Kiểu nhân vật trong tiểu thuyết dư hoa TT TIẾNG ANH

0 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HA NOI NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION ******  ****** NGUYEN THI HOAI THU TYPES OF CHARACTERS IN YU HUA'S NOVELS Major: Foreign Literature Major Code: 9220242 ABSTRACT OF A LITERATURE DOCTORAL THESIS Ha Noi, 2021 The work was completed at: Ha Noi National University of Education Scientific Supervisors: 1: Assoc Prof Nguyen Thi Mai Chanh 2: Ph.D Tran Thi Thu Huong Reviewer 1: Prof Dr Tran Nho Thin Reviewer 2: Assoc Prof Le Van Toan Reviewer 3: Assoc Prof Nguyen Tuyet Thu The thesis will be defended in front of the Examination Council at school level at Hanoi National University of Education The thesis can be found at The National Library, Ha Noi or Hanoi National University of Education’s Library INTRODUCTION Reasons for choosing the topic Yu Hua, born in 1960 in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, was a contemporary Chinese author who is gaining his attention among theoretical and critical circles, both domestically and internationally We, through this work, want to contribute a perspective to Yu Hua From that, the desire is not only to bring Yu Hua closer to Vietnamese readers but also through researching a particular author, contribute to a deeper and more comprehensive identification of the face of contemporary Chinese literature The topic regards Yu Hua’s novel characters as a particular perspective to explore the art world of the writer The reason we chose this topic is that first of all, the character is always an important aspect in the compositions of each artist, a place to focus on expressing the artistic concept and aesthetic ideals of the writer Researching characters in Yu Hua's works is the shortest way for us to clearly see his artistic view of people and life Moreover, Yu Hua’s novels were composed during the 90s of the twentieth century onwards, when Chinese literature made strong changes, at the same time, Yu Hua also showed new discoveries towards going separate in art - both united and different from Yu Hua of the 80s and both united and different from fellow writers These things left a particularly deep impression on the characters of Yu Hua's novel Because of that, the topic "Types of the characters in Yu Hua's novels" goes to the centre of the writer's art world, besides bringing practical meanings, helping to access the author's unique art world; there are also theoretical meanings which help us to be aware of the innovations in the writer's perception about characters compared to the concept in traditional literature Research purposes and tasks 2.1 Research purposes The thesis aims to clarify the operating mechanism of the character world in Yu Hua's novels From that, pointing out the practical contribution of the writer on literary character creation; finding the author's unique point of view about the world Finally, thereby, identify the main features of Chinese literary culture from the New Age to recent 2.2 Research missions Firstly, the thesis analyzes, evaluates research directions on Yu Hua, identifies open issues that need to be further addressed Secondly, the thesis describes the journey to find Yu Hua's novel characters; demonstrates that character is always the place for centralised expressing the author's changes in artistic conception about life and people; determines the main character-building method that the writer chooses for his novels Thirdly, the thesis identifies the typical character types in Yu Hua's novel, describing and interpreting specific characteristics of two types of characters: tragic character and comic character Research subject, scope and research source materials 3.1 Research subjects With the study of the character types in Yu Hua's novel, the thesis focuses on surveying groups of characters with common elements that are repeatedly expressed to create the characteristic and consistency of the character world in Yu Hua's novel In respect of that, the thesis also identifies the model of the author's novel character - what creates Yu Hua's distinguish image 3.2 Research scope The thesis limits research scope to two typical types of character in Yu Hua's novels: comic character and tragic character formed under "new-realistic" method The reason for this limitation is because these two "types" are eligible to represent Yu Hua's writing style, focusing on expressing the author's own choices during the stage of novel creating, meeting the task of characterization of the thesis 3.3 Research source materials The thesis concentrates on surveying, taking data from four Yu Hua's novels that have been translated into Vietnamese, including Cries in the Drizzle, Chronicle of a Blood Merchant, To live, and Brothers The survey can be extended to many short stories, the writer's pieces of work have been translated as well as those that have not been translated into Vietnamese Research Methodology The thesis mainly uses the methods: systematic approach regarding structuralism; analytical and synthetic method; method of comparing types New contributions of the thesis The thesis studies Yu Hua's novels on the overall level, which has not been done in any other researches ever published in Vietnam Approaching the character system based on artistic method, classifying the character system based on aesthetic qualities, the thesis might partly indicate the creative orientation of the writer and the overall structure of the character, as well as seeing the operating mechanism of the character world, clarifying the feature in Yu Hua's character creation art under the control of unique aesthetic principles From the character's perspective, the thesis contributes a personal opinion on issues that remain, for instance, whether pioneering properties of Yu Hua's novels still exist, how the evil in artworks creation affects messages delivery The structure of the thesis In addition to the Introduction, Conclusion and Bibliography, the