"The eyes were sharp under the thick, slanted eyebrows on the high forehead, showing a resolute, courageous, intelligent, and talented person " [12, 83].
When writing about wrestling, Kim Lan's pen showed proficiency and delight in showing the strength of the wrestlers' skills. In the story of General Tran Quang Khai - Trang, wrestling was described meticulously. " As soon as Sat's hand was placed on Trach Kho's neck, his whole body shook. Knowing that he had encountered a formidable opponent, Trach Kho went down to "cow". This "cow stick" move, he only used it when he was desperate. His head, stomach and limbs were glued to the ground. No one could catch him. People often rumored that when Trach Kho went down to "cow stick", even if he used a shovel to pry it up, he wouldn't be able to get it up. Sat struggled to catch the cow. Both sides stirred up dust in the arena. From morning until noon, Sat still couldn't do anything to Trach Kho. He was so impatient. Finally, he grabbed the "hand with the top". Just like that, Sat used all his strength to lift Trach Kho up, before thousands of cheers from everyone " [12, 86]. Trach Kho's " cow stick " also could not save him from defeat before Trang Sat's " divine power ". That " divine power " in the story of Ong Can Ngu is shown in another form. Ong Can Ngu is described: " He stood like a tree planted in the middle of the field before the horrified eyes of the spectators. As for Quam Den, he was struggling to bend his back, unable to lift up Ong Can Ngu's leg. The leg was like an iron pillar, not a human leg anymore. Ong Can Ngu still stood leaning over, looking at Quam Den, sweat dripping down his legs. After a long time, he reached down, grabbed Quam Den's loincloth, and lifted him up, as lightly as if we were lifting a frog with a straw tied across its belly " [12, 226]. That is the physical strength of wrestlers.
In creating the character of the Shang Go, Kim Lan also discovered a common point, which is the spirit of honor - personal honor and village honor. It can be said that honor is something especially important to an individual. A wrestler can feel very miserable if he goes to the wrestling ring and loses to other wrestlers.
But personal honor is not equal to the honor of the community, the honor of each wrestling arena, that is, each region, each village. This can be seen in the story of Ong Can Ngu , when the character Quam Den was defeated by Can Ngu, the audience and the other wrestlers all shared the same feeling of humiliating defeat. They thought: “ The wrestler was defeated in such a humiliating and bitter way. He beat me, not even as good as fighting a child! Quam Den, a wrestler who was one of the strongest in the province, was defeated like that, so who would follow Keo to beat Ong Can Ngu? They all bit their lips and sighed ” [12, 227]. The defeat became so serious that all the wrestlers, young and old, naturally came to Lam’s house to discuss who could fight Can Ngu to save and preserve the honor of the village. In most of the pages of the story about the character Thuong Vo, writer Kim Lan has deeply exploited the spirit of honor and competition of each wrestling arena in each village in the region.
Of course, the writer is deeply aware of the issue of honor in relation to the interests of the country and human morality. Famous wrestlers like Ca Lam and Can Ngu always have deadly tricks, which can be the final poison to defeat the opponent. With these dangerous moves, wrestlers can cause the opponent to be disabled, even leading to death. But with people of the same country, they never use such deadly tricks to kill the opponent. The wrestlers in Kim Lan's works are all people who respect morality, are chivalrous, noble, righteous, and know how to repent. In themselves, they always shine the heart and virtue of a poor, honest, and simple-minded villager, admirable. Mr. Ca Lam once defeated an old wrestler, and felt "regretful and restless , both pitying and guilty ". Especially once Mr. Lam knew the purpose of traveling the world under the name of competing in wrestling to recruit heroes to fight the enemy, combined with his sharp eyes when analyzing
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The accumulation of Can Ngu's deliberate leniency in the wrestling pieces, so he did not put all his strength into the secret piece. That was a noble spirit, both deeply humane and expressing the spirit of solidarity in fighting the enemy of the wrestlers, of all the villagers. Personal self-respect, village self-respect would be necessary, but would no longer become important before the honor of a Vietnamese citizen in the face of the enemy's disaster. " I kept thinking that as a wrestler, no matter where I am, in the East or the West, the South or the North, wherever I am, I am a Vietnamese citizen, with the same red blood and yellow skin, in this time when the country is still in ruins, should I, because of winning or losing a wrestling match, beat a righteous person, a person who serves the people, serves the country like my uncle, into a cripple, and be able to leave? " [12, 235]. Thinking like that, old man Lam, because of his feelings for the national community, gave up and could not bear to harm Can Ngu. A person like Mr. Ca Lam stopped and lost to a master in the wrestling village, which is very noble. The best wrestlers in the village like Mr. Can Ngu and Mr. Ca Lam came to the wrestling festival, a traditional sport of the nation, not because of winning or losing, but because of their passion for traditional customs, wanting to preserve the beautiful cultural features of our nation. Those beautiful cultural features are the result of the strength and intelligence of the community, it connects and highlights the noble feelings of people to people, people to their homeland. Writer Kim Lan describes the wrestlers in a noble, elegant spirit, an admirable cultural posture.
