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MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION - DANG HOANG OANH READING VIETNAMESE PROSE PERIOD 1975 TO DATE FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF TRAUMA THEORY Major: Literary Theories Code : 9.22.01.20 A SUMARY OF DOTORAL THESIS ON LITERATURE Hanoi - 2022 The dissertation has been completed at Hanoi National University of Education Supervisor: Assoc.Prof.Dr Le Luu Oanh Dr Tran Ngoc Hieu Reviewer 1: Assoc.Prof.Dr Nguyen Van Tung, Viet Nam Education Puplishing House Reviewer 2: Dr Cao Kim Lan, Vietnam Institute of Literature Reviewer 3: Assoc.Prof.Dr Tran Van Toan, Hanoi National University of Education This dissertation will be presented in front of Supervisor Board of Hanoi National University of Education at , on 2022 Dissertation is archived at: Vietnam National Library Library of Hanoi National University of Education Introduction Rationale 1.1 In the early 1990s, trauma theory emerged as a notable highlight in the American academic context It became a prominent tendency for critical reasoning, where "many different problems were condensed" (Geoffrey Hartman) With its own specific materials and creative ways, literature has become an effective means of helping people that to avoid injuries In the art forms, literature has been increasingly manifesting special advantage in its ability to show and preserve the states of human trauma It not only helps people to look deeply into their experiences and experiences of humanity in general, but also contributes to questioning history, shed light on the dark of history, finding answers to buried truths 1.2 Vietnam is a land that has suffered many wounds in the past On that basis of reality, a part of literature will be the voice of the "crying wound." The echo in the flow of literary history has returned more intensely than ever in literature after 1975, because the wounds of the Vietnamese people's war are still festering, and the postwar period has revealed many uncertainties Besides the writers who have lived and written under the age of blood and fire, there are writers who have never experienced the reality of devastating war, but still can the smoldering psychological trauma in the public memory In addition, the eternally unstable reality of human life, with modern psychological traumas is also a hot topic that urges the writer to explore The recognition of the trauma expressed through literature, on the one hand, helps us to see the corresponding development of literature with the impulses of life, on the other hand emphasizes the advantage of literature in naming states of trauma 1.3 Since 1986's reform, literary theories have been introduced to Vietnam, becoming an effective tool to help researchers look at literary phenomena from many perspective Of course, no theory is universal, but each theory itself elicits the necessary directions of inquiry Literary research achievements in Vietnam with the last three decades have proved it Besides semiotics, feminist criticism, ecological criticism, game theory, trauma theory is well known, but has not penetrated deeply into academic life in Vietnam, and therefore, its application to literary research is still quite limited 1.4 For the above reasons, we have chosen the topic of Reading Vietnamese Prose in the period 1975 to the present from the perspective of trauma theory to research To carry out this topic, we want to present a way of reading: approaching and interpreting contemporary Vietnamese prose - an entity with complex movements - from the perspective of trauma theory In an effort to overcome simple interpretations, we hope to carry out an analysis on the manifestation of trauma and the mechanism of trauma formation with Vietnamese literature after 1975 with its inherent appearance Research purposes To carry out this thesis, we aim at the following basic goals: - Affirming the position and role of trauma theory with the context of modern humanistic scientific research of the world, the availability of trauma theory with literary research - Affirming the advantages of trauma reading for the Vietnamese prose department after 1975, and from the perspective of trauma theory, explore the unique content of thought as well as the form of expression of some Vietnamese prose works from 1975 to the present Research mission 3.1 First of all, the thesis will re-generalize the with development of trauma theory, interpret basic concepts, give a relatively complete picture of the with formed, development and applicability of trauma theory with literary research 3.2 With this thesis, we use Cathy Caruth's theory as the theoretical circuit that plays the core role to establish our concept of trauma, combined with other approaches to build