Analysis of the character Miss Hiền in the short story 'A Hanoian'

Prompt: Analysis of the character Miss Hiền in the short story 'A Hanoian' by the writer Nguyen Khải

Sample essay: Analyzing the character Miss Hiền in the short story 'A Hanoian'

Assignment:

The short story 'A Hanoian' by writer Nguyen Khai, printed in the collection of the same name published in 1990, during Vietnam's renewal period in literature. Miss Hiền is the main character of the story. Through Miss Hiền, the author discovers many beauties in the depth of the soul, the character of Hanoian people, representing Vietnamese women amidst the country's upheavals, fluctuations, and development. The narrator introduces Miss Hiền, expressing cherished thoughts and feelings towards her - 'The two daughters of my old mother's sister.'

The author doesn't describe Miss Hiền's appearance but focuses on her language, way of life, and behavior in family relationships, with relatives, friends, and the era. When her grandchild, a soldier of Uncle Ho, intimately and curiously asks her about class composition, about why she didn't undergo re-education..., she laughs cheerfully: 'Why, I haven't met the criteria yet,' and calmly says: 'I have the face and lifestyle of a bourgeoisie, but I don't exploit anyone, so how could I become bourgeoisie?'.

When many friends doubt: 'You look like a bourgeoisie, how come you're not required to study?' She gently replies: 'You don't know, but the state knows very well.' Indeed, she is wiser than her friends and more 'up-to-date' than her husband. Previously, her family also hired a cook and a nanny. The nanny looked after her child from the age of 19 until 45. During those 26 years, she treated the cook and nanny 'like family,' with great kindness. So later, when she returned to her hometown, she became the head of the cooperative. The couple still maintained a close relationship with them, 'on the deceased uncle's memorial day and on Tet holiday, they brought rice, beans, noodles, and wine, all homemade, to offer to her and her siblings.'

Business dealings also demonstrate her being 'smarter' than her friends and 'more up-to-date' than her husband. Her husband teaches, earns some money from writing books, and buys two properties, one for living and one in Hang Bun for rent. In October 1954, when Hanoi was liberated, in 1956, she sold the house in Hang Bun to a new friend returning from the resistance. Just a year later, during the 're-education' period, an official came to inquire about her property, mentioning the house in Hang Bun. Miss Hiền politely responded: 'Please come to the house you just mentioned, ask the landlord directly to see how they respond. If you still have questions, please come back.'

When her husband, not allowed to open a private school, wanted to buy a small printer for business, Miss Hiền asked him: 'Can you operate the machine? Can you set type? Do you want to be a boss under this regime?' Her husband, 'calculatingly timid, backed away' from the very timely questions of his wife.

Miss Hiền also does business, trades, and has her own store. But she only sells one thing, paper flowers. Various types of paper flowers, woven bamboo arrangements... beautifully made by her own hands, sold at high prices, but 'taxed very lightly,' without the reputation of being bourgeois, petite bourgeois amidst the era of 're-education and class struggle.' Miss Hiền is truly wise, she knows how to live sensibly, adapt to the times. One must be mature and experienced to have such a way of life, a way of doing business, have a 'very practical mind' like hers.

Miss Hiền is very sensitive, sharp, and discreet. When her child loudly cries out: 'Mom! Comrade Khải is here!' she sternly says: 'You should call him Mr. Khải, understand?' When she sees her husband holding the grandchild's hand, innocently asking: 'Why didn't comrade come out to play last Sunday, the whole family waited for dinner', she 'sighs, turns away.' When the grandchild asks about the people's feelings, the era, she replies: 'Too much fun, too much talk, should think about business, right?' When hearing the nanny recount an official trailing behind 'troubles', Miss Hiền comments: 'What kind of revolution pays attention to trivial matters?'

'Ms. Hiền outside, Ms. Đại inside' are the capable women of Hanoi, full of wit and wisdom, they always 'calculate everything in advance', and always 'calculate correctly'. They have 'no self-esteem, no sense of competition, no desire to show off.' They are 'not romantic or dreamy at all. Once decided, they do not care about the gossip of the world.' That's the comment of the grandchild - comrade Khải.

Ms. Hiền bluntly told her grandchild: 'I've never been tempted in my life, not even by the regime.' Originally from Hanoi, born into wealth, but it wasn't until she was nearly forty that she got married. She didn't marry any official. She made no promises to the literary and artistic circles. She only chose a kind-hearted elementary school teacher to be friends for a hundred years, to be a wife, a mother, 'astonishing Hanoi'.

After giving birth to the fifth child, she told her husband: 'From now on, the matter of childbirth ends, I'm forty years old, if you and I live to sixty, then our youngest will be twenty, able to stand on their own without relying on their older siblings.'

Ms. Hiền especially values the role of the woman in the family: the wife is not just a homemaker but a 'family strategist'. She criticized her grandchild - comrade Khải: 'You bully your wife too much, not letting her decide anything, that's ruining it.' A woman who is not a 'family strategist, that family won't be successful either.'

As a mother, she nurtured and cared for her children, teaching them to 'know self-respect, know shame', meaning to maintain their dignity. Even when they were young, sitting at the dining table, she often paid attention to 'correcting their posture, how to hold chopsticks and bowls, how to ladle soup, even how to speak during meals'. She advised her grandchildren: 'You're Hanoians, so your walking, talking must be proper, you can't live casually, recklessly.'

The family education passed down from Nguyễn Trãi includes a passage:

When young, under the family's service,
Obeying under two bodies' commands.
When walking, standing, sitting,
Within the rules, outwardly dignified...

Has Miss Hiền taught her grandchildren the ways of the ancients? She clearly explained to her grandchildren the 'duty' of a mother in teaching children: 'know self-respect, know shame, as for how they want to be in the future, that's up to them.'

