Tran Tieu's Artistic Prose 1930-1945

had to think of a brilliant plan to send his wife to jail. What a useless man. On the contrary, women are different. In special situations, they are the ones who always think of the fastest solutions. They do not sit and wait for opportunities but are always active to find a way out for the family. When facing extreme hardship, the main girl ( The buffalo ) runs around to make a living. She sells here and there, doing all kinds of jobs to help the family stand firm during the drought and crop failure. Or the talented and hardworking scholar so that her husband can sit and recite poetry loudly in the house ( A brilliant plan ). Their actions are instinctive actions without thinking about gains and losses, the purpose is to help her husband and children have less trouble, to help those around them feel less lonely and disappointed before the many changes of life.

The image of women in Tran Tieu's works always has a tolerant and generous heart, a rich soul. The beauty of the image of women here is the embodiment of vitality and nobility. In ancient Chinese literature, writer Cao Tuyet Can let Gia Bao Ngoc say that " a man's body is made of mud, and a woman's body is made of pure water ". Perhaps, the material that makes up a woman is different from the material that makes up a man, so they are different in many ways. Women are the embodiment of holiness, kindness and sacrifice. Uncle Chinh (The Buffalo) sacrificed his whole life for his husband and children, looking back on more than half of his life, he never had a moment of rest. Worried about one thing after another. He forgot himself for his extended family, while I suffered.

The gentle and virtuous beauty of women appears in Tran Tieu's works like a magical light, making the reader's soul light and less worried. How many things are rude, vulgar, evil, and mean are exposed by the writer in the work, so being bathed in this magical light will become lighter and noble. Even the beauty of the singer also makes the stinginess of the village chief, the chief... much less. Or the days of making aspirations in the communal house, the first festival of the year, with the singers, the ceremony becomes more lively. The mandarins are less jealous of each other, their laughter and words are more genuine and gentle. With such a woman's nature, it is possible to believe that life, although still full of contradictions, will be rearranged. Everything can still be saved. Therefore, readers of Tran Tieu's stories will not feel suffocated like in works of critical realism or works of romantic literature. If romantic literature only sees the surface of life, only describes it with shimmering, magical colors but does not look deeply

In real life ( Halfway of spring, Hon buom mo tien, Doi mua gio ), critical realist literature only sees the suffering and hopeless oppression of the villagers ( Tat den, Buoc duong cuc, Chi Pheo ). Tran Tieu does not feel that way, he does not directly describe the way out of the villagers but he believes that this society can be freed from injustice and perverseness, leveling all that is sinful thanks to the virtues of women. If Hegel in Aesthetics stated that: beauty is the embodiment of life, beauty saves life , then the image of women in Tran Tieu's works with both physical and spiritual beauty will be the salvation for life yesterday and today.

To write such realistic pages with the joys, sorrows and bitterness of life at that time, Tran Tieu had to find a solid spiritual support. That was to rely on real characters in life. The image of women was an important support for the author. Without such a support, when he wrote about the backward customs, the evils of the officialdom, and the bitter hardships of the villagers, it would be less attractive to readers. That spiritual support gave wings to the pages of literature to enter the hearts of readers. It gradually permeated and was remembered forever. That was the talent in Tran Tieu's artistic writing style.

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Chapter III

SOME ARTISTIC FEATURES

IN THE CREATIONS OF TRAN TIEU

3. 1. The art of psychological description

As a human being, no one has a smooth inner life. Their inner life is always sometimes vibrant, calm, full of thoughts, restless and anxious, but sometimes peaceful and gentle. Those are the levels of inner life. It is extremely rich and complex. Nhat Linh in Reading and Writing Novels said that " Good novels are those that describe the truth both inside and out. They flexibly describe the complex states of life, delving deeply into life with all the fragile and delicate changes of the soul " [93, p. 77]. The successful description of the character's psychology is a step forward for novelists and this is also a mark of the maturity of modern Vietnamese novels. Tran Tieu is one of the members of the Tu Luc Van Doan group , so he is not outside the trend of occupying and describing the character's psychology according to

new trend. But in his work, the description of the character's psychology is not as good as that of writers Nhat Linh, Khai Hung, Thach Lam, .... However, in Tran Tieu's works, we see the character's psychological development depicted at different times and reflecting the reality of life.