a complete framework in order to understand related literary phenomena 3.3 Applying the the thesis of trauma theory to approach Vietnamese prose in the period 1975 to the present, we would like to emphasize that the way of reading trauma can question the mechanisms that cause and preserve the injuries in life; The mechanisms that make people forget about trauma in many cases, especially historical traumas 3.4 Surveying the movement of Vietnamese prose from the perspective of trauma theory, the thesis also focuses on clarifying the typical features with the trauma writing of a part of the writer; seeing research injury can have a strong impact on the way the narrative is organized Objects, scopes and research materials The object of study of the thesis is first of all trauma theory, which focuses on the "universal solution" of this concept, including social premises, philosophical basis, with formation and development development, the content aspects of the theory, the possibility of applying trauma theory with literary research Selecting some of the that typical points of the researchers, on that basis, we set up a conceptual that with the study of trauma From the thesis of trauma theory, the thesis will go into surveying closely the works of Vietnamese prose from 1975 to the present in the categories: short stories, novels, autobiographies Such a relatively wide range of surveying (both in time and genre) helps to identify traces and manifestations of trauma with literature at a stage, meeting the requirements of the research topic Research methodology To implement this topic, the thesis will apply, coordinate the following key Research methodology: - Interdisciplinary research method: Trauma theory is inherently related to many social sciences and humanities, so an interdisciplinary approach must be used when implementing the research is set forth in the thesis Accordingly, Vietnamese prose from 1975 to now will be approached by us from the following perspectives: philosophy, psychoanalysis, cultology, philology - System method: Trauma does not exist in isolation, but is just an expression in human spiritual life The problem of trauma in contemporary Vietnamese prose is also related to many other problems of a literary process Moreover, trauma theory is itself a system, including many aspects, many components Therefore, applying trauma theory to study literary in reality as determined by the thesis requires applying a systematic method to avoid falling into a one-sided, metaphysical state - The typological method: Classification of traumatic literature - Methods of analyzing the structure of literary texts: Using trauma theory to study the identified literary in reality, in fact, using that theoretical light to illuminate literary works Theses about trauma in Vietnamese prose from 1975 to now must be drawn on the basis of analysis of literary texts Otherwise, there is no other alternative Dissertation contribution - The thesis is the first work in Vietnam to systematically and methodically introduce trauma theory, its formation process, development, main content and its applicability in the study of trauma patients, in which the most prominent is the study of literature - The doctoral thesis has shown the practicality of approaching literature from the perspective of traumatic theories to solve problems of Vietnamese prose from 1975 to now Especially, it delves into an analysis of trauma in everyday life, contributing to broadening the scope of traumatic literature This is a gap that has never been analyzed in previous studies - The study of trauma in Vietnamese prose from 1975 up to now not only helps to discover the depth of a part of literature, affirms the specificity (ethnicity, history) and universality (humanity) of Vietnamese prose, but also sees a potential space for literary creativity in the current situation In the current context of integration and globalization, it is very meaningful to test the effectiveness of applying modern theories to the survey of Vietnamese literary Thesis structure In addition to Introduction, Conclusion, References, the thesis consists of chapters: Chapter Research overview Chapter Trauma identification and trauma literature Chapter Some trauma topics in Vietnamese prose from 1975 to date Chapter Traumatic and narrative structure in Vietnamese prose from 1975 to date Chapter RESEARCH SITUATION OVERVIEW 1.1 Trauma theory as a literary reading The word “theory” is derived from “Theoria” (θεωρία), an ancient Greek terms), an ancient Greek terms meaning “contemplation of the nature of things” Literary Theory is concerned with interpreting the meaning of texts in this world, which also means presenting a way of reading Essentially, it means searching, constructing, and