The Image of Vietnamese Farmers in Worldly Inspiration

good but they let the bad win like the case of Ms. Mua who let loose, Ms. Lo closed their eyes and let them do whatever they wanted. Mr. Do - a person who looks like a modern-day Chi Pheo but according to the author himself, Mr. Do is the most humane person, always knows how to help people around him, has to live in the tricks of farmers and the constraints of the countryside that make him only dare to "tell the truth" when drunk. The reason for this in the character is because in Mr. Do there is a struggle between the bad on one side and the good on the other. Mr. Do is the one who knows very well the crimes of father and son, uncle and nephew Pham Tong, he used to be disgusted by them, but he did not have enough strength to fight against them so he chose "the Chi Pheo way of life": " I plow during the day, I go to the fields at night to catch eels, to catch loach but I have to fill up a hole... If something is annoying or annoying, I just curse loudly, what the hell am I afraid of that I have to hide like you ." [30; 123] However, in the end, Mr. Do also realized the good, the light: " If it weren't for the good wind of Mr. Tam blowing to this village, Mr. Do would just be Mr. Do with a basket of eel baskets, wandering all year round at the ends of the banks. And Mr. Nghiep is the same, just a crazy Nghiep, no matter how talented he is, he can only bend three palm leaves to live on the same piece of land ." [30; 182] Not only did the author go into depth to describe the conflict between good and evil within the farmers themselves, but he also very successfully described the conflict between good and evil in the thoughts of key officials in the government. That was Mr. Tinh, a Party Secretary, a veteran with 50 years of Party membership, who chose to live defensively to preserve his honor. After witnessing Mr. Tam's actions and words, he self-criticized by standing in front of the altar, in front of the Party badge, swearing to re-admit to the Party. Reading Trinh Thanh Phong's books, readers seem to see real people and real events in their own villages. The realistic picture of the midland countryside is an interweaving of light and darkness.

This overlap is everywhere. It covers the entire village space, between factions, clans and even within each person. The novel ends happily and a bright future is revealed. The picture of the Vietnamese countryside after the opening day gradually becomes brighter. The mechanism allows farmers to get rich legitimately with their own hands and brains. It can be said that the picture of rural reality in Trinh Thanh Phong's work appears with two light and dark colors, but towards the end of the work, the light color becomes more dominant.

Compared with novels written about the countryside before 1986, it can be seen that the rural reality described in Trinh Thanh Phong's novels has had significant changes. Before 1945, novels written about the countryside also had a sober view, not avoiding reality. Works such as Tat den, Buoc duong cuc, Lao Hac, Chi Pheo ... created a picture of the countryside almost entirely covered by dark colors. Farmers who were already hard-working now had to endure more oppression, often depriving them of their right to live, their humanity and their human form. " That is the countryside with high taxes, unreasonable and unjust; of cruel and blatant exploitation (Tat den, Buoc duong cuc). That is the countryside of complicated customs and suffocating tension, due to conflicts and oppression of factions competing for position (Viec lang). And that is also the countryside of the poor who are pushed to the wall (Chi Dau, Anh Pha); of scenes of misery, of hardship, of people living in agony, pain, or recklessness, of degeneration. The rural picture of realist writers signaled the approaching revolutionary storm. ” [17; 13,14]. In that situation, writers all saw the nature of reality but they could not see the way to solve the problem. Therefore, dark colors almost dominated the picture of rural realism before 1945. This was a historical limitation of the entire Vietnamese critical realist literary movement in this period.

After the August Revolution, novels about rural areas have changed a lot. According to the summary assessment of La Duy Lan in the work “Progressive and Innovative Prose on Rural Areas”, novels about rural areas “ in addition to more or less discovery values, there are also many pages describing the scene of labor production, customs and habits, and village relationships… which are also quite vivid. Production movements such as breaking the banks, planting thick rice, growing water fern, or scenes such as welcoming tractors, competitions, production campaigns… “[17; 21]. “ Prose about rural areas during the war against the US (1965-1975) more or less had a heroic epic tone, due to the impact of the circumstances of both production and fighting (the large rear supporting the large front) and the general, direct influence of the literature about war ” [17; 22]. Thus, the prose written about the countryside after 1945 was influenced by prose written about the war. Until about 10 years after 1975, prose still followed that inertia. The reality of rural life in novels was mostly reflected in a one-sided view with an optimistic tone and not really consistent with reality.