thesis consists of chapters: Chapter Overview of the research situation and topic-approaching perspectives Chapter Journey to find novel characters of Yu Hua Chapter The tragic character type in Yu Hua's novels Chapter The comic character type in Yu Hua's novels Chapter OVERVIEW OF THE RESEARCH SITUATION AND TOPIC-APPROACHING PERSPECTIVES 1.1 Overview of the research situation The thesis surveyed over sixty documents and researches on Yu Hua in Chinese and English; analyzed in-depth the works that mentioned the characters in his writing to outline the main features of the reception and criticism of Yu Hua in the world Although Du Hoa is a contemporary author, the historical research of his works is quite extensive, covering many aspects Regarding the concept of writing, the "pioneering" in Yu Hua's novels or the theme of violence, the death in his writing, critics give many different, even opposing opinions Since then, we have noticed a number of issues that remain open For example, is Yu Hua's conception of reality unique, a "philosophical groundbreaking," or just an "artificial manipulation"? Yu Hua's novels from the 90s of the twentieth century have completely cut off with the pioneering spirit of the previous period or continue that spirit but in a different form? Writing about the evil, the tragedy of humans, is Yu Hua too harsh? During the process of surveying and discussing the meaning of the character images in Yu Hua's novel, the thesis definitely will be more or less touching on these issues Characters in Yu Hua’s novels have been noticed by critics and several works have begun to classify However, the grading methods place more emphasis on the evaluation of author's thought, the social aspect of the character rather than the poetic characteristic of the work or the peculiarity of Yu Hua's creative style in creating novelistic characters That is the scientific blank for us to make this subject We also surveyed over thirty articles and works in Vietnamese A number of articles in scientific journals, theses, graduation thesis have regarded Yu Hua’s novel as a focus, mainly from two perspectives: from text structure and from a cultural perspective These works have generalized some characteristics in artistic creation, confirmed the contributions of writers However, the research on Yu Hua in Vietnam is still quite conservative Novels are also often studied separately, lacking a real connection to other novels or the entire writing career of Yu Hua, as well as lacking a deep connection from the literary context of contemporary China which has grown very vibrantly This has led to a consequence that Yu Hua’s novels are primarily viewed as traditional "realistic" works, which are "arguments" about contemporary political and social practices This fuzzy point poses a requirement for the study of Yu Hua’s novels on an overall level That is the way to accurately grasp the true contributions of Yu Hua The research of characters in Yu Hua’s novels in our country is still quite limited, not systematic This is a big gap in understanding an author who has a fairly prominent place in contemporary Chinese literature 1.2 The thesis's opinion on determining the type of characters in Yu Hua's novels 1.2.1 About "type of characters" definition The definition of "character type" is often used when surveying a group of characters in an author's work, a literary period, a genre or a tendency, a trend A set of characters that share certain characteristics are classified into a "type", distinguished from other "types" Those features are created by duplicating elements and either big or small parts belonged to the character Through the type of characters, readers can capture the character poem, the art style and the main problem that a literary phenomenon cares about 1.2.2 About classifying criteria From the perspective of the artistic method, we realize that the characters in the Yu Hua's novels are mainly built by "new-realistic" method Based on aesthetic qualities, we divide the characters of Yu Hua's novel into two types That is: 1) Tragic character type 2) Comic character type The colour of tragicomedy that the characters in Yu Hua's novels bring has its hue under the orientation of the "new-realistic" principle that the writer has chosen 1.2.3 About classification principle Firstly, the generalization and identification of character types are mainly based on Yu Hua's writing reality Secondly, we can only generalize into a certain type of character if that type is a collection of many characters of the same type in Yu Hua's novels Distinctive, separate cases will not be considered Thirdly, naming, identifying and analyzing character types are always associated with discovering the uniqueness in the writer's concept of people, life and art Finally, it is impossible not to say that the division and classification are researcherrelative and it is difficult to meet the requirements to describe in detail the extremely rich expressions of composing reality Chapter JOURNEY TO FIND NOVEL CHARACTERS OF YU HUA 2.1 Background of the character's searching journey Yu Hua's creative journey lies completely in the New Age It was a period of great volatility in history and society In just a few decades, Chinese history and society have changed from being banned in the Great Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) to removing ideological barriers in the 1980s, from centring around the liberation of thought to marketcentring economic development, from appreciation, learning towards Western philosophical and literary schools to using Chinese colour and indigenous spirit as the core Psychology, modern thought and so that changed from joy, trust to scepticism, anxiety Aesthetic consciousness shifts from the consciousness of the political population to the consciousness of a self-centred person, then to the consciousness of the mass population These are the root causes for the continuous change in the literary life of this period During