questioning the meanings of life The object of reading here is the discourse in the broad sense, not just the verbal text And those discourses of life are not viewed on a single aspect, but from many perspectives That explains there has been a constantly increasing number of theories, the history of literary criticism is the history of the constant movement of theories.The reading of trauma theory itself pertain dynamic characteristics It is the evolution from a sympto matic reading to a reflective reading which can exert influence back on the reality That dynamism comes from the robust movements of the discourses of this theory: the transition in the meaning of this trauma concept, the creation of trauma theory paradigms through each stage of development, each divergence of this theory– the path we will systematically introduce below By looking a theory on the course of human history not only helps us to have a broad view of the vitality and applicability of the theory, which has become an important category in theoretical discourse and criticism, and contemporary commentary, but also helps us to assess the usability of a reading based on the special terminologies and analysis suggested by the theorists of this trend 1.2 The stages of trauma theory 1.2.1 Stage one: the dawn of trauma theory From the second half of the nineteenth century, in England, under the Victorian era, the term "trauma" changed its connotation from physical injury to psychological trauma That meaningful turning point stems from the terrible train accident events in which the victims of those accidents suffered both physical injuries and mental obsessions In 1860, John Ericsson - an English doctor in the work On railways and other injuries of the nervous system recorded a patient's psychological response pattern related to railway accidents Ericsson hypothesized that the direct physical cause for this phenomenon stems from spinal shock That term appeared a lot in the medical and legal discourse of this period, in which physical disorders such as fear, anxiety, shock, etc are considered to be the origin of the medical system of trauma in the modern Western society This concept of trauma is primarily associated with Freud's name, and trauma theory is, therefore, is a part of psychoanalysis 1.2.2 Second Stage: the rise of trauma theory Inheriting the spirit of Freud, Yale researchers in the United States created the first movement in building trauma theory in the humanities Early trauma researchers all agreed with Freud's view: trauma challenges re-presentation ability In addition, the theory of the impact of trauma on the individual's psyche is used to explore the individual's experience before a traumatic event in the text, thereby connecting the individual experience and cultural groups, or individuals and political life The most significant names of this period are Cathy Caruth, Shoshana Felman, Geoffrey Hartman 1.2.3 Third stage: diversification, multilateralization of trauma theory Lateral trauma theory, on the one hand, continues the ideological path of its predecessor, on the other hand, seeks new directions of expression In the next injury research trend, many people return to doubt the Cathy Caruth's point Prominent among the critical, questioning voices of this period's trauma research is the view of Ruth Leys Like Ruth Leys, Dominick Lacapra puts history at the heart of many interesting issues in the context of contemporary humanities Followed by other views from Michael Bernard - Donals and Richard Glejzer, Michelle Balaev, Barry Stampfl, Herman Rapaport, J Roger Kurtz… All shownthe efforts of post-Caruthian researchers in finding a new model for trauma theory Apparently, more than two decades since Cathy Caruth's treatise research published, trauma research has gradually moved itself to a new turning point Trauma criticism is increasingly expanding its research scope, combining and resonating with many branches of contemporary theory 1.3 Reading trauma and Vietnamese prose period 1975 to date 1.3.1 Vietnamese prose after 1975 – material for reading trauma The fact that prose composing from 1975 to now has shown that the domestic literature is abundant in material which invites readings from concepts and terms of a foreign theory Traces of trauma began to show more clearly in the compositions of some writers such as Nguyen Minh Chau, Nguyen Trong Oanh, Nguyen Tri Huan, Nguyen Huy Thiep, Bui Ngoc Tan, Ho Anh Thai, Nguyen Binh Phuong, and Vo Thi Hao, Nguyen Ngoc Tu, Phan Thuy Ha, Nguyen Khac Ngan Vi The messy and complicated situation of Vietnamese prose after 1975 demonstrates that it is fully capable of providing a vivid material for trauma reading, through a theoretical point of view, opening a new perspective and