Thus, when writing about the character of the upper pot, Kim Lan praised the beauty of the wrestlers, the writer affirmed the noble qualities and the upper pot spirit of the Vietnamese people. On the other hand, the author also promoted the traditional cultural values, the cultural quintessence of the nation, the values created by the poor rural people. Kim Lan did not stop at a purely rural customary activity, but he led the story in the direction of
glorifying the cultural beauty of the people in his hometown in particular and the Northern countryside in general. Through that, the characters are clearly portrayed, carrying within them the qualities, elegance, and spirit of the nation, closely associated with the cultural beauty of the traditional countryside.
2.2.3. Small, everyday characters
Kim Lan's creative perspective is to write for the poor. Therefore, naturally, Kim Lan became a writer for the poor in society. Therefore, the majority of Kim Lan's works are small, ordinary characters, the type of characters with low status and power. These are the type of " leftover " characters that are unknown in the Vietnamese countryside in general, both before and after the August Revolution.
It can be said that, looking at farmers from the perspective of cultural people, writer Kim Lan does not stop with the talented, tactful people who carry the " rural elegance ". In other words, he does not only revive the customs, hobbies, and traditional cultural activities of people in the countryside of Northern Vietnam. Kim Lan also wants to create the spiritual character of Vietnamese people - a character that he considers very noble, the poor people that Kim Lan calls " People who are like the leftovers in every corner of life " [15].
Each person has a different fate and situation. Some are adrift in misery due to war, hunger and thirst, some are trampled, oppressed, exploited and despised. Kim Lan's pen focuses on describing the fate of people with surplus heads and scarred tails. These types of people have their own appearance and soul, making an impression in many of the writer's works. They are poor and miserable, but under Kim Lan's pen, there is still a sparkling beauty of soul, altruism and sacrifice, a desire to live and a passion for
happiness. The small, ordinary, lowly characters, with little heads and tails, are the embodiment of poverty and suffering, a geisha's child who was heartlessly abandoned by her mother, living alone and miserable in a life of struggle (The geisha's child ), or an old actor whose time has passed and who only knows how to bury the rest of his life in opium smoke, poverty, and daydreaming about his youth ( The old actor )... More than that, there are poor farmers who cannot survive in the village and have to leave the village to wander everywhere, they are all the same in hunger and poverty. We also encounter the world of poor farmers who are the lower class of the old society, the simple and honest farmers in the lowlands who lost their homes and fields and drifted to the highlands, living in a corner of the market by the river, a corner of a mountain town or on the edge of a plantation, a hamlet, continuing to struggle for daily bread. In the short story " The Picked-up Wife ", there are Cu Trang, the picked-up wife, Mrs. Tu and all the people living in the slum, shabby, dark, a gloomy, dark land of small people in society. They themselves have the fate of farmers living in the social context before the August Revolution, poor, miserable and had to wander to other places just for food and clothes. Life is extremely miserable, they have to go abroad to earn a living every day, every meal to earn a living. The image of the wife, her clothes “ tattered like a bee’s nest ”, emaciated on her “ gray plow face with only two eyes visible ” [12, 153] also struggled in life to make a living, sitting waiting to pick up fallen or scattered seeds, or when called to do any work, she would do it and no one knew where she came from, what her name was, and it seemed no one cared about her… The character is like a clear demonstration of the poor in contemporary real society.
