Nguyen Vo Hoai Van – V202100501

Hoan Thu and human’s values

Truyen Kieu was published, Hoan Thu has been used to imply cruel women with aggressive jealousy.
However, thanks to Nguyen Du’s vision, Hoan Thu appeared to be a realistic person with a complex
personality and her own struggles. This character along with female protagonist Thuy Kieu have
contributed to Truyen Kieu historical success and eternality.

To some extents, Hoan Thu is interestingly considered similar to the main character Thuy Kieu. Both of
these women are generally portrayed by Nguyen Du as gorgeous and sagacious. Though not directly
mentioned like Kieu, Hoan Thu appearance was complimented via protagonist’s words and her
intelligence was indirectly manifested in her cunning plan of revenge and clever handling during the trial
which eventually saved herself. This result of the trial was also contributed by Thuy Kieu’s mercy which
was recognized according to Karma rule by Thich Nhat Hanh as the Effect of Hoan Thu previous sowing
the Cause seed of compassion when she facilitate opportunities and also traveling fee (gold and silver
bells) for Kieu to escape (Hanh, 2007). Therefore, besides beauty and wit, nobel and clemency also
represented in both of the two opposite function characters. In addition, the correspondence in their
function of the Truyen Kieu would be notable to mention. It is evident that Hoan Thu is a sinner along
with numerous other people who directly tormented the protagonist's life. However, that would be
unfair to ignore the fact that Hoan Thu was also a victim. While Thuy Kieu was the unworthy victim of
incidents’ series which were featured in the old society, Hoan Thu was initially an inherent victim of the
polygamy and masculinity regime, an inevitable product of feudal society. As a woman in that time,
Hoan Thu had to live a loveless life with Thuc Sinh and simultaneously carried the crime of not being
able to have an heir. Whereas, Thuc Sinh betrayed and underhandedly had more wives. In this situation,
she has the right to fight and teach Thuc Sinh a lesson. Her coping is also more or less considered a
possible action for other women. Despite the motive are understandable and sympathizable, Hoan Thu’s
actions are deserved of condemnation. Besides the individual revenge purpose, there is also the class
motive in her action. The important thing is not the fact that Thuc Sinh took Kieu as a concubine, but his
concealment without permission was considered to surpass the higher and noble class of Hoan Thu
reducing her inherent majesty (Nguyen, 2015). In Hoan Thu, there is always the existence of the struggle
between the class and the individual, but in the end, her tragedy has its roots in social background.

By elaborately building Hoan Thu’s complicated background and duality characteristic, Nguyen Du had
initiated a novel (realism) but also primitive perspective (Yin-Yang) about human values. Truyen Kieu
could perfectly reflect the ancient Chinese model Yin and Yang. There is always the good in the bad and
the bad in the good. Humans have weaknesses and bad habits such as filial piety, greed, selfishness,
gullibility, and foolishness like in the heroine Thuy Kieu. On the contrary, people are not only full of bad
and bad qualities from appearance to personality, but people have good points, altruism, compassion,
and charity like in the female character Hoan Thu. However, philosophy and traditional literature were
not much aligned, especially folklore which represented liege’s dream. That is why these works are often
divided into two extremely opposite types of character: absolutely good protagonists and evil
antagonists with happy endings for the main characters and bad consequences for the villains. In
addition, before Truyen Kieu, characters, especially women who were considered unimportant and
insignificant, were rarely depicted meticulously in terms of individuality and personality. However,
Nguyen Du had reckless take two steps forward beyond the era to have female ‘personality character’.
The so called ‘personality character’ became more popular in Vietnam not until the 1900s, the golden
age of Vietnamese literature with famous characters like Chi Pheo or Chi Dau with complicated
personality. Dr Tran Nho Thin claimed that “human perception is a historical issue” and it is undeniable
that Truyen Kieu have set the historical and philosophical milestone about human values. That is to say,
Nguyen Du indeed had ‘the eyes seeing through six realms’ (con mắt nhìn thấu sáu cõi). By having a set
of ‘personality characters’ with Hoan Thu and Thuy Kieu being the representatives, Truyen Kieu have
brought these characters from books to real life, making them still align and long live with the present
and even future society.

Truyen Kieu in this sense could be equally compared to Mona Lisa and many other the Western Art in
the same era of which value is also long lasting to this day. The picture of Mona Lisa lived vigorously not
because of drawing techniques or Leonardo Da Vinci’s reputation. Her smile shines and represents the
realism of the Enlightenment, the age that people were unchained from religion and humans were put
at the center of beauty. Truyen Kieu and its topic about women was not so different in marking the
maturity of awareness about real life and marks the process of change, movement and Enlightenment of
Vietnamese literary thinking by honoring the individuality of people with women's beauty and virtue.

Reference
Hanh Nhat. (2007). Thả một bè Lau: Truyện kiè̂u dưới Cái nhìn thiè̂n quán. Nhà xuá̂t bản Văn hóa Sài
Gòn.

Nguyen, H. T. (2015). MỘT CÁI NHÌN VỀ PHỤ NỮ CỦA NGUYỄN DU QUA NHÂN VẬT HOẠN THƯ TRONG
TRUYỆN KIỀU.