revealing a lot of hidden aspects, deepening the hidden corners of the human psychological world – aspects that were previously unrecognized or simply understood 1.3.2 Overview of the history of Vietnamese prose research from 1975 to present from the perspective of trauma The approach to trauma in Vietnamese literature in general and Vietnamese prose after 1975 in particular diverge in two main directions The first direction subscribes to the belief that Vietnam's trauma literature is influenced by the Chinese trauma literature The second direction approaches, and analyzes some Vietnamese prose phenomena in the light of Western trauma theory, typically the thought of Cathy Caruth Trauma is still perceived in the most general sense, as terrible events, shocks beyond the threshold that affect the psychological state of a person Another point that can be easily seen in the trauma research in Vietnam is that the articles are still heavily inclined to describe and classify injuries, thereby serves the main purpose of discovering topics in literature rather than understanding trauma as a mechanism and source of narrative The authors still pay attention to the external effects on the human psyche rather than the inner workings of psycho-neural activity as well as the operation of memory and forgetting, the late return of memory as one of the mechanisms that initiate human injury Summary of Chapter Above, the authors emphasized the significance of trauma reading as a literary reading and its possibilities for the text; and outlined the current situation of trauma theory research in the world - one of the theoretical systems that has the potential to thrive in today's dynamic academic context, as well as the potential of application in the context of Vietnamese prose after 1975 Chapter TRAUMA IDENTIFICATION AND TRAUMA LITERATURE 2.1 The thesis's conception of trauma On the basis of analysing Cathy Caruth's conceptions of trauma combined with the discourse of contemporary trauma criticism, we establish the connotation of the term trauma through the following main features: Trauma, understood in the most general sense, is mental trauma - describes the inner experience of people when faced with sudden, terrible events, whereby the very nature of the events that put people in a state of being unaware of the nature of the trauma at the first moment Therefore, trauma is only recognized in the process of recall, in the chain of memories anchored in the depths of the human unconscious The core of the injury is still the facts However, the significance's boundary of traumatic event should be widened If only narrowing the understanding in a single sense, thinking that traumatic events are debacles that occur in human life (war, disaster), inadvertently, a part of literature written about violence in everyday life will be excluded from the flow of trauma literature Traumatic events can also cover diverse manifestations of repressive mechanisms in everyday life, making trauma more recognizable through the aftershocks of the crisis of the self The injury works according to the mechanism of the unconscious The initial pain, obsession, and overwhelm is not really trauma until, at a very distant point in time, unconsciously activates the pain mechanism, disturbing the psychological life, bursting into inner crises, causing severe mental sequelae Injury, thereby creating dissociation, fracture in consciousness, even pushing people to the limit of endurance: loss of voice, madness, silence, sleepwalking, etc 2.2 Mechanism of formation and operation of trauma 2.2.1 Violence Trauma always stems from a terrible event for the individual and the community, especially, community trauma plays a code on the fate of the individual From the violent event or upheaval of history, one can see the mechanism of violence, as well as how violence destroys and annihilates the self Originally the history of mankind, through stories, myths have always been able to evoke so many memories of violence and suffering from prehistory that people have had to use stories to disguise it Trauma begins with such blurred violence It is the unrelenting obsession with the 12 as a dark turning point in the nation's history However, for a long time, land reform was a untouchable taboo, even though it was a hidden pain in the community After 1986, when the literary atmosphere was more open, new writers focused more on the subject Since that time, a series of works have appeared, such as: Những thiên đường mù (The Blind Paradise) (1988) by Duong Thu Huong, Bến không Chồng (Widowers) (1991) ) by Duong Huong, Bi Kịch nhỏ (Little Tragedy) (1993) by Le Minh Khue, Lão Khổ (Kho- The Old Man) (2017), (Đi tìm nhân vật) In search of Characters (1994) by Ta Duy Anh), Giấc Cú (Vo Thi