Summary of Thesis of PhD in Literature: The Western - Eastern discourse of Pham Quynh and Nhat Linh

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION LE THI VAN ANH THE WESTERN - EASTERN DISCOURSE OF PHAM QUYNH AND NHAT LINH Specialty: Vietnamese Literature Code: 9.22.01.21 SUMMARY OF THESIS OF PhD IN LITERATURE (Specialized in Vietnamese Literature) HANOI - 2019

The thesis is completed at Hanoi National University of Education

Scientific Advisors:

1. Prof. NGUYEN DINH CHU 2. Associate Prof/ Dr. TRAN VAN TOAN

Review 1: Associate Prof/ Dr. VU THANH

Institute of Literature

Review 2: Associate Prof/ Dr. HA VAN DUC

University of Social Sciences and Humanities

Review 3: Associate Prof/ Dr. TRAN THI TRAM

Academy of Journalism & Communication

The thesis will be defensed at the University Level Thesis Assessment Council of Hanoi National University of Education At … 00’ date … moth … year 2019

The thesis can be searched at:

- Hanoi National University of Education Library - Vietnam National Library

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INTRODUCTION

1. RATIONALE 1. Vietnamese culture in the early twentieth century existed and developed on the basis of the contact between the East and the West (mainly the French-Vietnamese contact axis). The demands of the times forced Vietnamese people in the early twentieth century to be aware of the West (France) - "others" and the East (Vietnam) - "the self", thus giving discourses about the East - West, about the nation, identity, as well as civilization and modernity. These discourses reflect the complex sentiments of Vietnamese people in this circumstance.

2. Among many prominent Vietnamese intellectuals of the early 20th century who participated in constructing the East-West discourses, we decide to select two typical cases: Pham Quynh (1892-1945) and Nhat Linh (1906-1963). The two figures have some important similarities: both of them are cultural activists in public environment who gained the direct influence from the West, moreover, their thought is interpreted in many different ways by public opinion, both compliment and judgment. In particular, they are the colonial intellectuals who self-consciously use discourses as the effective means to impacts on subjects who can bring a new transformation of society, create the ideas of community and nationality as well as contribute to the reconciliation of the East and the West. On the other hand, these two persons have some cultural differences and advancements. While Pham Quynh is a scholar who left a monumental theoretical heritage, Nhat Linh is the leader of a literary circle. His heritage is mostly specific works such as cultural and literary practices. While Pham Quynh is the representative of intellectual generation in the period 1907, Nhat Linh is the representative of intellectual generation in the period 1925 – two sequential intellectual generations in the first half of 20th century. Nhat Linh himself and his associates in the Self-Strengthening literary group (Tự lực văn đoàn) had constantly tried to ‘overcome’ the ‘Pham Quynh generation’. Thus, placing these two writers in comparative axis can help us to gain essential insights into the cultural advancement of two Vietnamese intellectual generations, especially through the changes of East-West concept. Selecting these complicate objects that have both advantages and disadvantages, we also aim to point out the practical meaning of the research. Since the problem of East-West cultural contact remains a topical affair, the research tends to contribute to drawing some experiences for the contemporary international integration that usually tied with the slogan “integration without assimilation”.

3. In the case of the figures created influential discourses in the East-West cultural clash and encounter the opposites in reception history such as Pham Quynh and Nhat Linh, the exploration of their cultural heritage from discursive perspective can be seen as a feasible and promising way will bring about meaningful results.

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2. OBJECTIVES AND SCOPE OF THE STUDY 1. Objectives of the study: the western – eastern discourse of Pham Quynh

and Nhat Linh.

2. The scope of the study: All the documents surveyed in this thesis (see: References). 3. AIMES AND TASKS OF THE STUDY

Through discursive theory of M. Foucault, especially in the association with post-colonial theory, the thesis tend to perceive the attitude towards the West of Pham Quynh and Nhat Linh, from which research futher the notion of the East, the nation and the efforts to create a path for their cultural future. At the same time, we try to objectively 'describe' the meaning of the text, so that readers have a more comprehensive view on the similarity and the continuity in behaviors of Pham Quynh and Nhat Linh toward the concepts of the West and the East.

4. METHODS OF THE STUDY - The method of systematic approach - The method of statistics, analysis, and synthesis - Coetaneous and chronological method. - Interdisciplinary method. 5. NEW SCIENTIFIC CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE STUDY

- The thesis is the first specialized work to apply the theory of the discourse of M. Foucault, the theory of post-colonial research to describe and identify Western and Eastern discourse of two complex cultural objects - Pham Quynh and Nhat Linh. - For the first time, the discourse of two representatives representing two generations of Vietnamese intellectuals, Pham Quynh and Nhat Linh, is put into the same research axis, expanded to be understood in the two-way interaction with the colonial cultural environment of Vietnam in the first half of the 20th century. At the same time, the thesis shows similarities as well as differences and changes in their behavior towards the concept of the West and the East.