this period, China has also witnessed considerable development of Literature In terms of theory, Literature has caught up with the developing trend of world’s literature, headed for a modern, pluralistic and imbued with Chinese colors theory Literary practice in the 80s of the twentieth century happened a second "May Fourth Movement", reaching the landscape of “hundreds of flowers, hundred schools of thought Chinese literature in the 90s moved from a central position to a "marginal", the joy of intellectuals in the 80s takes place of anxiety and skepticism in an era of turmoil Literature in this period, on the one hand, can not repeat itself in the previous period, on the other hand, to a certain extent must compromise with the needs of mass aesthetic Yu Hua from the 80s to the 90s of the twentieth century had a creative shift: from a rebel "pioneer" writer in drastic innovations of narrative technique to a writer with traditional tactics, from a writer immersed in violent stories, horrifying death to a peaceful writer in the story of warm humanity On the one hand this response to the changes of the times, on the other hand comes from the author's own needs 2.2 Characters and Yu Hua's changes in the artistic conception Yu Hua's characters from the short stories of the 80s to the novels of the 90s of the twentieth century onwards have both unity and change, reflecting the unity and movement in his artistic conception 2.2.1 The character - the central place in expressing changes in the conception about reality Yu Hua's character shows consistency in the writer's view of reality The search for "authenticity" is the purpose of contemplating the entire creative career of the writer With a cynical look, Yu Hua has recreated an extremely illogical and chaotic art world In that world, innocent and offbeat people drifting in the world are the familiar characters of Yu Hua Yu Hua's character also shows the changes in the realistic conception of the writer It is the movement from a dark world to a complex world, from the world of illusion to the world of truth The world of characters in Yu Hua's novel, therefore, changes, no longer sinks in violence and suffering but is ready to confront and overcome them in their way They are no longer surreal and exotic, on the contrary, closer, and more palpable than ever 2.2.2 Character - a place where the changes in conceptions about people are concentrated Yu Hua's character is re-enacted in the movement from analyzing evil to portraying good and the duality His character also moved from deep whirling into trauma to comforting and redeeming the human spirit The character world of Yu Hua also changes from human - symbol to human - fate 2.3 "New-realistic" - key strategy of Yu Hua in the direction of creating novel characters 2.3.1 Traditional-realistic and new-realistic The "new-realistic" concept is used in a comparative relationship with "traditionalrealistic" Its most fundamental creative feature is the restoration of the pristine beauty of life or giving the reader a truth in a pure state without being obscured by any major ideology or political power The reversal of the nature of life, on the one hand, can be considered a relatively objective authoritative attitude that the authors have deliberately selected, on the other hand, is the sense of wanting to eliminate the so-called "essence", disintegrate the socalled "typical" of the traditional-realistic or what the political power imposed on the awareness of life's problems towards the purity of reality, re-perceives key issues in traditional-realistic, leading to a new reality, closer to authenticity; additionally, he also has his perspective to create a unique character for his art world Conclusion of chapter The journey to find Yu Hua's characters from short stories of the 80s to novels of the 1990s onwards has taken place under the multi-dimensional influence of the historical, social, literary context of the New Age and the direct control the writer's changes in artistic conception This journey clearly shows the imprint of a turbulent era as well as changes in thoughts and feelings of Yu Hua We can see there the confession of a generation of intellectuals carrying in themselves trauma, skepticism about the world and people, bewilderment of not seeing the true meaning of survival and struggle to find a new fulcrum of morale We also see a vision with pioneering spirit in Yu Hua, always awakening the recognition of philosophical and cultural propositions The differences between the two writing stages of the writer also show the maturity of the writer on the creative path In the early 1990s, Yu Hua embarked on novels, while choosing "new-realistic" as a creative orientation for his character's world This is a strategic choice to meet the needs of literary practice in the new era, showing the writer's innovations in artistic thinking In the 1990s, modernity was transformed into the colour of realism, absorbing the traditional tactics, increasing the prevalence Yu Hua has created a perfect fusion between tradition and modernity, between a popular surface content and a pioneering art form Yu Hua's choice has corrected extremes in "pioneering" literature This can be considered as one of the avenues of self-salvation for contemporary Chinese literature 10 Chapter THE TRAGIC CHARACTER TYPE IN YU HUA'S NOVELS 3.1 The central position of the tragic character type in Yu Hua's novels 3.1.1 Tragedy and tragic character The tragedy is an aesthetic category associated with sadness, loss, and pain Tragedy is loss, pain but is the loss of ideal, of the nobleness, of the beauty, not the loss of values with unprogressive meanings; is the loss coming from failure of characters and powerful force, lofty virtue, representative of history’s progressive development, carries beautiful ideals, true aspiration It brings pain and sadness that makes people feel compassion It embodies legitimate but overwhelming desires It shows the lack of progress, humanity in