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Topic: Thuy Kieu, the person of painful reality, the person of tragic destiny
Essay:
Sample Essay 1:
'How can one understand all the paths
Why should one suffer all the trials of life?'
(The Tale of Kieu)
The above two verses are expressions of sympathy from the nun Giac Duyen and the empathetic voice from the heart of the great poet Nguyen about the turbulent, ups and downs, glory and disgrace in Thuy Kieu's life. The story of Kieu's tumultuous life described by Nguyen Du has passed through centuries, but still resonates in the hearts of readers. It is a story of a person living in a painful reality, a person of tragic destiny.
Thuy Kieu embodies not only the pinnacle of beauty, talent, and virtue, but also the embodiment of a life of constant change in many different emotional states. Starting as a young lady living in the scenario of 'Quietly inviting the curtain to hide,' but through a whirlwind, her life has gone through many ups and downs. The continuous incidents in her life demonstrate the ups and downs of life. For example, during the Qingming Festival, after the festival of 'stepping on the clear, sweeping the tomb,' she encountered Dam Tien's tomb, thinking it was an unlucky sign. However, she then met Kim Trong with 'Talented appearance, both inside and out,' thinking she had found a good match. Later, their feelings became more intense, and the two made a vow for a hundred years, thinking that with her 'complete talent and beauty,' she would have a dreamlike life. But then, a family crisis forced Thuy Kieu to sell herself to save her father and younger brother from a debt trap. She thought she was being sold to a learned man - a student of the National University - for peace in her family, but she fell into the trap of a trafficker, making money off a woman's body. He sold her to the brothel to work as a prostitute. In the brothel, Thuy Kieu was rescued by So Khanh, thinking she had escaped the 'muddy, dirty mud puddle,' but no, it was a sinister plot to force her to serve clients at Tu Ba's establishment. In her situation at the brothel, she had to swallow her tears and accept entertaining clients in the pleasure district. Here, she met Thuc Sinh and became his legal wife, living a happy, fulfilling life, compensating for the pain she had endured. Unexpectedly, she encountered Hoan Thu, whose jealousy was notorious and whose cunning and cruelty were abundant. She lived in a situation of 'Forcing to catch and fetch words/Forcing to kneel in front of the face, forcing to invite with hands' resignedly singing and serving wine to Thuc Sinh's couple. Later, the 'makeup and fragrance vendors' Bac Ba, Bac Hanh, once again pushed her into the brothel, her dignity was tortured, tainted again, making her speak out against the harsh reality, her life imprisoned in an endless circle without a way out:
The face thick with wind and dew
The body of a butterfly weary of the bee's sting
Then she met Tu Hai, a noble hero, upright and righteous, thought to be glorious and noble, but deep inside was a deadly trap waiting. She listened to Ho Ton Hien's words, thinking she would shine with pride, proud of her parents, but the result was her husband dying in battle, and she herself being coerced, forced to throw herself into the Tien Duong River. She was rescued again, thinking she would reunite happily, rekindling her old love with Kim, but then happiness had to be left unfulfilled...
Through these developments, it is shown that Thuy Kieu's life is a painful, pitiful reality, full of grievances, a tragic fate that has been destined for her from the moment she composed the line 'The word talent goes with the word ear in a rhyme.' The troubles cling to Thuy Kieu's life like a fate, not allowing her to live peacefully, even for a short moment. Every time glory approaches, she reaches out to grasp it, but hidden deep within are the seeds of disaster, clinging persistently. In a society 'where gold mixes with mud,' where the value of money is seen as the measure of morality, Thuy Kieu has become a delicious bait, deceived, buried, living a bitter life with a series of tragedies of a fate 'Talent goes with ear in a rhyme.'
The greatest tragedy of Kieu's life is the tragedy of love and the tragedy of reputation. The love between her and Kim Trong is considered a match made in heaven 'A beauty of the nation, a genius.' Their feelings for each other are a matter of respect, admiration, deep, and intense love. It is the embodiment of an ideal love, free and happy, breaking down the barriers of a Confucian ideology with the belief that 'wherever parents place you, there you should stay.' However, 'midway through, the burden of love breaks, the stem snaps, the water flows, the flowers float away,' she must 'pass on the bond' to Thuy Van to shoulder the responsibility of the eldest sister in the family. The duty of a child is to fulfill filial piety, so she sacrifices the sincere love of Kim. When wandering in a distant land, she always remembers the image of her former lover:
Thinking of you under the moon, drinking from the same cup,
Believing the dew on the grass is waiting for the sun to rise
Or stunned, lost, disappointed when calling out Kim's name with words full of pity:
Oh Kim Lang! Oh Kim Lang!