The psychology is quite complicated, sometimes fast or slow depending on the mood, the level of emotions, perceptions and events in the character's life. In the work The Buffalo , Tran Tieu successfully described the mood of Xa Chinh dreaming of having a female buffalo. Xa Chinh dreamed day and night, even when he was near death, he still mentioned the female buffalo. Because of the dream of having a female buffalo, his whole family worked very hard, especially Uncle Chinh, who did not mind the wind or rain, still plowed the whole field, only to die of heatstroke. Life is like that, what can we do! Through this scene, Tran Tieu wanted to say one thing, life in the old society had no way out for honest people, all dreams will forever be dreams that will never come true. The whole work is a series of long days that Xa Chinh dreamed of a female buffalo, especially since Can Than's buffalo was right on his way home from work, it made him think even more.

In the work Husband and Children, the author describes the scene of the wife of the village Bong (later Mrs. Ly Bong) when she first came to her husband's house, she was waiting for a child, going from temple to temple to pray everywhere, but still had no child. The atmosphere in the family was dull, " the days were dull, silently passing like a sluggish stream of water flowing in a desolate field ..." [84, p. 48]. It has been two years since the day she went to pray for a child at Phu Giay, but she still hasn't gotten pregnant. Her mother-in-law was always grumpy, and her husband was absorbed in playing cards and cards all day. But the day of expectation has come, she is pregnant! From the state of doubt " maybe I have morning sickness ?" but when she thought about the lovemaking the previous nights, she smiled and repeated: " maybe I really have morning sickness ". The doubt was always with her, she didn't dare tell anyone, not even her mother or her mother-in-law, " if it's not true, I'll die of shame ". Then, “ the medicinal season has not yet passed, the harvest season has come ”. Three months have passed and the fetus has grown. “ In the third month, her belly is getting bigger. She rubbed her belly and thought. She is definitely pregnant. I am so healthy, it is only right that I am pregnant ”. She went to her mother’s house to share the good news, making the whole family extremely happy. “Oh my gosh ! What a blessing ! What a precious thing ! I am pregnant, my baby is pregnant […]. Every time someone came to visit, she was happy and joyful as if she herself was pregnant ” [84, pp. 51-52]. Her suspicions about her pregnancy were clearly confirmed, and she returned to her husband’s house in a joyful mood.

like a victorious soldier returning to report the news to his country. The mother-in-law's " face suddenly brightened, her eyes suddenly sparkled with joy, as she caressed her daughter-in-law's belly: "I pray to God, I pray to Buddha, I pray to the saints. My child is pregnant. " She stood up and went to brag to the whole neighborhood. So, the news that her daughter-in-law was pregnant changed the atmosphere in the family.

From the time the first child - Him - was born until the last child, Chut, was born, the burden of the family was increasingly on Bong's wife's shoulders and from then on her mind was always filled with worries and concerns, never having a free moment. She not only had to worry about making sure her children had enough food and clothing, but also had to worry about her mother-in-law becoming a Buddhist monk, becoming a ghost, etc. Buying a position and becoming a sixty-year-old for her husband, she also had to worry about getting rich to shut the world's mouth. Her whole life she never stopped thinking and worrying. Over sixty years old, she still had a lot of work to do.

The title of the work is Husband and Children and the epigraph is “ Husband and Children are Debts ” which fully describes all aspects of the work’s ideological theme. The epigraph depicts the character’s mood. These are the character’s thoughts, worries, and concerns about life. Especially the character’s concept of husband and children, which is also the author’s concept of life in the old society, where women suffered a lot of bitterness.

Since the day Hĩm became the concubine of Nghi Ich, her life has taken a turn: ending her dreamy girlhood with moonlit nights singing together, moving to live in a cramped house without any love, enduring the bitterness of the first wife's jealousy, the first wife's daughters being even more cruel than their mother. Hĩm's life was like that of a hard-labor prisoner, Hĩm lived as if she were dead. But in that desperate moment, Thu's sincere love pulled Hĩm out of the long, boring days, giving Hĩm a new way of thinking and acting, freeing herself. The love of a servant - Thu - was like a bridge that saved Hĩm from her humble life. If Thi No's love was a bridge spanning the two shores of good and evil to bring Chí Phèo back to humanity, to the love of life, then here Thu's love had the power to pull Hĩm out of the stagnant, imprisoned life of strict and harsh etiquette.