the era This type of character, at first glance, is very close to the type of victim character in traditional literature but in essence, they have many differences The tragedy of the characters here is no longer meant to represent a particular class or class but to represent a nation and humanity The tragic characters in the novel Du Hoa are small, lonely people who struggle with daily life They not seek anything higher, but only want to live: "Man is for life and for life, not for anything other than life." In "an era of losing God" (Kierkegaard), responding to "man's call" is just "the silence of life" (A Camus), a character in the artistic world of Du Hoa exists as the end, considering that is the highest purpose of life This boldly existential concept is the nuclear ideology of the tragic character in Du Hoa's novel A tragic character is built on the spirit of tragedy It brings pain and sadness that makes people feel compassion It embodies legitimate but overwhelming desires It shows the lack of progress, humanity in the era Through this type of character, Yu Hua approached sufferings differently 3.1.2 Statistics and locate the centre position of tragic character type After statistics identify the tragic characters in Yu Hua's novels, we determine the ratio of the number of tragic characters to the total number of characters in the novel Cries in the Drizzle is 50%, To live is 61%, Chronicle of a Blood Merchant is 73%, and Brother is 23% Thereby showing the tragic character is the typical character of Yu Hua's novels, 11 where focused shows how to dominate the reality of the writer 3.2 Tragic character type 3.2.1 The insignificant character with worldly desires and emotions The world does not have many of Yu Hua's novel characters, only ordinary people with ordinary backgrounds or very simple careers The life of the most ordinary people of this world, therefore, is limited within the family but has little widespread influence on society The dreams and desires of the puny people are also very close, as trivial as being fully dressed or satisfied sexual needs Yu Hua has directed his pen to those people who only carry in them the desire to live a peaceful life, seeing them as human beings full of humanity Through this, the writer wants to discover what belongs to human nature 3.2.2 Tragic characters and the journey to fight for survival Suffering, violence, death, and the absurdity pursuing people like destiny are psychological constants in Yu Hua's writing In that world, his characters must always find a way to survive The journey of struggling with the survival of the characters is very arduous, some people are lucky to overcome, but many cannot escape their fate In this unequal battle, some characters are not only threatened by death but scarier, it also threatens the dignity of the people, making them unable to go on the same journey under human fate Through the journey of the fate of the characters in Yu Hua's novels, we realize that in this life, some people have to waste just to live a normal life The humble characters endure suffering, cower in a small space, accept the unfair treatment, not resent but only head for the highest purpose and also the lowest that is to live With the tragic character type, Yu Hua has "reflected on the human being itself" And so, the novel affirms its existential value 3.2.3 Lonely character and ego expression During the human life full of uncertainty and disorder, people lose their spiritual support; loneliness, therefore, is an indispensable consequence, an attribute of human nature With Yu Hua's characters, loneliness is not simply the lack of a soulmate, but rather because they feel lost, precarious in a chaotic world, losing God, not knowing what is the norm, not clinging to anywhere We realize that Yu Hua's lonely character is not merely a personal confession It is both a consequence of the lack of spiritual support because of the collapse of ideals (which are delusions) and at the same time becoming a predetermined, 12 human essence The lonely character in Yu Hua's novel bears the resemblance with strangers being distorted and deformed in F Kafka's work We also see the shadow of seven lonely generations whose selfishness has alienated them from human nature in G.G.Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude Loneliness, strangeness, existence as discrete fragments is a human's reaction to a chaotic, disorder reality That is the loneliness of the post-modern man 3.3 The art of depicting tragic characters 3.3.1 Depicting the character through naturalist details Yu Hua's tragic characters are people who reject moral ideals, dreams, and sentimental emotions It is no longer a pure spiritual person, capitalized Man, man "must become" of revolutionary realism but an existential human being, a subject of physiology dominated by life instinct The imprints of naturalism are used as a means to return the voices to the characters, heading for authenticity in the pristine state Most of the time, the writer only focuses on describing the appearance of the female character, moreover, often uses realistic details, focusing on sensitive parts Regarding the actions of the character, Yu Hua also shows that the people here are the physiological subject, the "creature made of organs" [13, 594] as seen by the naturalist Zola The actions of the characters are so mundane, substantial, physical, even disgusting Yu Hua also often describes sexual emotions and acts of the characters Depicting the human being as a creature by the imprints of naturalism is an effective way for Yu Hua to portray the tragic character with all its worldly appearance Appearance and actions expressing the biological aspect of human beings are seen as an invaluable value among all changes of life Through this, the writer also expressed an objective, non-political attitude towards the world This is the principle of unity when Yu Hua built tragic character type 3.3.2 Reappearing the character in the fading of