Stop, stop, I have betrayed you from now on.
Speechless, soul faints, blood drunk,
A cold breath, hands frozen like copper.
That precious love had broken and could never be repaired. Later, when reunited with their families, the two met again but could not be together. It was the tragedy of a love that could not reach the wedding altar, a married life not meant for both.
The tragedy of her reputation is perhaps the most scathing indictment of a society full of chaos and turmoil, accusing the atrocities of those from high-ranking officials to cunning, wicked street vendors. All for the sake of money, they were willing to murder the dignity of a girl destined to be 'weak willow, delicate silk.' The most painful verses for her in this tragedy are:
'Wrapped in filth, head covered,
A bit of purity begs for forgiveness'
There is no greater pain than the pain of a person who values honor, always conscious of dignity, but ultimately has to speak words of refusing morality. That is the tragedy of tragedies, losing honor is losing everything.
It can be said that in Nguyen Du's era, he was a poet, a writer, a humanitarian who addressed the issue of human beings directly, urgently, and profoundly in The Tale of Kieu. The fate of real-life human beings, the people of tragic destiny, has been vividly portrayed by Nguyen Du, showing his profound understanding and empathy for people in life. Through the character of Thuy Kieu, the poet allegorically speaks and writes about all the fates of thousands upon thousands of Thuy Kieus in today's life. They are people who represent beauty, truth, goodness, but endure a fate of humiliation, injustice. The echoes of people like Thuy Kieu still resonate to this day:
'Having taken the rosy face
Causing harm, ruin, imbalance
Thrown into the world of dust and turmoil
How to endure shame just once'
Sample 2:
The Tale of Kieu is perhaps the most famous work in Vietnamese literature to date. It is a series of poems that narrate the life of an unfortunate girl, from her upbringing in the family to stepping out into a path full of ups and downs, and finally returning to reunite with her family. Each line in The Tale of Kieu is meticulously crafted by Nguyen Du to tell a poetic story full of the pain of a talented but unfortunate Thuy Kieu. She is the embodiment of a person with both a painful reality and a tragic destiny.
Each character in Nguyen Du's 'Tale of Kieu' is vividly portrayed through heartfelt verses. We see a Kim Trong 'graceful inside, glorious outside,' a Thuy Van with 'full moon face, graceful features,' and we can't forget Thuy Kieu 'beauty inciting jealousy, willow resentful of green.' However, contrasting with that 'golden bird, silver fish' appearance, Kieu's life is full of hardships, sorrows, and regrets. The work depicts Kieu's tumultuous life and her footsteps on the painful path of life until she is reunited with her family. This is why Kieu's life is a series of painful realities hidden within a destiny full of tragedy, sorrow.
Why is Kieu's life described as a series of painful realities? To understand this, we must revisit the opening lines of the Tale of Kieu. Kieu was born into an upper-middle-class family in society and had two siblings. However, harsh realities began to hit Kieu starting with a lawsuit involving her father and brother, landing them in prison. Without financial maneuvering, surely, her father and brother would have to suffer in prison. Therefore, after many painful decisions, Kieu decided to sell herself to save her family. From that decision, Kieu's life was pushed into a series of tragedies. Selling herself to save her father, Kieu became a commodity in the eyes of people like So Khanh, Tu Ba, ... Kieu became an item with 'brokers,' 'bidders,' ... in the eyes of the uneducated 'sitting arrogantly on high seats,' trafficking in human flesh as they pleased:
'One broker takes two more
Now the price is four hundred gold coins'
If anyone asks what led Kieu into that situation, a situation where everything was taken away, family, love, future happiness, trampled on her dignity, becoming a commodity for others to trade, then it is the contemporary society in which Kieu lived. It is the agent that caused the tragedy, created the harsh reality of Kieu. It stripped the girl of everything she had and plunged her into the misery of life. From a prestigious young lady, she became a commodity for others to 'bid,' to pay for. It was the first humiliation, the first shame that Kieu had to bear.
However, it not only deprived her of happiness but also turned her into a woman of the streets, into a girl of the green house in the midst of shame. The life of a girl from the green house seems to have the same ending as Dam Tien's:
“Living as a wife to everyone
Until falling down becomes a ghost without a husband”
Kieu's life became full of suffering. She fell into the dark whirlpool of life, being tossed from one person to another, as an object for exchange. Her dignity was trampled to the extreme. What a sharing of suffering!