During the anti-American period, Ms. Hiền demonstrated clear motherly love and citizenship awareness. In 1965, during the recruitment for combat in the South, she showed remarkable selectivity in choosing soldiers, with about 660 being selected, 'the finest young men of Hanoi'. Her eldest son, Dũng, who had just graduated from high school, volunteered to go fight in the war that time. When her grandchild asked, 'Are you willing to let me go fight?' She replied: 'I am in pain, but I am willing because I do not want it to live off your sacrifice. Its willingness to go is a sign of self-respect.' For three years, she received no news of her departed son. But when her younger child applied to fight the Americans, she responded when her grandchild asked: 'I do not encourage it, nor do I hinder it. To hinder would mean telling it to find a way to live so that its comrades have to die, which is a way of killing it.'

During difficult times, Ms. Hiền taught her children about self-respect, about the duties of youth. She also expressed her love for the country, the mindset of a mother, a Hanoi woman within the community: 'I also want to live on equal terms with other mothers, either all live or all die, what joy or regret is there?'

Ms. Hiền was luckier than the mother of Tuất, luckier than thousands, tens of thousands of other mothers. In December 1975, Dũng, her son, returned. She was surprised and asked: 'What do you want to buy?' as her son with a backpack walked into the house. Her son was too thin, too dark-skinned, with too much beard, there was no trace of the Hanoi boy for the mother to recognize.

On ordinary days, Ms. Hiền and her friends dressed modestly, 'short padded jackets, dark pants, wearing sandals, wearing clogs, square woolen scarves tied around their necks or covering their heads. But at the celebratory feast for her son's return from fighting the enemy, Ms. Hiền, her friends, and the guests - former citizens of Hanoi, dressed very elegantly. The men wore three-piece suits, suits, ties; the women, although their hair was graying, or half-gray half-black, wore 'velvet coats, woolen coats, wore pearls and necklaces, walked gracefully', while Ms. Hiền appeared 'like a stage actress, with a meticulously combed bun adorned with sparkling flowers...'.

She discussed with her grandchild about living: when living among common people, 'everyone has the right to speak rudely', but when living among the refined, 'how should one behave?'. That was Ms. Hiền's way of behaving, her friends', and the people of Hanoi's. Just as Ms. Hiền confessed: 'Every society has its upper class to set the standard for all values...'. That standard is the essence of all goodness, of the way of life, culture, ethics, of progressive civilization. That is Ms. Hiền's way of life.

In the end, the character 'I' recounted the story from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi to visit Ms. Hiền after many years had passed. There were many changes. Uncle had passed away, all the siblings had their own families, Ms. Hiền had grown old, over seventy years old. But 'she remains a person of today, pure Hanoi, unadulterated'. The grandchild spoke of Ms. Hiền's living room with a set of wooden furniture 'a carved wooden bed', a beautifully crafted wooden kneeling bench, with many other precious antiques. The image of Ms. Hiền - an old lady wiping a bowl of red enamel in the cold, rainy weather made the grandchild 'feel the Tet atmosphere, Hanoi too much, wanting to stay a few more days to experience another Hanoi Tet'. Ms. Hiền cherished and valued the beauty of Thang Long culture. The image of Ms. Hiền made the grandchild contemplate the way of life, the bustling, chaotic living psyche of the people who had just escaped death and suffering, 'how easy it is to have the tranquility to enjoy the solemn beauty of a lotus pond'.

Ms. Hiền reiterated: 'Many people who come to Hanoi have relived'. The grandchild recounted some unpleasant, unhappy phenomena that he had to witness 'not very happy...' amidst the capital city.

Many have relived upon coming to Hanoi,' she reiterated. Her grandchild recounted some unpleasant, unhappy phenomena that he had to witness 'not very happy...' amidst the capital city.

Ms. Hiền sighed about old age, pondering everything in a contemplative manner just like an old woman in the countryside. She recounted the story of the storm wind causing the ancient banyan tree at Ngoc Son Temple to tilt, its branches pressing down on the palace... Initially, she thought it was 'a change, a bad omen is the departure of an era'. But the banyan tree did not die, it was cut into firewood and then it was rescued, after a month, it sprouted new leaves. Ms. Hiền reflected: 'The cyclical nature of nature, the coming and going of creatures cannot be predicted'.

The grandchild admired, whispering in his heart: 'Grandma is so wise, so humble and generous'. Ms. Hiền is 'a golden dust', tiny but beautiful. Her soul, her character along with many others are a wonderful symbol of the elegant purity and noble qualities of Hanoians.

Not fragrant yet resembles the jasmine flower,
Even if not refined, still a person from Trang An.

(Folk song)

The affection of the grandchild, of the character 'I', as well as of each of us, mourns deeply as someone like Ms. Hiền has to pass away, 'a golden grain of Hanoi falling and sinking deep into the ancient soil.' We hope and wish for the elegant beauty, the noble character of the people of Tràng An, 'Let those golden grains shimmer somewhere in every corner of Hanoi, let them soar with the wind to make the land brilliantly shine with golden rays!'

The contemplations of Ms. Hiền, of the grandchild in the final part of the story A Hanoian, imbue the narrative with a profound philosophical sentiment, the elegant beauty, the cultural life of the extraordinary human beings are impressively portrayed through the character Ms. Hiền; we feel that artistic portrait is coated by Nguyen Khai with shining layers of golden rays.

In 2010, the entire nation jubilantly commemorated one thousand years of Thăng Long (1910-2010). The character Ms. Hiền, a golden grain, in the collection A Hanoian by Nguyen Khai has been and is shining the soul of each of us.

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