social context A change in the concept of the "nature" of life and people leads to a change in the relationship between the character and the environment The fading nature of the social context in Yu Hua's novel is firstly shown in the disorderly, non-central character of reality The random, non-causal nature of reality is also a manifestation of background fading Due to the blurring, events that are often considered important and can lead to very specific 13 emotions are also normalized and not described in common sense Fading shines into reality when readers who can only find them through a few small details blur some of the major historical events mentioned in the work The social context in Yu Hua's novels is no longer the general context of a vast history, but only suitable for a particular existential life In other words, it is a history that has been personalized, spiritualized In depriving the typical, heavy formula of the context, the characters are no longer suppressed but become clear, have a voice, and can express their desires and needs even at their smallest 3.3.3 Depicting the character by duplicating method Yu Hua uses duplicating method for one character Yu Hua also reproduces replicable details in different characters, even characters in the same work Describing the character in replicable details, to inculcate creates haunt for the reader about the fate of the character Besides, Yu Hua wants to create a vivid, diverse world in which, the fate of his journey with emotional and personal behaviours is easy to have an intersection and meeting Once again, this art form helps Yu Hua's tragic character come closer to reality as the writer wishes Conclusion of chapter Assistance for Yu Hua while creating the tragic character is the reverting to the essence of life with intimate existential experiences, the vibrations from the depths of the soul of the original desire, the conscious disintegration of the so-called "essence", "typical" of traditional realism or the elimination of the power of political discourse, eliminating the ridicule of the old moral myth imposed on the awareness of life's problems The power of literature in Yu Hua's novels is made of such ideals 14 Chapter THE COMIC CHARACTER TYPE IN YU HUA'S NOVELS 4.1 The rise in the number of comic characters in Yu Hua's novels 4.1.1 Comic and comic character type In the thesis, we use the term "comic" in the broad sense, in close attachment to the aesthetic category of comedy It covers many levels of laughter such as humour, satire, sarcasm, and lash The comic laughter must involve a social meaning, helping people to realize the essence of the object and to realize the truth Laughter is both associated with the affirmation of the sublime aesthetic ideology, and has the negative, destructive and powerfully calamitous power of evil and obsolete Not only that, laughter also helps us to approach life in a democratic way, with a dialectical, pluralistic, non-normative view That approach makes life become itself, not an artificial reality depicted by human ideals and fantasies Characters written by a comic style belong to a comic type This type of character becomes a laughing object, a laughed-at-object in works This type of character is often portrayed in everyday life because only in everyday life, all the silly words, bad habits, deformities, humorous situations are clearly shown The comic character is often exaggerated to a certain personality trait and simplified other traits, making them sometimes not the same as reality With the exception of some that are playful, humorous, the comic characters are mostly negative with manners that are hard to change Because of the purpose of criticizing, laughing at the bad, the conservative or the rude bases on the lofty aesthetic ideology of a certain society so it will quickly become obsolete, of course, unless the author give it meanings beyond the age Comic characters are an important means for writers to express an attitude towards life and people It is an attitude of tolerance, optimism, and relief; the criticism ridicules the phenomena, actions, forces that go against the progress of humanity The type of comic character has a great impact on liberating people from mean and evil, directing people to beautiful, noble ideals The comic spirit of the characters in the Yu Hua's novels is a resonance between the traditional Chinese comic literature line and the spiritual, cynical, democratic spirit of the postmodern sense from the West Therefore, it has distinctive features 15 4.1.2 Analyze the phenomenon of increasing the number of comic characters We have the following statistics on the proportion of these characters: Cries in the Drizzle is 29%, To live is 6%, Chronicle of a Blood Merchant is 8%, Brothers is 74% It can be seen in Yu Hua's novels that the type of comic characters has frequently appeared Especially, in Brothers, the comic characters account for the dominant rate and become more complete With the "new-realistic" orientation towards everyday life, most of the comic characters in Yu Hua's novels are ordinary people It shows that Yu Hua has discovered and exploited the humour, ridiculousness in all phenomena, people of everyday life 4.2 Various types of comic characters 4.2.1 Satirical characters and weaknesses of human's essence A satirical character is the one who uses laughter to uncover and ridicule bad, oldfashioned expressions in society This is the type of character that appears to be concentrated in Yu Hua's Brothers In the comic world of the Brothers, Baldy Li is the central figure This character stands out with two personality traits: lewd and opportunistic With this character, Yu Hua has the good tool to break into the structure of modern Chinese society, pointing out the two historical periods of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and Market Economy Era, at first glance, are opposite but actually horribly similar The two eras are essentially slaves' lives: people are from