My Thoughts on the Text Distant Stars

Prompt: My Thoughts on the Text Distant Stars by Le Minh Khue

My Reflections on the Text Distant Stars

1. My Reflections on the Text Distant Stars, Sample 1 (Standard):

Lê Minh Khuê, born in 1949, can be seen as a rare female writer emerging on the Vietnamese literary scene with the role of a combatant, her works mainly focus on the intense struggle of young people on the Truong Son trail in the final years of the resistance against America. After 1975, she shifted to writing about themes related to human beings and society in the changing times. Some have commented that in the early years of her writing, people were amazed by a young writer in her early twenties whose writing seemed to have gone through many profound experiences, especially when she wrote about war with a vivid, innocent, and extremely realistic style. The short story Distant Stars is her debut work, which also marked her name on the Vietnamese literary stage, making her stand out among a series of writers writing about the resistance theme at that time, with the image of brave female volunteers with a beautiful soul like thousands of flowers amidst the fierce battlefield.

The work was created in 1971, during the most intense period of the resistance against America, focusing on highlighting the noble qualities and souls of three female volunteers performing bomb-clearing and road-filling tasks on the Truong Son strategic route. In the work, we can clearly see the common traits in Lê Minh Khuê's portrayal of young volunteers compared to contemporary writers such as Phạm Tiến Duật or Thúy Bắc, portraying innocent, lively, life-loving, youthful, and romantic girls. However, in Distant Stars, we also see the distinct features of Lê Minh Khuê's writing, a writer with a young age and career but a rather sharp and mature pen, rarely seen in delving into the lives and inner feelings of characters, although there are still many limitations in terms of perspective and writing about war. It cannot be said to be a limitation, but in fact, every writer has a different style, and Lê Minh Khuê leans towards romantic inspiration and epic tendencies, taking heroism as the root of the work, focusing on highlighting the inner beauty, life of soldiers rather than delving into the losses, and pain in combat.

The Best Reflections on the Text Distant Stars

The story tells about three young female volunteers facing extremely harsh living and fighting conditions, sister Thao, Nho, and Phuong Dinh are all young girls, living and fighting in a cave at the foot of a high point of the strategic route frequently attacked by the enemy, enduring day and night, life constantly facing danger, bombs, and imminent death. The three young girls must undertake extremely dangerous tasks including counting bombs, defusing bombs, and measuring the amount of soil and stone after bombs are dropped, among which the most difficult and tense is bomb defusing, a task requiring strong will, spiritual strength, and immense courage. Through the narration of Le Minh Khue, the lives and fights of the three girls appear realistically, as if one can clearly see both the danger and the breath of urgency from the battlefield reflected through scenes of the girls 'running on high points during the day', even they themselves also deeply understand that death is just around the corner because 'death is not a joking matter.' They are all girls from Hanoi, with a strong patriotism, high sense of responsibility, deep attachment to comrades, and extreme courage in fighting, they are willing to sacrifice their lives, their youth to keep the Truong Son route intact. It must be said that the work of the girls is extremely special, they do not directly hold guns, nor are they exactly the rear, but it seems that at one time they have assumed both extremely heavy and hard roles. Besides the common traits of revolutionary ideals, national ideals, the girls in Distant Stars also share the common psyche of young girls, which is sensitive, easily moved, easy to be happy or sad, and especially fond of joy, as well as having many dreams, beautiful dreams of girls. Like many other young girls, they also like to beautify their lives, show femininity and cleverness, Nho likes embroidery, sister Thao is a music lover, likes to write song lyrics in her notebook, loves colors, embellishing life with colorful embroidery stitches on underwear, while Phuong Dinh is quite confident in her beauty, likes to admire herself in the mirror, likes to sit cross-legged, dreaming far away,... Even in the fierce wartime, it cannot erase the primitive beauty in the souls of the girls, which is still expressed in a very subtle, very mundane way through the words of Le Minh Khue - a young girl, a young soldier.

Besides the common traits, each girl possesses unique characteristics. Phuong Dinh, the main character of the short story, appears as a girl with a sensitive, innocent, and dreamy soul. She often likes to live with memories of her family, her homeland, and her girlhood. Dinh is a young girl with a profound awareness of her appearance, beauty, and personality. Internally, the girl always has fairly objective thoughts and is quite confident about herself. She knows she has thick, soft hair, a proud neck, and beautiful, distant eyes, so she likes to admire herself in the mirror as a way of self-love. However, Dinh's beauty is not outstanding; it just appears to be somewhat more romantic than other girls', also seen as a rare flower amidst the fierce battlefield. And Le Minh Khue does not intend to highlight the girl's physical beauty in a romantic, unrealistic way, but the writer pays more attention to the depth of the character's inner beauty. She also has a fairly clear understanding of the somewhat cold, arrogant personality, but in fact, this is the common psychology of young girls who are just growing up and somewhat cute. It also emphasizes that Phuong Dinh has not yet reserved any special feelings for any boy, although she greatly respects the soldiers on the Truong Son route. The soulful beauty, the noble qualities of Phuong Dinh are subtly expressed through delicate emotions, shown through memories of her homeland, her innocent girlhood in Hanoi, which is a sincere feeling for her family, for her mother. It has softened the fierceness of the battlefield and also represents a desire for a peaceful life in the character's soul. Particularly, the resilient and courageous beauty of the character Dinh is also expressed through vivid descriptions of bomb defusing scenes. Phuong Dinh, brave and courageous, focused on her work, although she was sometimes afraid, when she thought of her comrades watching, she became strong. There were also some private calculations that if the bomb didn't explode, how to set the mine again,... In general, in her work, she both showed courage and brought out very feminine traits.