Hao), Kiến, chột ruồi( Mouse and Flies) by Nguyen Quang Lap, Gia Đình (Family) (2020) by Phan Thuy Ha, and more recently Đất mồ côi (Orphan Land) (2021) by Co Vien – the pen name of Ta Duy Anh),… It can be seen that literature which goes around the topic of land reform has faithfully recreated a painful event in rural life in Vietnam for a while, because the state of human trauma, especially historical trauma, which always originates from a violent event The prose works on land reform have soberly dissected the wounds that have been covered for decades by the community and society 3.1.2 Tramatic emotion 3.1.2.1 Feelings of guilt The post-1975 prose has further penetrated the aspiration to be human, to be able to see behind each individual's post-war psychological trauma, thereby describing a particular type of trauma feeling which is typical of the returnees, that is the state of endurance The war left the survivors with no sense of luck, but a bitter guilt instead Feeling guilty when surviving through the war becomes a form of trauma, a "acute pain in the peaceful time" as Bao Ninh puts it It is a type of post-traumatic guilt, such as guilt for being a survivor, guilt for not being able to help others, or guilt for causing negative consequences to others Many characters in some post-1975 prose works of Nguyen Minh Chau, Bao Ninh, Vu Cao Phan, Nguyen Tri Huan always feel the past as a ghost (Goshlike), haunting, aching them day by day, and keep questioning themselves about their humanity The complexity gradually incubates and becomes a mechanism of pain 3.1.2.2 Paranoid State Prose after 1975 gave readers a special experience: harnessing from taboo themes, delving into adversity, exploring the dark depths of the subconscious The paranoid state of mind is a melancholy of the postwar situation There, the war 13 revealed its terrifying demeanour, drawing people into a maze Characters in Người sót lại rừng cười (The remnant of the forest laughs) (Vo Thi Hao) Mình họ (Me and them) (Nguyễn Bình Phương), Cha Con (Soldier father and son) (Minh Chuyen), or in the non-fictional works of Vo Dieu Thanh, Phan Thuy Ha… shows us a special state of mind From characters like this, consciousness is gradually fading into the darkness of unconsciousness They are like the remnants of war, wandering all over the road, exposing their inner turmoil inside a crippling body 3.1.2.3 Repetition of the dream In the prose works after 1975, the dream is also a kind of "material" for the writer to exploit the character's psychological trauma Most of the dreams push the character into the limits of the subconscious, where the ego is just a weak, lonely entity, facing the pain and crisis of life Seen from this perspective, Thân phận tình yêu (The fate of love) by Bao Ninh, Người sót lại rừng cười (The man left behind a laughing forest) by Vo Thi Hao, (Bến không chồng) Widower by Duong Huong… all describe dreams as a multi-meaningful situation, in order to interpret pain, obsession, and fear appearing through shapes and figures that are both familiar and strange; deformed, distorted as if crushed by endless pain 3.1.3 Traumatic characters 3.1.3.1 The type of character who are stuck in the past The feeling of being trapped in an endless loop of the characters' past in postwar prose, which we can identify through Kien's tragic situations (Nỗi buồn chiến tranh (The Sorrow of War) – BaoNinh), Thao (Người sót lại rừng Cười (The man left behind the Laughing Forest) – Vo Thi Hao), Thai (Cỏ lau, The Woman on the Express Train – Nguyen Minh Chau) ) – Chu Lai)… often expressed in a feeling of denial of reality The delusions and nostalgia for a distant past, making the character completely out of the rhythm of life, while returning to reunite with her lover, Thao does not cease to be less lonely: the type of character who sleepswalks right in the middle of real life “living in a non-reality, right on the edge of insanity” Instead of forgetting and hiding from the painful echoes of the traumatic event, Quy did not seek to run away from the pain but, on the contrary, clings to it as he clings to the source of his life … as seems never to be able to escape the nightmare to return to live an peaceful life 3.1.3.2 Type of characters who are inluenced by the wounds from the 14 community's pain Trauma is a “metastatic” phenomenon Trauma critics say the traumatic experience has created a continuous, transmittable, and potentially endless crisis Therefore, community trauma often produces from such intense aftershocks, that traumatic feelings spread to the next from generation, from who not directly witness/suffer the tragedy of their peers but still carry with from persistent pain Về từ hành tinh kí ức (Coming from the planet of memories), Phan Thuy Ha's Family