political power slavery to monetary and sexual slavery In that context, Baldy Li becomes a symbolic figure for the nature of the era In the era of political worshipers, Baldy Li's most ridiculous act was to "rape" electric poles to blush and raise his tiny fists shouting "banzai" and "down" to support the street-parade team, burning with enthusiasm, passionately chanting slogans in support of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution The “reversed” act of Baldy Li does not seem to fit in with the solemn atmosphere of the parade, actually it is like a miniature image of a society in the wild of instinctive and animalistic play, a mental masturbation performed by the whole Chinese society during the Cultural Revolution By the age of sexuality, Baldy Li became the object of worship The model worshiped has shown the psychological and cultural characteristics in each stage of the crowd in Liu town Baldy Li is described by the writer with exaggerated writing, makes the character become weird but that is when the character shows the most 16 distorted distinctions in human perception, from what, the weird phenomena in Chinese culture is exposed Around the central core Baldy Li, numerous other characters are equally weird and bizarre This crowd exhibits two characteristics: the first is slavish and submissive; The second is the opportunistic, adaptive to the situation These two traits are essentially two unified sides of the lack of capacity to resistant, struggling to improve the situation The funny thing is that although they are completely passive before the situation, they are confident that they can actively adapt Here, life becomes a play and the characters are active actors of that play They perform revolutionary tricks, innocent actors, royal men, they also act as pitiful love makers, virginity actresses, and senior experts In this ridiculous carnival, there is also the participation of the public They participate in the play with all the curiosity, gossip, heartlessly, emotionlessly silly The satirical character in Yu Hua's novel is the perfect combination of the nonsense, absurdity and the frivolous, ostentatious form With a sharp laugh, Yu Hua pointed out the gap in culture as well as a weakness like modern Chinese This is a new direction of the writer in the way of expressing reflective spirit in his work 4.2.2 Humorous characters and the sacred interpretation of cultural symbols Humorous character form accounts for a significant number in the comic character type of Yu Hua's novels Those are the characters whose laughter is limited to jokes and fun, with a sense of positivity Humorous characters in Yu Hua's novels are often those who are considered as having funny behaviours, words, and faults but are not considered bad, because it may be a mistake that anyone can make, or it may be specific habits of a specific age, career, or the whole community Children with all the innocence of their age are special subjects in Yu Hua's comic character form In different situations, the characters all reveal their innocence Brothers Song Jiang - Baldy Li, three brothers Yi Lou - Er Lou - San Lou, Ton Quang Lam - Ton Quang Minh - Quoc Khanh all live in a young world with their own thoughts, imagination and actions They can laugh and make readers laugh in any situation, even in the most tragic situation Their innocent, clear souls are a bright spot, creating poetry in every novel of Yu Hua The humorous laughter from these characters is also the denial of 17 the adult world - which always considers itself the truth Humorous characters are also a place for writers to show a tolerant view to reality Character is no longer the object of right and wrong judgment, right and wrong, good and bad The sexual instinct of the characters is also recognized by Yu Hua under this spirit Here, each time facing with the instinctive life, the characters become humorous by acting like machines No judgment, no prejudice, here are only people who expose themselves naked to an irrational, instinctive way of life Through the image of Sun You Yuan, Yu Hua also laughed, deceived the sacred image of the father in the religious order of traditional Chinese culture, and also deposed the god From naive boys like Song Gang, Guo Qing to a powerful old man like Sun You Yuan, from the story of sexual instinct to the child's behaviour towards his father or the worship of God , all of which blending in with the humorous yet meaningful laughter from Yu Hua's humorous character This form of characters has made the sacred cultural symbol, especially in Chinese culture such as the god, the symbol of the powerful father, the symbol of the rational person, so close, even trivial Yu Hua's humorous character thus brings laughter to the soul, neutralize the great narratives in the way people think of traditional Chinese culture 4.2.3 Black humour character and ways of confronting nonsenses Black humour character was created based on the principle of combining the element of comic and the element of horror, between comedy and tragedy The black humour character format has bitter, helpless laughter As a writer of tragic narrative style, Yu Hua with his characters has made life show its absurd face Humour is the reaction of Yu Hua's characters to deal with the absurdity of life Two young men: Liu Xiao Qing's brother (Cries in the Drizzle) and Chun Sheng (To live) were faced with inevitable death in humorous ways In front of ludicrous absurdity, the character can only laugh bitterly Over time, the characters of Yu Hua became more and more stubborn, promoting the power of folklore to resist the absurdity and injustice of life Xu Sanguan (Chronicle of a Blood Merchant) has alternately overcome the difficulties in life by the most humorous, extraordinary ways 18 There was also a time when Yu Hua's black humour character could no longer be saved by laughter They became humorous fates, which were born of desperation For Sun Guang Lin, Guo Qing, Song Gang and Baldy