Trinh Thanh Phong's novels on rural themes are part of the general inspiration of post-renovation literature. Therefore, the reality of rural life is viewed in a new light. Through meticulous observations and thorough analysis, the writer creates a colorful picture of the countryside. The existence of the old, of the subsidized bureaucratic mechanism, of the class of people who follow that mechanism paints dark patches of reality. At times, those dark patches overwhelm the bright colors, pushing the fate of many farmers into a miserable situation. But in the end, the correct ideas that know how to promote the potential of the honest and simple people have won. They won the support of the people, making the selfish people receive appropriate lessons.

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With a thorough, straightforward, and unafraid analysis of reality, through his two works Fireflies Village and Village Ghost , Trinh Thanh Phong has built an image of a rural area during both the war and peace years. Novels written before 1975 about rural areas almost never mentioned "sensitive" issues such as management mechanisms and state policies... In the period of renovation, when writers have a certain distance to look back at the past, on the other hand, the constraints of the mechanism no longer exist, writers have the conditions to speak out what they have seen and heard, things that were previously considered "taboo". Thanks to that, in his novels, with passages about the countryside during the war or under the subsidy period, Trinh Thanh Phong is able to express descriptions, thoughts, and concerns about the limitations and weaknesses of a time. That is the relatively big difference between novels written about the past in the past and novels written about the past from the present time (including Trinh Thanh Phong's novels).

Looking at the overall picture of reality in Trinh Thanh Phong's novels, we can see that with a subtle view of reality, the ability to observe and grasp the thoughts and feelings of farmers, and the need to re-evaluate reality, the writer has built a rich picture of reality. That is the reality of rural Vietnam spanning from the war period to peace and renovation. New perspectives of reality are re-evaluated from the contemplative perspective of a writer who is experienced in both age and career. Although his writing is not really "even", it must be recognized that in Trinh Thanh Phong's novels, there are many places where the writer has turned up reality, helping the written pages escape monotony and boredom.

Reading the two novels Fireflies Village and Village Ghost , readers can recognize a rural reality with two light and dark colors, those two colors intertwine, blend and transform. The "transformation" here is seen by the writer.

The characters are perceived in a positive way, from darkness to light, with a benevolent nature, so the endings of the works are generally "happy". This reflects the author's artistic conception of the world and people, which we will discuss in the following section.

3.2. The image of Vietnamese farmers in worldly and private life inspiration.

Talking about inspiration from worldly affairs and private life means talking about inspiration from everyday life, from real people. Works inspired by worldly affairs often focus on people's daily activities, paying attention to affirming the aesthetic value of everyday life, exploring all the complexities, ironies and even the sublimity on the journey to find life and happiness of people.

Vietnamese literature after 1975, especially after 1986, clearly shows this inspiration. The epic trend gradually ended, literature paid more attention to the fate of each individual, to the torments, thoughts, calculations, worries, happiness, and sadness of each person's life. Literary works on rural themes in general and Trinh Thanh Phong's works in particular are also in that vein of inspiration.

In terms of character image, the inspiration of world affairs - private life is shown in the writer's interest in the smallest aspect of the character's private life, looking deeply into the thoughts of the whole family to discover both the best and the hidden corners, both the "dragon and phoenix, the snake and the centipede, the angel and the devil" in each person. The character is not only of interest to the writer from the perspective of a citizen but above all from the perspective of an individual, a private person. We would like to introduce a few features of the private person in literature and its manifestations in literature after 1975, using that as the basis for looking at people from the inspiration of world affairs - private life in Trinh Thanh Phong's novels.

First of all, in the history of human society, the development of individual consciousness is a sign of the development of human consciousness about the role of the subject in the relationship with nature, with society, with oneself. In literature, the movement and development of a literature is expressed in the level of human possession, the discovery and explanation of personal life, of personality, the concern for people from all angles is an issue of extremely important position.

