Filial Piety and Chastity in Nguyen Du's The Tale of Kieu - Manusya ...

Filial Piety and Chastity in Nguyen Du’s The Tale of Kieuofficial in the Le Dynasty (1428-1788). Hewas the seventh child of the family. Likeseveral of his kin Nguyen Du served as ascholar and mandarin at Court. At the ageof 17 he passed the official mandarinateexamination and his career as a stateofficial might have been brighter if thecivil war between the Trinh and theNguyen, two influential feudal families,had not taken place.The country had been divided into twoparts since the early 17 th century. TheNorth was controlled by the Trinh whilethe South was under the Nguyen. Whileboth families claimed that they recognizedthe Le Dynasty as the legitimate authority,they still fought against each other.However, after the long period of civilwar, a local revolt, led by three brothersfrom the village of Tay Son, a province ofBinh Dinh, was raised against the twofamilies. The Tay Son rebellion waswidely supported by downtroddenpeasants and small merchants. In 1776,Saigon fell and Nguyen Anh fled thecountry and sought assistance in Siam.After that, the Tay Son defeated the Trinhin 1786. They then captured Hanoi (at thattime known as Thang Long). However,with support from the French, NguyenAnh defeated the Tay Son and in 1802established the Nguyen Dynasty, underwhich the Vietnamese state becameadministratively unified for the first time.He became emperor Gia Long, and movedthe capital city from Hanoi to Hue (at thattime known as Phu Xuan).Nguyen Du grew up during the civil warand his career endured a great manypolitical vicissitudes. To show theirloyalty to the Le Dynasty, Nguyen Du andsome members of his family foughtagainst the Tay Son. When he realized thatthe attempt was abortive, he refused toserve the new regime and returned to hishome village instead. His career asmandarin was resumed when the Nguyendynasty was established. Under the reignof Gia Long, he served as a provincialadministrator, though a number ofhistorians have speculated that he acceptedthe post reluctantly. In 1813, he went toChina as a diplomat. It is believed that TheTale of Kieu was written during thatdiplomatic mission (Nguyen Loc 1999:297 – 333).The Tale of Kieu (also known as Kim VanKieu, the names of the protagonists) isbased on a Chinese prose fiction that waswritten in the 16 th or early 17 th century.Nguyen Du rewrote this short novel into1,627 couplets, that is a 3,254-line poem,in the folk metre known as luc bat or ‘sixeight’verse. The author borrowed the plotfrom a Chinese prose narrative but adaptedthe details, characters and atmosphere ofthe story into a Vietnamese context(Duong Quang Ham 1942: 104). It tellsthe story of Vuong Thuy Kieu, a beautifuland talented girl, who was born into amiddle-class family. When her father, Mr.Vuong, a merchant who is described as‘neither rich nor poor’, is arrested on afalse charge, in order to rescue him shesells herself as a concubine and is laterforced to become a prostitute.Because of the author’s literary talent andits moving content, the story was loved byan audience from all walks of life.However, Vietnamese Confucian scholarsdid not consider a story about a prostituteto be as worthy as were the Chineseclassics (Huynh Sanh Thong 1984: 99 –125). This contradiction between thepopular reception and literary standardscan probably be explained by reference tothe Confucian concept of the role andfunction of literature. Traditionally, the67