Li, the comedic no longer makes the tragic more relieved and easier to breathe thanks to its soothing nuance On the contrary, it deprives the victim of the last comfort about the greatness that might be in the tragedy This approach maximizes the tragic fate of the character 4.3 The art of depicting comic characters 4.3.1 Objectification simile Objectification simile is the dominant figurative language in Brothers In each satirical, humorous, or black humour character, this language brings different nuances of laughter For a children group of humorous characters, objectification simile helps to deepen their innocence With the black humour character, laughter pops up from objectification simile help inculcate the tragic and pitiful plight When describing satirical characters, this description is even more effective in highlighting the ugly, bizarre characters In Brother, that objectification simile is selected by Yu Hua as the main tactic to describe the comic character by the work is caused by the wrath of the writer in front of the degradation of humanity, the throne of the animal essence in society and front of a lifetime not being human The simile has shown Yu Hua's reflective view of the human identity and weakness of Chinese people from history Although Yu Hua's view is somehow pessimistic and harsh, it is the reflective sense that is necessary for the sustainable development of future culture 4.3.2 Grotesque description In each of the novel characters of Yu Hua, grotesque qualities are manifested in different aspects The grotesque element of the character Xu Sanguan (Chronicle of a Blood Merchant) is monstrous, contrary to his wishes The comic characters in the Brothers are "physically transformed" into the philistine clowns Besides, the grotesque description of Yu Hua's comic characters is also an unreasonable situation facing the courts, judges everywhere, anyone, at any time can be charged, be humiliated and beaten of the characters Xu Sanguan, Xu Yulan; or facing a meaningless, disoriented and aimless world of Chun Seng, Liu Xiaoqing's brother Although Yu Hua's character is grotesquely portrayed, they are still in a real-life shirt, 19 wrapped in everyday clothes Is it, around us, the monstrous phenomena are still hidden, lurking in daily life, only we did not realize? So when faced with the distortion and deformity in portraits created by Yu Hua, we couldn't help but be startled by a chaotic reality that is both real and bizarre This is also a way for readers to understand the ridiculous state of the human situation that we may face daily and hourly, but because of its boredom, we have not noticed 4.3.3 Exploiting the flippant language of the character The comic feature of the character is also expressed strongly in its flippant language Cheeky nature is most evident in the dialogue language of the character Characteristics of the flippant language type in the comic characters in Yu Hua's novels are shown in the popular appearance of scolding and advertisements Using the cheeky language of the characters on the mouth of the characters, Yu Hua not only brings laughter to the readers but through that, the readers also grasp the nature of each character The lively atmosphere of life therefore also flows into the work Conclusion of chapter Over time, the type of comic characters increasingly shows an important role in Yu Hua's novels This type of character has left its mark by the complex, multi-layered laughter it brings From the kind of satirical character that criticizes human weaknesses, the humorous character that solves the narrative in Chinese culture to the kind of black humour that makes life appear unreasonable, the comic character type in the novel is a right choice of Yu Hua when he wants to capture the chaotic, multi-valued and disoriented modern world On the other hand, comic characters are projections but are differentiated from images of ordinary people in the lives around us Expressed by the art objectification simile, grotesque description and exploiting the flippant language, Yu Hua's comic characters are impressed by the images that are close and strange, very simple but also very weird Yu Hua's art of demonstrating characters has turned us away from the familiar view of reality, helped us to have new insights about people and life 20 CONCLUSION The main conclusions 1.1 Yu Hua is a unique phenomenon contributing to the operation and development towards modernization of contemporary Chinese literature history For more than three decades, he has always thought about finding his way, from which to build a unique art world, full of his creative colours The character is the place that marks the changes in that creative journey From Yu Hua's character world, we can see traces of a period of chaotic society, with much confusion It was also an era in which people suffered violence and lust without mercy It makes people no longer have the ideal or dare to dream higher, but only wish to keep their lives The changes in Yu Hua’s character world also show the changes in the artistic conception of the writer It is the transition from a pessimistic, indignant view to a more positive and inclusive view of the world and people But throughout the entire journey remains the tireless search for the truth of reality, the identity of the man The result of the searching process is that Yu Hua did not use fanciful elements such as Mo Yan, did not follow the "realism" method like Yan Lianke but he chooses newrealistic as a creative orientation for his novel character This is also a factor that characterizes the character world in the writer's second stage of writing This orientation not only meets the requirements of literary practice but also fits the changes in the writer's mind This is a way for writers to expose the corrupt nature of political, ethical discourses, rerealize the old philosophical, cultural and literary values of society, literary traditions that the writer himself has established The sense of