"In dignity, Van was beyond compare – her face a moon, her eyebrows two full curves; her smile a flower, her voice the sound of jade; her hair the sheen of clouds, her skin like snow. Yet Kieu possessed a keener, deeper charm – she excelled Van in talent and in looks. Her eyes were autumn streams, her brow spring hills. The flowers and willows envied her fresh hue" (pg. 34).
"As he paced round the wall, his eyes caught sight of a golf hairpin stuck on a peach branch. He quickly reached for it and took it home. 'How did it leave her room to come this way?' he asked. 'For it is hers, and fate has wiled that it should thus have fallen in my hands!' Now sleepless, he admired and stroked the pin still faintly redolent of sandalwood" (pg. 42).
"Kieu had to save her kin, her flesh and blood. When evil strikes, one bows to circumstance. When one must weigh and choose between one's love and filial duty, which will turn the scale? Kieu brushed aside her solemn vows to Kim – she'd pay a daughter's debt before all else. Resolved on what to do, she spoke her mind: 'Hands off my father, please! I'll sell myself and ransom him'" (pg. 52-53).
"One's fortune, good or ill, is heaven-sent. In Kieu a perverse fate had found its butt. Alas, the maiden was so young and fair! A rose had dropped into a huckster's boat" (pg. 60).
"She grabbed a whip, about to pounce and lash. 'Heaven and earth bear witness!' Kieu cried out. 'My life's as good as lost since I left home! What now remains of it to save and hold?' At once she drew the weapon from her sleeve – O horror, she found heart to kill herself! The bawd looked on aghast as the girl stabbed. Ah me, were all her talents and her charms to leave this earth, dissevered by a knife?" (pg. 65).
"Kieu mourned all women in the League of Sorrow. Fate grants them beauty as a seeming gift and makes them pay for it in coin and grief. It dooms them to a life of wind and dust – the sneers it hurls at them will not soon cease" (pg. 75).
"Each action, good or ill, weighs in the scale. When judged for her past sins, Kieu must be charged with reckless love, but not with wanton lust. Requiting love for love, she sold herself and saved her father: Heaven did not take note. She caused one death, but many lives were spared. She knew right thoughts from wrong, fair deeds from foul. Whose merits equal her good works, in truth? Thus they have washed away her sins of yore. When Heaven bends an ear, man's voice is heard. She who has purged herself from her past faults sows future happiness" (pg. 123).
"All things are fixed by Heaven, first and last. Heaven appoints each creature to a place. If we are marked for grief, we'll come to grief. We'll sit on high when destined for high seats. And Heaven with an even hand will give talent to some, to others happiness. In talent take no overweening pride – great talent and misfortune make a pair. A Karma each of us has to live out: let's stop decrying Heaven's quirks and whims. Within us each there lies the root of good: the heart means more than all talents on earth" (pg. 142).
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Final Project Paper
A Women’s Perspective
The piece of literature that I read was a poem written by Nguyen Du over two centuries. It is a story that has been in Vietnam for a long time and is well-known and loved by all the people. It is titled Truyen Kieu, or The Tale of Kieu, and is about the adversities that a young woman faces throughout her life. Over the course of time, her life only seems worsen and she must live though it and only hope that she holds a brighter future.
Kieu didn't have all bad luck in her life. She was actually born with beauty that was unmatched by any other. "Her eyes were autumn streams, her brows spring hills. The flowers and willows envied her fresh hue. A glance or two from her, and cities rocked, . . . No girl of gentle birth could rival Kieu" (pg. 34). However, her beauty is the thing that she believes condemned the rest of her life. Her beauty is what caused her to lead such a miserable life. Nguyen Du represented life in Vietnam back then through the poem. The traditions and laws in the poem was how it was in Vietnam during that time period. Knowing that, you can see that women had very little choice or power. Also according to Kieu, women could never seem to get everything that they wanted. If a woman was beautiful and talented, like Kieu, then she couldn’t lead a successful life. Her life was doomed to fail because of her beauty. Women could only have one or the other. That seems to be a stark contrast to how women are today. Now, it is usually the beautiful women who are becoming more successful. They are using their beauty to get them what they want and to where they want to go. Same goes for the other way around. The majority of women are finding it harder to rise themselves in society and have everything that they want. It gives you more perspective into how women played a role in the Vietnamese society and what rights they had in life.
Another aspect of a women's life is where her faith lies and who she must obey. An unmarried woman is expected to obey and honor her father more than anything else. In the story, Kieu honored that faith and gave up her true love. "Kieu brushed aside her solemn vows to Kim – she'd pay a daughter's debt before all else" (pg. 52). Even though she vowed to Kim that they would marry, she sold herself to another man so that her father could pay off his debts. She sacrificed her true love to support her father in his time of need. So now that Kieu married, her devotion changed from her father to her husband. She moved far away from her family to go live with him and was now almost required to attend to his every need, even though she didn't love him. “She grieved to go, they grieved to stay behind – tears drenched the steps as parting tugged at hearts” (pg. 58). This loyalty and devotion that women must show to men, proves that they were considered inferior. The male was the dominant gender of the Vietnamese society and it showed in the way that they were treated.