are works that delve deeply into these traumatic "metastasis" 3.2 Trauma in everyday life 3.2.1 Types of violence in everyday life 3.2.1.1 Normalization of pain-suppressing/pain-inducing mechanisms In normal life, people have always lived with the mechanism of compromise It is this characteristic of modern life that creates the form of violence underlying everyday events, it does not cause from violent shock, on the contrary is the silent repressive mechanism, which erodes the sense of happiness and human existence Such silent problems in modern society have been expressed in a number of works, such as Về cô gái (About this girl) (Nguyen Ngoc Thuan), Khi người ta trẻ (When they were young) (Phan Thi Vang Anh), Mẹ (Mother and her child) (Ly Lan), Trí nhớ suy tàn (Fading memories) (Nguyen Binh Phuong) Tìm giới hậu tuổi thơ (Finding myself in the post-childhood world) (Dang Hoang Giang)… Observing the psychological development of the characters, we will understand that trauma has many levels, it does not appear clearly, but only manifests itself through the instability of civilized life 3.2.1.2 Traumatic events of personal life Why in everyday life, facing personal traumatic events, people always fall into a state of confusion and melancholy? Perhaps, the monotonous and repetitive nature of life makes it possible for any event to shatter its outer shell, stirring up constant turmoil Traumatic incidents such as the loss of a loved one, the breakdown of a marriage, an accident, etc have been deeply etched in human consciousness, making them obsessed with the imperfect, the transient, and the mortal Traumatic events make us look deeply into human experiences, penetrating existential crises Most of the personal traumatic events in literature are highlighted in such a sudden absurdity which pushes people into a state of extreme turmoil Surveying a number of works 15 such as Người chăn kiến (Ant Herder) by Bui Ngoc Tan, Và tro bụi (ashes) by Doan Minh Phuong, Sầu đỉnh Puvan (Sorrow on top of Puvan), Cánh đồng bất tận (Floating lives) by Nguyen Ngoc Tu,… we will see, it is the events in life that seem insignificant however, they can push the character into a tragic state 3.2.1.3 The weight of social norms Some works were composed in the 80s, in the early stage of Reform period, showing the cramped atmosphere of the countryside with full of customs and dogma that formed a generation like Giang Minh Sai in the late 1980s A time far past (Thời xa vắng) by Le Luu Later, the contemporary literature, although places characters in a more open and private space, the inherent prejudices in society always push people into miserable situations Because there is a fact that human behavior is always measured by the standards set by the community, judgment, and truth often sided with the crowd Therefore, when one or several individuals deviate from the community's tracks, they will immediately be excluded, marginalized Subjects who are considered as minorities in life, such as the LGBT community, people with depression, tend to be marginalized, deprived of their voice, etc We can clearly see this through short stories Từ bỏ (Abandonment) by Nguyen Ngoc Tu, Tìm giới hậu tuổi thơ ( Finding yourself in the post-childhood world) by Dang Hoang Giang,… The characters, whoever they are, have one thing in common: they find themselves struggling with their own unhappiness 3.2.2 Tramatic emotion 3.2.2.1 The state of suffering depression Unlike a gruesome turn of events in historical traumatic discourse, contemporary prose recognizes subtle traumatic experiences exist amid the mundane perpetually The pressures of modern life, the standards set in life, or sometimes traumatic life events have pushed people into existential crises Perceived trauma, which manifests itself in endurance, a state of depression comes as a necessity That is expressed very deeply in Bao tháng Mười (When the Tenth Month Comes) by Dang Nhat Minh, Phúc âm cho người (Gospel for one person) by Nguyen Khac Ngan Vi, (Cánh đồng bất tận (Floating lives) by Nguyen Ngoc Tu… 3.2.2.2 Exodus from Pain While suffering causes people to fall into a state of "emptiness", the exodus from pain pushes people into paths with no destination Here, shifting means denying, 16 rejecting the old space that can be the traumatizing space The working mechanism of memory deepens the perception of the character's existential situation Unable to face the trauma, they try to run away from it, but the more they run, the more the pain surrounds them, and at some point, people have to face their own wounds An Mi in Và tro bụi (Ashes) (Doan Minh Phuong), Hai Vu in Cánh đồng bất tận (Floating lives), Vinh in Sầu đỉnh Puvan (Sorrow atop Puvan) (Nguyen Ngoc Tu),… are vivid proofs of the characters' journey