The Impact of Social Circumstances on the Life and Literary Career of Nam Cao and Akutagawa.

2. The impacts of social circumstances on the lives and literary careers of Nam Cao and Akutagawa.

2.1. Life

As we know, Nam Cao and Akutagawa are two great writers of Vietnam and Japan. That is the biggest similarity between these two writers. But if we look at and compare the lives of the two writers from a historical and social perspective, we will see a huge difference in their lives.

Akutagawa was born in 1892 but lost his mother when he was less than a year old and spent his entire childhood without her love. He had to be adopted into an elderly family that had lived for generations in the Shitamachi district of Tokyo and took her surname, Akutagawa. Fortunately, this family was cultured and especially admired classical Japanese and Chinese literature. In this family, the foster uncle was the one who always inspired and encouraged his orphaned nephew to love classical literature. In 1898, Agutagawa entered elementary school. And right at this time, Akutagawa clearly revealed his special literary ability when he read the works of Tokutômi Rôca - one of the most famous writers in Japan at that time. Throughout his high school and university years, Agutagawa was an excellent student and his greatest passion was books. It was the years at school that formed the spiritual life of the future great writer of Japan. Akutagawa was interested in the works of many great writers of the world, many of whom had an influence on his literary life.

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Thus, although he had an orphaned and pitiful childhood, Akutagawa was raised and born in a family with a literary tradition. Moreover, the era in which Akutugawa lived was an extremely favorable era for his literary career. Akutagawa was able to come into contact with Western civilization in a comprehensive and easy way because Japanese society at that time

is advancing rapidly and strongly following the Western capitalist countries. This explains why he has a deep understanding of the works of world master writers such as: Maupassant, Ipxen, Strenberg, Berna So, Tolstoy, the Golcu brothers, Nich, Verlen, Dostoyevsky, Flobert, Bodele, Francois, Chekhov, Gogol, Turgenev...

In contrast to Akutagawa, Nam Cao was born and raised in a dark and stifling semi-feudal colonial country. Dai Hoang village - where he was born - is a miniature image of that society. Nam Cao's Dai Hoang village is located in a remote area, so the village's powerful and powerful officials have the opportunity to act rashly. Every year, lawsuits between the rich and powerful often occur here, leading to many farmers having to leave their villages to seek a living. The real events that took place here were recorded in Nam Cao's books with a heavy imprint of a poor and dark countryside.

Nam Cao grew up in a poor family, life was quite difficult, among his brothers, only Nam Cao was able to go to school. Poverty and illness followed Nam Cao from a young age. Failing the Thanh Chung exam, Nam Cao followed a tailor uncle to Saigon to make a living. Leaving the poor and confined village, Nam Cao brought with him many dreams and great plans. Nam Cao cherished the dream of one day going to France to see more, know more, and study higher. He thought that the lands far from his homeland would open up a new horizon, but in the end, illness sent Nam Cao back to his birthplace.

Also an intellectual, Nam Cao was eager to learn and dreamed of traveling far, contacting and learning from the West. But the society in which Nam Cao lived stifled the dreams of that petty bourgeois intellectual and pushed him back to a life of poverty and confinement in the countryside. This is the reason why

Nam Cao's works often dwell on trivial, everyday stories, stories that seem like they don't want to be written about, with very ordinary people existing around the writer's life. However, Nam Cao's works are still deeply influenced by great writers such as: Chekhov, Dostoevsky...

Besides this fundamental difference, Nam Cao and Akutagawa have many interesting similarities in their lives. The most notable point is that both writers were teachers before becoming journalists and writers. After graduating from the English Literature and Literary Linguistics Department of Tokyo Imperial University, Akutagawa worked as an English teacher at the Marine Engineering School in Camacura. Three years later, he returned to Tokyo to work at the Osaka Mainiti newspaper and from then on he devoted all his mind and soul to writing.