Not only that, but when she finally found a bit of happiness with Tu Hai, just because of a little jealousy, trusting the wrong person, she killed her own savior, turning her life back to what it was before. Isn't the fate too cruel to that girl when it made her live in constant suffering for fifteen years? When she was reunited with her family, met her true love again, but couldn't live together with him, isn't this extremely heartbreaking?
Thuy Kieu's character is a testament to a society full of injustice and deceit. That society is willing to push people into the darkest realms for money. It stripped Kieu of everything, turning her into the cheapest thing, trampling on her human dignity. The chain of painful realities in Kieu's life all stem from that corrupt society's lack of human decency.
Kieu's life is full of suffering, but it seems that her destiny is filled with tragedy. And the following chain is just a continuation of that destiny. A girl as talented and beautiful as Kieu, 'a flower jealous of its redness, a willow outdone in its green', seems to have touched the sky, touched the creator of human destiny. Perhaps it was heaven itself that was jealous of Kieu's talent, creating such a painful destiny for her, or perhaps it was the feudal society that pushed her into such a tragic fate. When Nguyen Du mentioned Kieu, he used the most beautiful words for her. However, it seems that Nguyen Du also felt that Kieu's beauty would make heaven and earth jealous, leading her to suffer 'the fate of beauty'. Nguyen Du wrote of Kieu:
'With a face as beautiful as autumn water and features as fine as spring mountains,
A flower jealous of its redness, a willow outdone in its green,
One or two tilts of the water, tilts of the land,
Beauty demands talent, talent demands artistry.
Her intelligence is naturally heaven's gift,
Blending the art of poetry with the scent of music.'
With her beauty and talent, Kieu's destiny should have been smooth and bright like any other girl's. But no, her destiny was dark, more painful than anyone else's in 'The Tale of Kieu'. She had to sell herself to save her father, the pain becoming a commodity for people to examine, evaluate, 'adding and subtracting like merchants'. It was a first sorrow, a first hardship that Kieu had to endure. Being trampled on her dignity, being looked down upon, being underestimated were pains that Kieu surely could not forget. Not only that, she also had to give away her love - a love that had just blossomed as beautiful as cherry blossoms - had to give it back to her younger brother in sorrow, regret:
“Trust me, if you obey
Sit up, I'll bow to you and then say”
Or: “Fate, like lime to silver,
Once water flows, flowers float, lost in the village”
Her tragic fate has led her from one misfortune to another. Every time Kieu thought she had found happiness, she fell into misery again. From Kim Trong to Thuc Sinh to Tu Hai, each man who came into her life made her believe she had found happiness, but she never truly did. Her love for Kim Trong had to be given to her sister, her love for Thuc Sinh was like 'that distant mountain already tinged with the colors of autumn', obscure. And the love of her life, Tu Hai, thought to be complete, was ended by her own hand, causing Tu Hai to unjustly die in the sky. Her painful destiny dragged her from one agony to another, escaping from Tu Ba's grasp only to fall into Bac Ba's, escaping from So Khanh only to fall into Ho Ton Hien's. These were all people who only cared about money, personal gain, never noticing dignity or cherishing humanity.
In the end, after fifteen years of wandering, Kieu was reunited with her family. But did that destiny make her happy or still just a tragedy? She reunited with Kim Trong - her first love, but things were no longer the same, he and she were no longer for each other. In the end, she was just like a Dam Tien with a silver fate, thirty years old without husband or child, full of sorrow.
It can be said that Kieu's life is a series of hardships of a tragic destiny. That destiny made her the most pitiful person in 'The Tale of Kieu'. Perhaps that destiny had pursued her from the beginning because her talent and beauty were too outstanding. Like Nguyen Du, who finally had to exclaim in pain:
“Having talent, relying on what talent
Character talent is closely related to character deafness in one tone”
With The Tale of Kieu, Nguyen Du was extremely successful in creating a character whose fate and reality both exuded pain and extreme suffering. That suffering originated from the decaying feudal society that overly valued mundane material possessions. It is the reason why everyone had to endure tragic destinies, especially Thuy Kieu.
With his talent and love for humanity, Nguyen Du wrote The Tale of Kieu with great tolerance and affection. He portrayed lives full of talent but unfortunate, trampled by society, deprived of everything. He cherished these aspects in the character Thuy Kieu because her life is a ton of painful realities through a tragic destiny. Through this, he also condemned, accused the feudal society for pushing people into a path of suffering. The Tale of Kieu deserves to be the greatest work of Vietnamese literature.
