Analyzing Kiều's emotions at Ngưng Bích Pavilion in The Tale of Kieu

Assignment: Now, analyze Kiều's emotions at Ngưng Bích Pavilion, excerpted from The Tale of Kieu by Nguyen Du.

Analyzing Kiều's emotions at Ngưng Bích Pavilion in The Tale of Kieu

Student's Response:

In the medieval Vietnamese literature, 'The Tale of Kieu' by the great poet Nguyen Du is regarded as a masterpiece, outstanding and enduring. The solid value of the work is not only created in its captivating storyline but also manifested through remarkable artistic techniques, notably the art of depicting characters' psychology and inner feelings. 'Kiều at Ngưng Bích Pavilion' is one of the passages that vividly demonstrate the author Nguyen Du's skill in portraying characters' inner emotions. In this excerpt, we can perceive Kiều's melancholy, longing, and anticipation in the circumstance of loneliness and disorientation at Ngưng Bích Pavilion.

In the first six verses, Thúy Kiều's emotions are highlighted with feelings of weariness, loneliness, and sadness amidst the scenery of Ngưng Bích Pavilion. It is a desolate space amidst nature, mountains, and rivers: 'Distant mountains, nearby moon share the same view' and Kiều can only see 'Golden sands, pink dust far away' with the 'golden sandbars' seeming to undulate like waves and the pink dust spreading over distant miles. Altogether, it creates a panorama of nature projected in both height and width, evoking vastness, desolation, and eerie but enclosed within the cyclic time of 'early clouds, late lanterns,' emphasizing the character's melancholy when trapped in the circle of confusion. This scene seems to further dissect and delve deeper into Thúy Kiều's tragedy: 'Half feelings, half scenes as if dividing one's heart' and evoking memories of bygone days.

Nguyễn Du's delicate pen continues to delve deep into the character's emotional stream when describing Thúy Kiều's longing. First and foremost, she reminisces about the figure of Kim and the night of vows and oaths between the two:

'Thoughts of someone under the moon, in bronze cups
Believing in the mist, waiting eagerly for dawn'

Love for Kim becomes the strongest agony in Thúy Kiều's emotions because 'Filial love, both ends should be fulfilled,' and she chose to end the love to fulfill her filial duty. Then she reminisces about her parents:

'Pity the person by the door tomorrow,
Will the fan's warmth, cold to others now?
Lai Courtyard, how many suns and rains apart,
Perhaps the ancestral tomb has just fit someone's embrace.'

As a filial child, despite having sold herself to redeem her father, Kiều's heart still bears the heavy longing for her parents. The author has employed classical allusions - a typical literary technique in the poetry of medieval literature to express Kiều's filial piety. However, notably, the author has placed Kim's longing ahead of the longing for her parents, demonstrating the subtlety in portraying the characters' psyche by Nguyen Du. Because with her parents, she has sold herself, sacrificing herself; whereas with Kim, she still carries the debt of an oath and an unwavering love, and she considers herself disloyal.

After reminiscing about the past, love, and family, Kiều's mood sinks into sadness, loneliness, and fear about reality and the future. The poetic description of the emotional state has been delicately applied by the author to depict the emotional waves within the character:

'Sadness watching the westward door,
Whose boat flashes distant sails?
Sadness watching the new water emerge,
Flowers drifting, knowing not their destination?
Sadness watching the desolate grass,
Where the sky meets the earth, all green.
Sadness watching the wind swirls,
The roaring waves echo around the seat.'

These are the eight best lines in this excerpt when describing Kiều's mood. The melancholic emotions have been depicted through a natural landscape with a bold palette in the dark space, and each couplet starting with the phrase 'Sadness watching' carries profound implications. Firstly, the author portrays the homesickness and longing for reunion through the image of the open sea - the boat. Above all, Kiều understands well that the faint hope of escaping captivity is futile. Therefore, she mourns her fragile and tragic fate through the image of 'drifting flowers.' The concluding line with the interrogative 'knowing not their destination' forms a rhetorical question evoking vagueness and doubt about the present and the future. This anticipation is reiterated and emphasized in the last two lines:

'Sadness watching the wind swirls,
The roaring waves echo around the seat.'

To deeply understand the excerpt from Kieu at Ngung Bich Palace and empathize with the fate of talented yet unfortunate women like Kieu, in addition to the essay Analyzing Kieu's emotions in Kieu at Ngung Bich Palace, you can also read: Analysis of the artistic portrayal of Thuy Kieu's emotions in the excerpt from Kieu at Ngung Bich Palace, Analyzing the verse of Kieu at Ngung Bich Palace to highlight the emotions of the girl on her wandering path, Interpreting Kieu's emotions in Kieu at Ngung Bich Palace, Analyzing the last eight verses in the excerpt from Kieu at Ngung Bich Palace.