True love came to Him late, but it was a cup of cool water to pour into Him's withered soul. That love, like a reviving medicine, brought her back to the present " Him ran up and down, fresh as a flower, agile as a ring-shaped bird, smiling and talking to everyone " [84, p. 195]. Tran Tieu described the scene where Him and Thu had not seen each other for a long time, the two of them sat next to each other, seemingly forgetting everything that was happening around them " That night,

Him sat still in the kitchen. Sifting and chatting with the young man pounding rice. Him laughed heartily, spoke as if he was praising, forgetting his mother and two younger siblings nearby. In Him's mind, he never thought of their suspicions " [84, p. 192]. The next morning when he woke up, it seemed like the scenery had changed " The air was as clear as crystal, the grass and trees were as green as jade. The birds sang together in a thousand melodies to harmonize with the joyful hearts of the couple " [84, p. 194]. The real scene in real life had turned into a mental scene. The realistic beauty of life had turned into a poetic beauty under the eyes of the couple who were filled with happiness. The time Him spent with Thu always felt lacking, felt short. " Him could not be away from his lover, even for a moment, even though every night they were entwined together until late at night and every day they were close to each other like a pair of seagulls that never left each other's side ."

In some works ( The Buffalo, Husband and Children ), the expression of the characters' psychology has reached a quite profound level. The characters appear with rich and vivid psychological features. Therefore, the characters of Sister Bong, Cai Him ( Husband and Children ), Sister Chinh ( The Buffalo ), Sister Chung ( The Five Years ), ... have inward psychological movements. Therefore, it has a profound and attractive effect.

In the book Tu Luc Van Doan - people and literature , Phan Cu De affirmed:

“ Compared to novels before 1930, Tu Luc Van Doan novels delved much deeper into the rich inner world of people. Novelists intended to apply psychology to analyze the psychology of people of different ages. Writers were especially successful in describing the psychology of women and feudal mothers-in-law, especially the petty bourgeoisie at the age of love and dreams ” [93, p. 81 – quoted].

In Tran Tieu's works, he did not mention the character of intellectuals, if anything, it was only a passing glance, not a profound one, but mainly the peasants with muddy hands and feet. When describing the psychology of these characters, he reached a rather special artistic level.

However, Tran Tieu's character does not have a rich inner life like that of Nam Cao, Vu Trong Phung, Nguyen Hong... Or even compared to Khai Hung, Nhat Linh, in the Tu Luc Van Doan group , his character is still somewhat limited. In the work Mot Dieu Ke , the writer lets the scholar think about life in prison and life outside as follows: " There is nothing humiliating or miserable. Then you see, it's like going to a hospital " [85, p. 51]. Or the psychology of the character Soi ( Husband and children ) is described by the author as no different from a stupid person. All day long, the character is silent, does not speak, does not think. Gets married but is almost completely economically dependent on the mother's family.

Today she comes to ask for this, tomorrow she comes to ask for something else, the mother has to say, " Stop it. It's been less than five hours since you've been married and you've spent so much of my money. I have to give you from the broken bowl onwards. Now I have nothing left to support you and your husband forever " [84, p. 171]. Even when Soi was scolded by her sister-in-law, she could only endure it patiently. We can see that the writer's description of all these characters is not close to the psychology, and is somewhat subjective.

3. 2. Narrative art

In the work Husband and Children , the writer recounts events that took place in a linear chronological order: The Kiep Temple's child-praying festival on August 16; This month's twenty-first , we go to the Dong-Bang festival; Huong Pagoda festival - January to the end of February; March 2, the shoe-covering festival. Or phrases indicating that time passes quickly, along with it, events just flow: a few days ago, five days later, that morning, then one day around January, day after day, the twentieth just passed, January next year, March this year, exactly two years, the medicinal season has not yet passed, the harvest season has come, after the busy months come the leisure months, half a month later, the second month, Tet comes, the third month, more than two months now, ... Or in the work The Buffalo, events happen continuously as if there is no end: Tet, The Elderly Association, The Village Celebration, The Communal Housewarming, The Debt, Waiting, The Great Drought, From Housework to Village Work, The Family Work, The Land Granting Lock, The End of Debt . These events happen one after another and drag along events in the lives of Sister Bong ( Husband and Children ), Sister Chinh ( The Buffalo ) that cannot be resisted. When telling the events that happen continuously, the writer wants to emphasize the passage of time, the shortening of human life. The faster time passes, the more consecutive events happen, the more urgent and hurried life becomes. There is no stopping point for the characters to think and act. Through the art of narrative

– From this narrative, we can predict that the author is a person who values time very much. He always seems to feel a lack of time. Perhaps the author is a terminally ill person (in the last years of his life, he suffered from tuberculosis), the day he is about to die is predetermined, but there is still too much work, so he feels regretful about time, and wherever he is, he always feels that time passes too quickly.

