them participated in the Hue student movement to fight against the US-Thieu. When the movement was suppressed, while Van returned to her hometown to join the guerrillas, Hai was mobilized into the puppet army stationed at Mang Ca station. And then, it was Van who connected to build Hai into an internal base, knowing some important information of the enemy in Mang Ca area to transfer to the Revolution. After the general attack, Van sacrificed, so only Thai Van - the head of the reconnaissance team - knew about Hai's actions. After the liberation, Hai went to find Thai Van many times with worries and doubts, not knowing if he had certified his contributions. Unexpectedly, Hai found Thai Van and he certified what belonged to the contributions that Hai had made to the revolution. But about what belonged to his personal feelings for Van, Thai Van kept silent. It would be cruel to reveal the truth about that complicated relationship, Thai Van let Hai live with his illusion, happy every time he remembered the memories of his unrequited love for Van. "Every beautiful memory contributes strength to the life I am living now. Surely that little memory will help Hai, if he really wants to gradually shorten the emotional distance between them.

him and the revolution” [170,167].

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4.2 . 1.2. The structure of inverted event time is a new form that short stories bring in terms of plot structure. It is the inversion of event time - that is, the art of narration does not follow the order of the natural plot progression in linear time (going from cause to effect). These stories often begin in the middle or end of the natural plot. The inversion of the artistic order of events in the plot is a characteristic of modern artistic thinking. Nam Cao's Chi Pheo is a vivid example, the structure of the story goes straight to the climax " He walked and cursed " . In works after 1975, some writers are no longer satisfied with simply describing and evaluating people, but instead diversify in many aspects, including the aspect of inverted time structure. The writer skillfully combines what he sees with his reflections on life and human existence, interweaving descriptions of the present and the past, narrative and lyricism... Typical of these writing styles are Nguyen Minh Chau's short stories and some of his typical works.

The structure and situation in The Thief (Nguyen Minh Chau) make readers startled, because sometimes people become cruel in a very innocent way. Thoan's sudden death shocked everyone in the apartment complex, but just a few months before that, they were constantly criticizing Thoan, hoping that Thoan would leave the agency so that he would not have to live with a thief. They were also the ones who were reluctant to say goodbye to Thoan when he returned to his hometown. And now there are sighs, words of pity, tears. Therefore, to understand a person correctly is not simple. With the structure of inverting the time of events, readers realize that Nguyen Minh Chau is a writer of noble characters, nobility in situations, evoking the

very human issues. Because this type of structure easily goes deep into capturing lives, moods, typical situations, easily creating high efficiency in perception. Good short stories in the period 1975 - 1985 all exploit situations, situations rich in humanity, evoking many thoughts of compassion or anger, indignation: A bank of crimson trees (Duong Thu Huong), Mother and Child (Ma Van Khang) , Ben Que, The thief, Children in row K, The boat far away (Nguyen Minh Chau), Manuscript pages (Ho Thuy Giang), My little sun (Thuy Linh), The retired person (Anh Duc), Going to welcome the rain (Vu Tu Nam) ... are short stories that bring readers many perceptions about human nature, about how to behave in life.

Thuy Linh has shown us the kindness of the writer through her subtle observation and ability to capture everyday details in stories about family happiness and children. Therefore, My Little Sun is full of love for humanity. Through this short story, readers realize that "the distance may be far, but the line between love and hatred is indeed fragile" [170, 299]. The scary thing is that modern life easily makes love gradually dry up, so we need to cultivate human feelings in people. Many short stories after 1975 exploit the need for happiness of individuals in everyday life. Having gone through two resistance wars against the French and the Americans, the issue of the nation's destiny and the survival of the nation affects each individual, because the individual is a member of the community, the joys and sorrows of the individual also blend with the joys and sorrows of the community. But when the war ended and people returned to normal life, love and personal happiness became a matter of concern. It was not simply a matter of enjoyment or the release of human emotional needs after a long journey of war, but rather a matter of empathy and sharing in the face of changes and collisions in a complex reality.

Grasping the need for happiness of people in everyday life, the writer easily goes deep into the structure of many short stories: Mother and Child (Ma Van Khang), Choice (Nguyen Bao), The Flowers of the Mangrove Forest, The Sour March (Duong Thu Huong)...

In Ma Van Khang's Beautiful Day , it seems that while clinging to what is happening today, the writer still wants to find things deep in the roots of the people and the country, as he once confided. Mr. Thieng is a soldier, now working at a meteorological station, the years of war have taken away both his physical and emotional life. He often has to fight against the disease that is lurking to knock him down, but what is more difficult is having to run away from a love that has been in the past for nearly 15 years. Then suddenly, he meets the girl from the past, after many years of waiting and searching for him everywhere. Now she has a family, but she still misses and respects him, and so does her husband. At this point, Mr. Thieng suddenly realizes a very simple thing: "Noble love is a common quality, inherent in humans. If you are a good person who knows how to respect yourself, then there will be no shortage of people like that around you" [98, 111]. The structure of the event time reversal has brought to Ma Van Khang's short stories unexpected and humane details. With Duong Thu Huong's short stories, she lets readers encounter different faces of unhappiness, failures in love, but the desire to reach happiness never diminishes. Through the structure of many short stories, this writer always gives readers the feeling that there is only true happiness in childhood, a past memory or when remembering a beautiful first love. Looking back at the present, there is no joy, using sadness to talk about joy, but more importantly, it requires purity, nobility, and integrity in the personality of each person. Thus, from a certain perspective, with this type of structure, Duong Thu Huong has turned over the tragedies

with a painful sorrow about human fate, bringing deeper human meaning to each work.