One interesting thing to consider is that if women were treated inferiorly to men, then why were two women used to represent the Vietnamese culture in this story? Why would Nguyen Du chose to make a woman’s life the focal of his poem? The story was indeed focused on a woman’s life, however, you got to also see men and how they lived as well. Kieu and Van were not the only characters in this poem, but also Kieu’s husband, her father and many other men that she encountered. I believe that the story was chosen to be told through a women’s eye for a reason. Not only could you see the life of women and how they were treated, but also the rights and privileges that men had. In this poem, Kieu traveled through all types of lifestyles. At first she was modestly living at home, and then she got married and was whisked away to a much grander way of living. She even ended up on the streets and experienced very harsh conditions at one point. Following Kieu, the reader experienced many different lifestyles that people had, from the rich to the poor. And it would be much harder to make this same journey following the life of a man. It also emphasized women’s rights and their duties to men much more vividly, and made a deeper impact on the reader. Nguyen Du wanted to write a story that reflected life in Vietnam back when he was living, and telling it through a women’s point of view covered numerous different aspects of life, rather than just one.
The piece of literature that I read was a poem written by Nguyen Du over two centuries. It is a story that has been in Vietnam for a long time and is well-known and loved by all the people. It is titled Truyen Kieu, or The Tale of Kieu, and is about the adversities that a young woman faces throughout her life. Over the course of time, her life only seems worsen and she must live though it and only hope that she holds a brighter future.
Kieu didn't have all bad luck in her life. She was actually born with beauty that was unmatched by any other. "Her eyes were autumn streams, her brows spring hills. The flowers and willows envied her fresh hue. A glance or two from her, and cities rocked, . . . No girl of gentle birth could rival Kieu" (pg. 34). However, her beauty is the thing that she believes condemned the rest of her life. Her beauty is what caused her to lead such a miserable life. Nguyen Du represented life in Vietnam back then through the poem. The traditions and laws in the poem was how it was in Vietnam during that time period. Knowing that, you can see that women had very little choice or power. Also according to Kieu, women could never seem to get everything that they wanted. If a woman was beautiful and talented, like Kieu, then she couldn’t lead a successful life. Her life was doomed to fail because of her beauty. Women could only have one or the other. That seems to be a stark contrast to how women are today. Now, it is usually the beautiful women who are becoming more successful. They are using their beauty to get them what they want and to where they want to go. Same goes for the other way around. The majority of women are finding it harder to rise themselves in society and have everything that they want. It gives you more perspective into how women played a role in the Vietnamese society and what rights they had in life.
Another aspect of a women's life is where her faith lies and who she must obey. An unmarried woman is expected to obey and honor her father more than anything else. In the story, Kieu honored that faith and gave up her true love. "Kieu brushed aside her solemn vows to Kim – she'd pay a daughter's debt before all else" (pg. 52). Even though she vowed to Kim that they would marry, she sold herself to another man so that her father could pay off his debts. She sacrificed her true love to support her father in his time of need. So now that Kieu married, her devotion changed from her father to her husband. She moved far away from her family to go live with him and was now almost required to attend to his every need, even though she didn't love him. “She grieved to go, they grieved to stay behind – tears drenched the steps as parting tugged at hearts” (pg. 58). This loyalty and devotion that women must show to men, proves that they were considered inferior. The male was the dominant gender of the Vietnamese society and it showed in the way that they were treated.
One interesting thing to consider is that if women were treated inferiorly to men, then why were two women used to represent the Vietnamese culture in this story? Why would Nguyen Du chose to make a woman’s life the focal of his poem? The story was indeed focused on a woman’s life, however, you got to also see men and how they lived as well. Kieu and Van were not the only characters in this poem, but also Kieu’s husband, her father and many other men that she encountered. I believe that the story was chosen to be told through a women’s eye for a reason. Not only could you see the life of women and how they were treated, but also the rights and privileges that men had. In this poem, Kieu traveled through all types of lifestyles. At first she was modestly living at home, and then she got married and was whisked away to a much grander way of living. She even ended up on the streets and experienced very harsh conditions at one point. Following Kieu, the reader experienced many different lifestyles that people had, from the rich to the poor. And it would be much harder to make this same journey following the life of a man. It also emphasized women’s rights and their duties to men much more vividly, and made a deeper impact on the reader. Nguyen Du wanted to write a story that reflected life in Vietnam back when he was living, and telling it through a women’s point of view covered numerous different aspects of life, rather than just one.
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