That is why, on the journey to discover and portray Vietnamese farmers in the Northern Delta countryside, Kim Lan focused on the theme of human vitality even in times of dire need.
most desperate. This is the most specific expression of the Vietnamese village culture. Many of Kim Lan's stories in general not only explore and express but also affirm the healthy, strong nature in the personality of the working people, as if affirming a truth. This is perhaps most typical in the character of Trang, Trang's wife, and Mrs. Tu - Trang's mother in the short story " The Picked-up Wife" . Trang's marriage in the midst of famine brought people a strong belief in life that was gradually fading away in the midst of hunger, death, misery, and gloom. Specifically, Trang gave the "picked-up wife" - the ragged, starving person with no chance of survival - a reliable support, a place to exist, making her, who was originally bitter and arrogant, quickly regain her gentle, proper temperament. And the same goes for Trang himself - he saw himself as " more human ", he felt he had more " responsibility " and " duty " towards his family. All of this makes the reader more deeply understand the beauty in the souls of the poor, hard-working people, where death is always close to life, but they still love, care for, and protect each other, always longing for happiness - even if it is just a small, ordinary happiness. This is also a basic expression of the sentimental type of people in Vietnamese villages. The poor people behave beautifully with each other in difficult and unfortunate situations. That sentimental lifestyle has created mutual help and support, forming a glue that unites families and communities.
More importantly, in the character of Mrs. Tu - Trang's mother - an old, poor mother with a kind heart and very loving son. She loved her son and accepted a strange woman to come to her house to be her daughter-in-law. Loving her son, she loved her poor daughter-in-law even more. Perhaps, there was a sympathy between women and girls, so she felt sorry for the "picked up wife". Her love was great and touching. It was a kind of love very close to instinct, a natural pity between mother and child.
between people. This love is especially typical of the hearts of Vietnamese women since ancient times. But the important thing is that in Mrs. Tu, it is the great faith and desire to live in her soul. She was the one who lit the fire of hope in life for Trang and his wife. For the first meal, she welcomed her new daughter-in-law with only a few bowls of thin porridge with a bunch of sliced banana leaves (the whole family ate together) and a pot of " che khoan " cooked with thin rice bran that she said was " extremely delicious ", " there are many houses in our neighborhood that don't have rice bran to eat! " [12,160]. She talked about all the happy things, about the future. On her wrinkled face, there was always joy and anxiety when the family had a new member. Mrs. Tu's love was truly great and touching. It was this love that contributed to driving away the dark shadow of hunger and death from people's lives. That is also the beauty of the Vietnamese soul and culture [15].
The character Doan in the short story The Old Neighbor is the same. Doan was wrongly accused of following the Kuomintang, and was being persecuted and humiliated. Not only Doan, but also his comrades - loyal soldiers of the Revolution like Mui were wrongly accused and arrested. The lyrics of the old neighbor are like an implication of the cruel ways of life, of the injustice of human life, of the sympathy full of affection, touching but not daring to make public in the harsh situation at that time. It is worth mentioning that the character Doan, while being exiled, forced to confess, and cornered from all sides, including relatives and loved ones, twice thought to himself, as if swearing to his conscience and courage: " must live ". The author let Doan think: " And if Doan dies, will he escape? Or will people think that Doan is hiding from the struggle? His comrades cut him off? No, Doan must live! No matter how bitter and humiliating the situation is, Doan must live. Love and duty as a father and husband tormented him, Doan could not escape and leave " [12,
206]. Twice, the two words “ must live ” resounded like a fight, to regain one’s position in the midst of that crazy time. This is the type of unfortunate person, who has suffered a lot in life, but still has hidden within him a desire to live, a belief, a hope in the future, in a new life that can change life. It can be said that the vitality of the people is immortal, no force can destroy it. Tyranny, violence, bombs, hunger, all become miserably powerless before the fierce vitality of people. Kim Lan’s works are like songs praising life, praising the immortality of people, more broadly of the Vietnamese people, the Vietnamese character, the Vietnamese soul. And that is also the essence of the cultural people of the village.
When looking at this type of character as a cultured person, we cannot help but mention their natural feelings and responsibilities towards the fate and survival of the country. We must mention the character of Mr. Hai in the work The Village . For Mr. Hai, loving the village means loving the country, being attached to the fate and honor of the village is also being attached to the fate and honor of the country. When hearing the rumor that his village followed the enemy, Mr. Hai thought to himself: " It cannot be! I really love the village, but if the village follows the West, I must hate it " [12, 143]. It is truly a decisive choice, despite the pain. During the years of resistance, before the threat of invasion, regardless of who is a citizen of Vietnam, they all love and are responsible for the safety of the country. Naturally, they were extremely attached to their homeland and country in the context of wartime. Patriotism has become a noble spiritual value flowing in the veins of each person. It can be said that the highest spiritual value in a cultured person is patriotism in a natural, touching and enduring way. That is also the sacred source in Vietnamese culture.