4.2.1.3. The structure of the story within the story is a type of structure that is also commonly seen in short stories of previous periods. The story consists of two plots, two parallel or interwoven character lines, or is called intertextual assembly. Short stories developed according to this trend are one of the indispensable elements of the poetics of short story structure. "The story is written naturally, not bound by traditional poetics, formed by assembling and constructing plot fragments, mood fragments not in chronological order but in a jumble, reversed according to the author's intention, creating a story within a story. Situations, circumstances, and events that seem unrelated or connected are brought closer together" [80]. Along with that assembly is the movement of viewpoints and artistic thinking within the strict and flexible conventions of the genre structure.

Pham Thi Minh Thu's "There is a night like that" can be considered a unique artistic success with a collage structure, a story within a story. The story is developed on two parallel plots. One plot with a realistic part of everyday life in many concerns about life, one realistic part of the harsh war years, sacrifice but also has moments of peace and noble beauty. These two realistic parts are like two independent paintings in both color and material. The way these two plots are structured is like a flow connecting the past and the present, the present and the future. Each piece of space and time is also intertwined, making the story more vivid, expressing many moments of life. This collage also creates a polyphonic style for the work: both intellectual and emotional, both noble and everyday, both realistic and extremely romantic, both inspiring praise and gentle criticism.

gentle and subtle. From there, the work's ideas emerge in the depth of perception. That is the difference in lifestyle and way of thinking between people in war and people in peacetime.

Similarly, The Little Story of Cu Chi by Nguyen Quang Sang and The March of Days and Nights by Nguyen Manh Tuan also have a story-within-a-story structure. In the story, the character plays the role of the narrator telling another story. The two stories are intertwined, linked together at many links, in order to convey the messages that the writer wants to convey. The structure of some of Nguyen Minh Chau's stories is like a puzzle, making the reader feel that there is no story, no beginning, no end. With the ability to see stories everywhere , many times his short stories are just like a puzzle piece in countless puzzle pieces of life. The story of Hang's mother and child is a daily story of a backward mother, but she loves her child wholeheartedly. She comes to take care of her newborn daughter, but before she is a month old, she continues to be a traveling ambassador for another child. The story ends with the daily comings and goings of people. It makes the reader feel the journey of the characters or the cycle of life.

In the short story Legend of the Phoenix by Tran Thuy Mai, there are two stories intertwined, sometimes Mr. Ninh works with Ms. Phuong, sometimes remembers Boi Hoan, two stories of the past and present of Hue city. The story is about going to an archaeological site, but at the end of the story, the author uses a legend about the phoenix. “When old, it will fly to high cliffs, lining itself with anise resin and cinnamon leaves. The bird lies there, dying with the setting sun. When spring comes, the egg hatches into a young phoenix, splendid, brave, many times more powerful than its predecessor” [170, 325]. With the ending of a legendary story, the work has a profound hidden meaning that the author does not want to say directly. The image of the bird dying

The phoenix is Boi Hoan, and the young phoenix, splendid and brave, is the image of Phuong! And Phuong is also the one who will continue the fresh, youthful path ahead of Hue today.

4.2.1.4. The structure according to the psychological development is a structure that accounts for a large number of Vietnamese short stories in the post-war period (1975 - 1985). It is the structure of works with psychological plots to describe the subtle and complex developments of human inner life. In these stories, there are only a few events, the rest are the feelings and thoughts of the characters with memories, associations and inner monologues. If there are events, the events only play the role of evoking the psychological flow . This structure must include The Person Who Didn't Go Along the Train (Nguyen Quang Than) and The Wildflowers (Duong Thu Huong). The two stories are similar in that the plot is developed according to the emotional flow of the main character. The Person Who Didn't Go Along the Train is the story of two characters Thao and Dinh on a train returning to the place where they used to work. Through the memories of a woman named Minh, the characters gradually emerge, making a comparison of the personalities between Thao and Dinh. Being an active, resourceful person who knows how to take advantage of all conditions, Thao has achieved important goals in life, he is getting further and further on the path to fame. Meanwhile, Dinh is deep, quietly correcting and completing unfinished work, seriously "groping in the thorny forests to find the shortest path that no one knows" [198, 114]. The plot seems to have nothing big, but still clearly reveals the ideological theme, which is "life really needs people who are never indifferent to beauty as well as its ugliness" [198, 124]. People often only want to do good things, but few are brave enough to correct bad things to make it more and more perfect.

The plot of the flowers follows the joys and sorrows in the heart.

Poetics of Vietnamese short stories in the post-war period 1975 – 1985 - 19

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