As for Nam Cao, after returning from Saigon, he passed the Thanh Chung exam. Nam Cao intended to apply to become a civil servant, but due to illness, he was not accepted. A relative of Nam Cao opened a private school in Hanoi (Cong Thanh private school, Thuy Khue, Hanoi) and needed a teacher with a high school degree, Nam Cao was invited to teach. The life of a poor private school teacher helped Nam Cao deeply understand the fate of the poor petty bourgeois intellectuals in a suffocating, deadlocked society. When the Japanese fascists invaded Indochina, the school was closed, Nam Cao struggled to make a living by writing, tutoring, and sometimes had to return home to depend on his wife because he was unemployed. In 1943, Nam Cao secretly joined the National Salvation Culture group with a number of writers such as To Hoai, Nguyen Hong, Nguyen Huy Tuong, Nguyen Dinh Thi... When the National Salvation Culture base and the revolutionary movement in Hanoi were severely terrorized, Nam Cao returned home and participated in the local Viet Minh movement. During the August Revolution, Nam Cao participated in seizing power in Phu Ly Nhan and was elected as the commune chairman. Shortly after, Nam Cao was transferred to Hanoi and worked at the Literary Association.

national salvation. There was a period when Nam Cao worked at the editorial office of Tien Phong magazine - the organization of the Association. When the national resistance war broke out, Nam Cao followed the army to the South Central Coast. In 1946, he went to Viet Bac. During the years of resistance against French colonialism, Nam Cao worked as an editor for the newspapers Cuu Quoc Viet Bac and Cuu Quoc Trung Uong , and did all the work of an information and propaganda officer: writing news, writing documents explaining policies, composing propaganda folk songs, writing enemy leaflets...

Notably, Nam Cao and Akutagawa both died at a very young age. Nam Cao died at the age of 36 and Akutagawa just turned 35, leaving behind his wife and children. The deaths of both writers were deeply affected by social circumstances. However, if Nam Cao's death was due to positive impacts, Akutagawa's was due to negative impacts. Nam Cao sacrificed himself in November 1950, while on duty as a revolutionary soldier protecting his homeland. He was ambushed and shot dead by the enemy near Hoang Dan outpost (Ninh Binh) on his way to work in the enemy's rear area of Inter-Zone 3. Meanwhile, Akutagawa chose death by suicide (1927) because at the end of his life, he was always haunted by the crisis of bourgeois intellectuals before the rise of fascist militarism. His death was a sharp denunciation of contemporary Japanese society.

2.2. Literary career

Nam Cao and Akutagawa are both writers who matured in a historical period with many changes and upheavals in two Asian nations and countries. Therefore, it is natural that historical circumstances had a significant impact on the literary careers of the two writers. Nam Cao and Akutagawa both had creative careers divided into two periods. If for Nam Cao, the milestone to divide the two periods was 1945, for Akutagawa it was 1920.

2.2.1 . First creative stage

In the first stage, Nam Cao published his works in newspapers since 1936, but his literary career only really began with the short storyChi Pheo (1941). Nam Cao's works focused on two main themes: the life of poor petty bourgeois intellectuals and the life of farmers in his hometown.

In the topic of petty bourgeois intellectuals, Nam Cao has short stories: Stories that don't want to write, Giang sang, Mua nha, Truyen tinh, Thoi quen, Cuoi, Nuoc mat, Doi dung and the novel Song mort (1944). In these works, Nam Cao has described very realistically the poverty, the half-life, half-death situation of poor writers, private school teachers, unemployed students. The writer especially delves into their spiritual tragedies, thereby raising social issues of great significance, beyond the scope of the topic. It is the persistent, silent and painful tragedy of intellectuals, with profound meaning about the value of life and human dignity, with great ambitions for a spiritual career, but being burdened with food and clothing and social circumstances full of injustice and absurdity, causing their spirit to wither away. These works have criticized the inhumane society that suffocates life and destroys people. At the same time, they express the inner struggle of the petty bourgeois intellectual in reality trying to reach a meaningful life.

In the topic of farmers, the writer is primarily interested in the most oppressed and miserable people, the most disadvantaged and disadvantaged. The more gentle and patient those people are, the more cruelly they are trampled upon, and he is especially interested in cases where farmers are cruelly and unjustly humiliated simply because they are poor and miserable. Therefore, Nam Cao always defends the right to life and dignity of unfortunate people who are pushed into such humiliating situations by society ( Chi Pheo, A full meal, The crier's position, Lang ran... ). Writing about farmers who have become hooligans, the writer

The writer deeply condemned the brutal society that destroyed both the body and soul of the working peasants. At the same time, he also discovered and affirmed their beautiful, honest nature, even while they were crushed to the point of losing their human form and humanity. The new depth of Nam Cao's realistic and humane pen lies there. Nam Cao's works not only exposed the extreme suffering of the peasants but also touchingly expressed the beautiful, noble nature in their souls ( Old Man Hac, A Wedding, Aunt Hao ).