As for Nho, she basically carries a youthful, innocent look. She can demand candy even when her clothes are still wet, and in the perception of the character Phuong Dinh, Nho is 'white and round like a cool ice cream stick', easily giving others a comfortable and nurturing feeling, cherishing her like a cute little child. Even when seriously injured, the young and cheerful spirit of Nho still cannot help but become enthusiastic, extremely excited about hailstorms, regardless of the pain from the wound. But alongside that youthful, fresh appearance, Nho also carries a very brave, determined, and calm heart, with a lot of combat experience. For her, being injured in that arm cannot die, not wanting to make many people worry. That character trait seems to make her carefree spirit, her brave spirit ready to sacrifice for her country, more prominent, and also maturity in Nho's thinking. The eldest is sister Thao, unlike Phuong Dinh and Nho's innocent, cheerful, and dreamy spirit, she is more experienced, her thoughts and plans for the future are much more practical and mature. Calmness and determination are the outstanding traits of her personality. Even when the planes bomb heavily, she still calmly chews biscuits and waits for the bombing to pass without any tremor in her eyes, even sometimes her excessive calmness makes her comrades uncomfortable. In combat, she is bold, strong, and experienced, just by running from above and stumbling upon a pile of dirt, she immediately understood that her comrades' shelter had collapsed and quickly rescued them. But she also has some weaknesses in her character that seem to contrast sharply with her determination, her unchanging face in the face of the fierceness of the battlefield, she is very afraid of blood, afraid to see it squeeze and bite. Besides, one can also see the subtle, feminine beauty of her through her attention to detail, her beautification of her life with flying songs, plucking eyebrows, wearing embroidered underwear,...

The short story 'Distant Stars' recounts the lives and struggles of young female volunteers on the fierce Truong Son trail, with the depth and realism of writer Le Minh Khue's prose. Besides the brutality of the battlefield and the perilous reconnaissance bomb disposal work depicted in some passages, the author mainly focuses on the inner lives, the beauty of these young soldiers with heroic ideals, romantic inspiration, and epic tendencies. Each character emerges with common beauty and individual traits representing a generation of young female volunteers on the Southern battlefield in the final years of the resistance war against the United States.

2. My thoughts on the text Distant Stars, sample 2:

The national resistance war against the United States to save the country of the people in general, and about the young generation in that fierce war in particular, is a major topic of literature with contributions from many famous authors and works. Female writer Le Minh Khue also contributes her voice to that topic through the outstanding short story 'Distant Stars'.

First of all, the short story 'Distant Stars' vividly and deeply depicts the living conditions, fighting, and work of the young female volunteers on the Truong Son trail, thereby evoking many emotions in each of us. Surely, those who have once read the work will never forget the words, the images the author used to recreate the living space, the work of the girls. 'The road was eroded, red and white mixed. There were no green leaves on both sides of the road. Only tree trunks were stripped dry. Trees with many roots lying around. Large rocks. A few gasoline cans or car shells twisted, rusty lying in the ground.' Not many images, but perhaps just that much is enough for us to understand where the girls lived, worked. That is perhaps where the most dangerous, fierce danger of the battle is concentrated, where they endured countless bombardments in the fierce battle because where the girls lived is a key area on the Truong Son trail. Not stopping there, the girls' work is much more dangerous and terrifying - they have to run on high ground during the day, 'estimate the amount of soil and stone filling the bomb crater, count the unexploded bombs and if necessary, defuse the bombs.' Their work is hard, difficult, and truly dangerous, always requiring a sense of responsibility and utmost courage, but it is also a very important task, contributing significantly to the success of the resistance war against the United States to save the country.

Not only does it vividly and deeply recreate the living space, work, and tasks of the young female volunteers, but the work also delves into analyzing and clarifying the beauty of the souls of the three young female volunteers, which ultimately represents the beauty of a generation of young Vietnamese at that time.

My Thoughts on the Text Distant Stars with Detailed Outlines

In addition to their similarities, each of the three girls also exhibits distinctive personality traits. Nho is a cute and lovely girl, while Thao, the team leader, is more mature in her thoughts about the future, yet still retains the youthful vigor and excitement. Meanwhile, Phuong Dinh, a dreamy Hanoi girl, draws inspiration from her warm childhood memories to excel in her difficult and dangerous tasks on the legendary Truong Son trail.

In summary, 'Distant Stars,' with its choice of a first-person narrative perspective and suitable language for the storyteller character, as well as the skill in character development, reveals to us the beauty of the young female volunteers on the highland route. Moreover, it evokes profound and meaningful lessons within us.