When talking about the individual, we think of the needs for a person's existence, from natural instinctive needs such as eating, sleeping, moving... to spiritual needs such as will, love, desires and dreams towards moral standards, beauty, truth... and also the "hidden corners" intertwined with the bad, the good, and the somewhat dirty "desires" of humans. In Vietnamese literature since 1945, the expression of humans from the masses, the collective, to the individual is evidence of the movement of Vietnamese literature in the new period. However, the individual human being mentioned in revolutionary literature before 1975 was in the general concept at that time, which was still sketchy and one-sided: " The life of our people is extremely heroic and rich, but the reflection of that life in our literature and art is still sketchy " (excerpt from Letters of the Party Central Committee sent to the Literature and Arts Congress, Truth Publishing House, Hanoi, 1975, p.35). The individual human being in resistance literature (1945-1954): " Had its own meaning but was evaluated according to the concept of collective interests" [35; 57]. In the decade of 1954-1964: " The private aspect and personal characteristics were paid more attention as diverse manifestations of the collective of the masses " [35; 326]. The sketchy concept of human being, which included a simple, one-sided understanding of the individual human being, hindered the reflection of the heroic and rich life of the people.

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After 1975, in Vietnamese prose, writers paid attention to the individual, private life, private world, and personal capacity of each person. That was the result of the process of liberating the individual due to the achievements of the two resistance wars. Therefore, we are not surprised when writers with works written in reverse time wrote about the private life of each individual such as Living with two-way time by Vu Tu Nam, Silent childhood by Duy Khan, Distant time by Le Luu, Woman on the express train by Nguyen Minh Chau, Time of people, End of year meeting, A tiny human whistle by Nguyen Khai,... In those works, the authors focused on expressing the private world of the individual and the self-awareness of each person.

The character's self-awareness is expressed in many works, especially in works from the period after 1986. Reading Vu Tu Nam's Living with Two-Way Time , Duy Khan's Silent Childhood , The Woman on the Express Train , and Nguyen Minh Chau's Home Wharf , one can see that the authors all deliberately portray characters with very ordinary personal concerns, contemplations, and reflections distilled from the harsh realities of life. The character An in Living with Two-Way Time was originally a veteran soldier. After the war, returning to ordinary life, he realized: " Oh my! At the age of sixty, I am not strong enough to properly fulfill my duties as a husband and a father! Things that I used to think were easy and simple (like raising children, teaching children...) turned out not to be so. Many things have opened our eyes and made us understand more, but unfortunately, when we have accumulated some experience, age and health almost do not allow us to do any more harm or do anything. There is nothing more boring than living according to habits, today is no different from yesterday, and tomorrow is exactly the same" [28; 3406]

In the works of Nguyen Minh Chau, The Woman on the Express Train , Le Luu , The Distant Times , Nguyen Khai, The Time of the People, End of the Year Meeting, A Tiny Whistle of the World , etc., the characters again undertake "journeys to the source". Each individual, through a long and arduous war of resistance, from the achievements achieved in life, is reflecting on themselves. In The Woman on the Express Train , the character Quy thinks about the years in Truong Son with her own reflections on soldiers in her thoughts at that time: " I was so foolish with the most precious men among those precious people, I did not consider them as people living in the middle of life, but demanded of them a saint. I sought the absolute that never existed " [17 ; 169]. Understanding the values that one has acquired also means that each person is performing the act of self-liberation. From his contemplations, Quy understood more about himself, his relatives, and the people: “ It turns out that life has been like that for generations, people are a crystallization of the quintessence. It turns out that in every era there are people like him, concentrating the intelligence and outstanding talent of the people and carrying in their hearts all the burning aspirations of the people” [17; 188].

The second aspect that writers pay attention to is the exploration of the private life of individuals. In Nguyen Minh Chau's works, the passages about the private life of the characters are always the best and most attractive passages. "In Nguyen Minh Chau's works, whether it is a novel or a short story, the plot often does not play a significant role. The writer focuses on human identity, character personality and has mobilized into it a sentimental soul full of fresh and moving impressions of life, a realistic writing style and a warm, quiet lyrical voice " [11; 209). Not only Nguyen Minh Chau but many other authors such as Nguyen Huy Thiep, Nguyen

The Image of Vietnamese Farmers in Worldly Inspiration - Personal Life.

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