to escape pain 3.2.3 Traumatic characters 3.2.3.1 Rebellious characters Rebellion here is not simply an attitude to life, but a type of behavior Psychological defects, hidden memories, gender complexes, disorders caused by depression have broken the balance of equilibrium, pushed people into difficult situations, close to madness, hysteria We see this kind of rebellious person through some characters such as An in Đàn bà hư ảo (Nguyen Khac Ngan Vi), "I" in the autobiography Lỗi– Error by Le Tran Mai Nhi, H, Kan, G.g in the novel Parallel by Vu Dinh Giang,… All of them show the painful repetition of human in dreams, in illusions and memories 3.2.3.2 People are imbued with trauma We training use the phrase “imbued with trauma” to draw boundaries and categorize the type of character traumatized by the weight of life It is the injury that accumulates slowly, gradually accumulating into a heavy mass, which in this case, the character instead of rebellion, will fall into a state of melancholy, depression Traumatolerant characters often show a sort of almost identical experience, which is that people seem to have experienced the end of their destiny, an experience that belongs to the person who has gone all the way to the toil of life That's Dien in Cánh đồng bất tận (Floating lives), that's the female characters in Bức thư gửi mẹ Âu (The letter to Au Co's mother) (Y ban), Trăng nơi đáy giếng (Moon at the well) (Tran Thuy Mai), Mrs Khue in Phúc âm cho người (Gospel for one person) by Nguyen Khac Ngan Vy… 17 Summary of Chapter Based on the theoretical framework built in the previous chapters, in chapter 3, we analyze in depth two major themes of trauma prose: historical trauma and real life trauma Reading trauma by applying Western framework has helped us to describe and classify types of trauma, mechanisms of injury formation, detect human traumatic crisis states, the consequences that trauma causes and the way that literature promotes the healing and purification of trauma 18 Chapter TRAUMATIC AND NARRATIVE STRUCTURE IN VIETNAMESE PROSE PERIOD 1975 TO DATE 4.1 Some issues of narrators The narrator is the story teller in the narrative texts, substituting the writer to be in charge of the narrating function The narrator is identified by the function it performs in the text as well as its power to perceive reality In the first person, singular (who use “I/me” to tell the story), the narrator is also the person who witnesses or participates in the story events The third person narrator (hidden narrator) is an omnipotent, all-knowing, all-in-one narrator In traumatic prose, the narrator has an important role to play in the narrative structure of the text Traumatic discourse is inherently unique stories, it tells us about extremely intricate human experiences As a result, the narrator is the one who leads the reader into that traumatized world The analysis of these issues of the narrator in post-1975 Vietnamese trauma prose will partly reveal some aspects that trauma reading brings, especially the humanity aspect 4.1.1 The relationship between narrators and narrative ethics in trauma literature The relationship between ethics and literature has become a widely debated topic among theorists and critics in the field of Western humanities The dialogue between literature and ethics contributes to new approaches to narrative ethics, especially the theory of Newton, Phelan The theoretical perspective as well as the reading of the text under the narrative ethics of Newton and Phelans have shown that, for them, reading is not simply to look for moral messages in the text The meeting point of the two researchers is to see the role of structural/formal elements of the text (which Phelan calls rhetoric) in creating moral values or establishing statements This is the intersection of narrative ethics with trauma theory From this intersection, a twoway relationship between narrator and narrative morality can be clearly seen 4.1.2 The authority of the narrator 4.1.2.1 Witness narrator The witness narrator may play a role as an objective, intermediate position (third person), or may also appear in the first person In trauma narratives, the moral ... theory 1.3 Reading trauma and Vietnamese prose period 1975 to date 1.3.1 Vietnamese prose after 1975 – material for reading trauma The fact that prose composing from 1975 to now has shown that the... history of Vietnamese prose research from 1975 to present from the perspective of trauma The approach to trauma in Vietnamese literature in general and Vietnamese prose after 1975 in particular... người trần thuật giấu đi, để chấn thương tự cất tiếng, hay dấn thân vào khuấy lên dịng kí ức bị qn lãng, họ người viết lên lịch sử theo cảm nhận người 2.3.2 Văn xuôi dư chấn If the literature of