Besides the way the events are told so quickly, we sometimes see them as if they are slowing down and stopping. It is like a stop to verify all the events that have happened. After the events of Him and Soi getting married, Quy getting married, and Chut applying for military service, her mother-in-law has been dead for nearly ten years, her husband is preparing to join the army.

sixty years old. Sister Bong ( Husband and children ) sat down to review all the events that had happened in her life, to check what had been lost. This is a passage where the author describes the scene of Sister Bong's house when Him got married: " All day long, she didn't bother to do anything. Sitting quietly on the threshold, thinking . [...]. She didn't sleep all night, she lay thinking endlessly. Thinking about the time when she was young ..." [84, p. 157]. And now " over sixty [...] still had to worry about so many things " [84, p. 248]. In the stopping point of the narrative, the author let his character live in many different spaces and times. That is also the place to show the character's personality traits. Sister Bong will reveal her personality through the stopping points of events and through this also reveal all her abilities in the face of life's changes. The image of Bong's wife appears real and close.

Tran Tieu is the one who has contributed to discovering and portraying the image of female characters. The image of this person under his writing style appears quite vividly and convincingly. If Ngo Tat To discovered the role of rural women in the work Tat den , Tran Tieu also discovered the role of women expressed in many works ( Con trau, Chong con, Nam Han, Mot dieu ke, Sau luy tre, ... ). This is the place where Tran Tieu contributed to the country's literature in general and enriched the prose of Tu Luc Van Doan in particular.

In the work After the Bamboo Grove , the author tells the story in a very unique way. The Chinh - Diec family lived "Peacefully , calmly, and peacefully, like the surface of an autumn pond, the couple was in harmony and happy ". However, the storms of life poured down on the family without them knowing, and the whole family could not withstand them. It was like a storm that destroyed everything that the couple had built for so long. The author describes the scene of Chinh's family through the " storm of life " " after three years of working, the capital and fields were all gone, leaving only a few bamboo houses with a bunch of poor children ". The story takes place over three years, but in those three years, many life events happened to Chinh's family. “ Today, I went to the communal house and was caught by the mandarins, this afternoon I had to bring betel and areca nuts to the communal house to apologize, yesterday afternoon I went to the communal house to announce, the next morning the mandarins went to the communal house to discuss selling the position of village head to the Chinh commune (buying the position of village head cost three hundred silver coins), the next morning the Chinh commune house was now the Chinh commune to prepare a feast to invite the village (almost fifty silver coins), and when it came to collecting taxes, I had to compensate for the losses (one hundred silver coins per crop) ” . So one event after another happened so quickly, there was no time for the Chinh commune to rest and review what he had done, when he realized it, all that was left was the house.

ragged and hungry children. The author recounts these successive events in order to express his many perspectives on the characters. Tran Tieu wants to expose the true face of the officials who always play tricks to oppress honest people. The officials have hit the fame-seeking of the farmers who have some prestige in society. Therefore, they set up all kinds of things to lure those people into the trap to manage and divide the money among themselves. The people, for a false reputation, do not consider the pros and cons. That is also their weakness that Tran Tieu wants to tell the readers.

In the work Who must , the writer tells the story of a simple and honest farmer family with only one desire to get rich but cannot. The old custom has stunted their desire. To recreate this event, Tran Tieu used a vivid and realistic description of events. The event took place less than a month but contained many problems of life. It is like a play with knots, unknots, climaxes, and peaks. The opening scene is Khoan being upset about his family situation, but this event only passes by and is replaced by Khoan's joy when finding a way to make a living. " He hummed a song right from the beginning of the village. Anyone who saw his joyful face knew that he was impulsively happy " [85, p. 85]. If things continued like that, his family would become very rich. But right when he was determined to get rich, disaster struck because of a matter that was not a matter. When his family poured mud into the garden, the Con commune's family got an eye sore and blamed his family for disturbing the dragon vein, forcing them to pour mud into the pond and prepare an offering of apology at the communal house and offer chicken and sticky rice to the local god who manages the field where the three generations of the Con commune's family's tombs are. Everything happened like a slow-motion film, sometimes close-up, sometimes far away to better cover the event. In this way of telling, Tran Tieu wanted to express his point of view and viewpoint on the bad customs in the village. The work is a profound criticism of the bad customs in the countryside.

3. 3. Lyrical descriptive tone.

Tone is where the writer's emotional nuances are expressed in the process of building character images or describing things and events in the writer's observations. Tone according to the Dictionary of Literary Terms is " The writer's attitude, feelings, stance, ideology, and ethics towards the phenomenon described, expressed in the text, which regulates the way of addressing, naming, using words, emotional tone, perception of distance, intimacy, respect or familiarity, praise or sarcasm ..." [27, p. 91]. Tone and intonation are two different concepts that need to be distinguished. If tone

Tran Tieu's Artistic Prose 1930-1945 - 6

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