During this period of writing, Nam Cao had not yet participated in the revolutionary movement, so his works were mainly the writer's own understanding and feelings about the human condition in a semi-feudal colonial society. During this period, Nam Cao was considered a critical realist writer and a humanist.

In his first period of writing, Akutagawa's works were mainly of a fantastical color. His first work was the short story Raxiômon Gate . The story was based on a historical story of the 10th - 12th centuries. And the vast majority of Akutagawa's short stories written during this period were historical stories of China, Japan and the West ( Raxiômon Gate, The Agony of Hell, Spider's Thread ). But in fact, in these short stories, history was just an excuse for him to reflect on the present because they had absolutely no purpose of recreating the ancients. The people in the so-called historical stories were not historical at all but were almost modern people. Akutagawa put them in unusual situations and created a certain fantastical color to study human character and to raise modern ethical and aesthetic issues. In addition to stories borrowed from historical stories, Akutagawa's short stories also cover a wide range of topics. The Ball and The Scarecrow deal with the assimilation of Western civilization during the Meiji period; The Death of

A Lamb and The Tale of Saint Christopher are written about the time when foreigners came to preach; Inspiration and The City Fields depict the creative life of artists and stories written for children. Through these short stories, he emphasized human vices, the imperfection of people and society. And in some ways, he deeply condemned the modern society in which he lived. Critics praised Akutagawa's short stories from this period as "neo-realist" works .

2.2.2 . Second creative stage

In the early 1920s, when the revolutionary movement, including the movement of the Japanese progressive intellectuals, developed, Akutagawa paid special attention to it. The phenomena of the revolutionary movement were important events that affected the writer's spiritual life. In 1921, he went to China as a reporter for the Osaka Mainiti newspaper . There, he witnessed the fierce political struggle in China. After this trip, Akutagawa was more sober in assessing the political and social events taking place in Japan. After the trip in 1921, Akutagawa's stance, ideology and literary conception changed a lot. From 1921 to 1927, his works turned to more modern and broader themes, shifting from criticizing the imperfection of the individual to the imperfection of the social system in general. The Land of the Seamen is one of Akutagawa's last and most successful works to highlight this idea.

All of Akutagawa's works exhibit a distinct style that blends realism and fantasy in a flowery yet concise style. They demonstrate Akutagawa's keen intuition and wide range of interests. Most of these works are ironic and

deeply evocative in the neo-realist trend, reflecting the author's spirit of anti-militarism, nationalism and liberalism.

Back to writer Nam Cao. The year 1945 in Vietnam was an important historical moment marking the victory of the August Revolution and the birth of the independent Democratic Republic of Vietnam after 87 years of French colonial rule and occupation. Nam Cao was a soldier writer. Therefore, this event had a great influence on the writer's thoughts as well as his creative stance. Since 1943, Nam Cao had participated in the National Salvation Culture movement with a number of other writers, so after the August Revolution, he threw himself into all revolutionary and resistance work. In 1948, Nam Cao wrote in the newspaper Cuu Quoc : "The resistance war has completely changed our lives, the lives around us, changed from clothing, language, gestures of each person, changed even the emotional and ideological life" ( Some thoughts on literature and art ). In many essays ( Border Stories, Some Notes Through the Liberated Zone, On the Roads of Viet Bac ,...), diaries ( In the Forest ), short stories (Eyes ), we have clearly seen great changes in Nam Cao, different from the dark, heavy mood of the writer before the Revolution. We can see on each page the joyful, excited mood of an optimistic and confident person. If before the Revolution, Nam Cao used his pen to denounce the dark sides of the semi-feudal colonial society, then after the Revolution, through the reality of struggle, Nam Cao came to a truly correct concept of art. He pointed out the close connection between art and the masses. The ideas Nam Cao presented in his works during this period were considered the "compass" of ideological stance for contemporary writers. Based on the changes in worldview and artistic perspective, Nam Cao's creative path entered a new stage of development. From a critical realist writer, Nam Cao gradually became

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