reflection always appears in every line of new-realistic characters This is also the pioneering consciousness that from the first day of writing, the writer held 1.2 Under the new-realistic orientation, the comic character type is a turning point of Yu Hua in the period of novel writing from the 90s of the twentieth century This is an appropriate choice for the writer to demonstrate the spirit of democracy, the sacred narrative in Chinese culture and human culture In the negative voice, Yu Hua used laughter to build a unique character system that aims to quickly and cheerfully understand deviant phenomena, tragic and miserable circumstances It can be likened to an analgesic for an operation to uncover all the left sides of human personality and social structure The comic feature also becomes the structure of the character, exists as a kind of artistic thinking in writing and is 21 an appropriate attitude in controlling the development of stories in Yu Hua's novels 1.3 The tragic character type is another contribution of Yu Hua in returning to tradition to overcome tradition The character's form may seem familiar, but it presents a new perspective on people and literary characters Modern Chinese literature, especially from the Renovation Period, focused on the private people, went into the deep feelings, the humane aspirations of an individual Yu Hua also followed this general trend But his contribution is that while the authors of the "wound" literature looked at people in social attributes, the writers of the "radical" novel found the source of human culture, so while they sought to resolve conflicts between people and situations at social and cultural causes; Yu Hua then saw man as an entity existing in the world as an individual - a separate spirit, therefore, all obstacles can only be solved by human themselves Yu Hua's tragic character is not intended to clarify the general rules of life and people that other science subjects have generalized Each character of Yu Hua's novel is a proposal of the possible possibility of human in the world of life It is not the world that is frozen in-laws and formulas Therefore, the novel is returned to the essence of the novel without being dominated or defended by other forms of mental creativity 1.4 Through analyzing the characteristics of Yu Hua's novel character types, we realize that the writer has neither stripped names and backgrounds, pushing to the end of the non-characterization of characters like some Chinese writers currently, nor did it deeply exploit the subconscious world of the character, and Yu Hua's novel characters are not purely symbols His contribution is that it shows the spirit of the era, not only the era limited to China but the mentality of the people in the post-modern era - the period of unbelief and suspicion Not only that, but Yu Hua's novel characters are also the denial of the key dogma of realism These are characters that seem to be very traditional but have stepped over the barrier of tradition to bring a new concept about literary characters 1.5 Yu Hua is a typical name, his artistic journey accompanies the exploration and creation process of Chinese literature from the Renovation to the present Continuing to translate and study his compositions not only provides more evidence for historical literary conclusions but also promises discoveries of a different perspective, a unique art style The next researching direction From the research results of the topic, the thesis can develop in more directions For example, it is possible to expand the study of character types in Yu Hua's work on all short 22 stories and novels of the writer in two periods Or the topic may develop in the direction of identifying the characters in the novels of contemporary writers, having similarities in the creative journey with Yu Hua such as Su Tong, Ma Yuan, and Ge Fei Theoretically, it is possible to delve into Yu Hua's new-realistic calligraphy in the construction of novel characters or innovations in the writer's concept of characters 23 PUBLISHED WORKS THAT RELATED TO THE TOPIC Nguyen Thị Hoai Thu (2015), “The wounds in the Brothers novel of Yu Hua”, Vinh University Journal of Science, Vol 44, No 4B, pp 52-61 Nguyen Thị Hoai Thu (2016), “Shouting in the fine rain of Yu Hua and Great narrative scepticism” (2016), Proceedings of Postgraduate Scientific Conference, Hanoi National University of Education, pp 346-351 Nguyen Thi Mai Chanh, Nguyen Thị Hoai Thu (2018), “Demystification in Shouting in the fine rain by Yu Hua”, Journal of Literature Studies, No 3, pp 88-97 Nguyen Thi Mai Chanh, Nguyen Thị Hoài Thu (2018), “History of the reception of Yu Hua’s works in Vietnam”, Academic Forum of Nandu, No 5, pp 52-56 Nguyen Thị Hoai Thu (2016), “The type of traumatic character in Yu Hoa's novel”, Science and Technology Projects, Vinh University, T2016-45 Nguyen Thị Hoai Thu (2016), “Chinese national character in the novel Brothers by Yu Hua”, Scientific Journal of Saigon University, No 23, pp 148-154 Nguyen Thi Hoai Thu (2018), “Existential consciousness in novels by Yu Hua”, HNUE Journal of Science, No 63, pp 34-41 Nguyen Thi Hoai Thu (2018), “ The death sign in Yu Hua's novels, Nghe An Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, September, pp 48-53 Nguyen Thi Hoai Thu (2018), “The type of new-realistic character in Yu Hua's novels”, LSCAC 2018, Hue University, pp 717-725 ... 346-351 Nguyen Thi Mai Chanh, Nguyen Thị Hoai Thu (2018), “Demystification in Shouting in the fine rain by Yu Hua”, Journal of Literature Studies, No 3, pp 88-97 Nguyen Thi Mai Chanh, Nguyen Thị Hoài... No 5, pp 52-56 Nguyen Thị Hoai Thu (2016), “The type of traumatic character in Yu Hoa' s novel”, Science and Technology Projects, Vinh University, T2016-45 Nguyen Thị Hoai Thu (2016), “Chinese... the age Comic characters are an important means for writers to express an attitude towards life and people It is an attitude of tolerance, optimism, and relief; the criticism ridicules the phenomena,