- The thesis shows the potential of the study of discourse, research direction on East-West cultural interactions, and shows practical lessons from the past to the present in the policy of building " An advanced culture imbued with national identity ”.

- The thesis is a valuable reference to help readers, especially those who have not read the text of Pham Quynh and Nhat Linh, have a deeper view on this two complex cultural objects.

6. DESIGN OF THE STUDY Except for the Introduction and the Conclusion, this dissertation is divided into

three following main chapter:

Chapter 1: Overview of the subjects of the study Chapter 2: The Western-Eastern discourse of Pham Quynh Chapter 3: The Western-Eastern discourse of Nhat Linh.

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Chapter 1 OVERVIEW OF THE SUBJECTS OF THE STUDY

1.1. Theoretical basis 1.1.1. The concept of "Discourse" by Micheal Foucault and application

orientations

In this thesis, the concept ‘discourse’ is used based on the definition of M. Foucault. Discourse, as defined by Foucault, refers to “ways of constituting knowledge, together with the social practices, forms of subjectivity and power relations which inhere in such knowledge and relations between them. Discourses are more than ways of thinking and producing meaning”. Namely, discourse is not only an area framed strictly by the social framework but also a system of speeches in which the world can be represented. The key problem is that the world is not simply ‘over there’ (available) to be spoken but rather be represented through discourse. What Foucault focuses on is not the question ‘what is the truth?’ but ‘how can the truth be told?”.

When a discourse is spoken in association with the power and the episteme, it can eliminate other discourses. For example, the power of colonial discourse excludes all the discordant discourses such as the discourses from the colonies. However, Foucault emphasizes that: wherever the dominance is, we can see also the resistance (since power is not only a top-down but also a bottom-up system). The study of discourse, therefore, is not just a study of knowledge created by power-holders but rather a crucial task of studying the discourses of vulnerable groups such as ‘women’, ‘third gender’, ‘minority’, ‘colony’, etc.

In the thesis, with the research object: Western - Eastern discourse of Pham Quynh and Nhat Linh - discourse of colonial intellectuals who always interacted with colonialism in relation to complex knowledge and power, we manipulate one of the applications from Foucault's discourse theory, post-colonialism.

1.1.2. The concept of "Western - Eastern discourse" in post-colonialism Post-colonialism began in the mid-twentieth century. From the 1960s to the 1970s, directions were more specific, especially in 1978 with the appearance of Orientalism by Edward Said, the foundation of post-colonial research was set up. Since the 1980s and 1990s, post-colonialism has been extensively developed and up to now, there has been a lot of lively debate, entering the field of cultural research, literature contributes to the analysis of colonial invasion, subject creation in colonial / colonial discourse, the resistance of these subjects through colonial discourse and colonial heritage in colonial / former colonial / dependent countries, etc.

In the post-colonial themes, the Western - Eastern relationship has always emerged as an important spindle with complex culture - knowledge - power interactions which include colonial intellectuals' right to speak, cultural identities and pathways for colonial / former colonial peoples’ future ... and discussed by well- known scholars such as Edward W. Said (1935 - 2003), Gayatri Chakravorty (born 1942), Homi. K. Bhabha (born 1946), ...

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1.1.2.1. The Eastern-Western discourse as a construction of the East (the colonized)

from Western perspectives (the colonizer)

The West does not just define the East in terms of concepts but also of representations, interpretations, by which creating and maintaining its power over the East through discourses. Based on M. Foucault’s concept, Edward Said surveys the process of constructing representations of the East from Western perspectives through discourses as the representations of ‘the other’, as well as of the colony from colonial perspectives in a broader sense. Edward Said, in Orientalism, demonstrates that Orientalist discourse has constructed not just ‘the East’ but also ‘the West’ itself. The weakness that Orientalism imposed on the East highlighted the superiority of the West. The discourse interprets the East as sensible, illogical, primitive, and arbitrary contributes to constructing of the West as logical, democracy and developed. The West is always located in the center position. In contrary, the East is always set aside as the margin or the other. Moreover, Western discourses of the East also provoke a lot of other oppositions such as the opposition of the masculinity of the West (as a rational, orderly, principle entity) to the feminity of the East (as an illogical, passive, sensible entity).

1.1.2.2. The Requirement of constructing East-West discourse from Eastern

intellectuals’ perspectives

From Said’s perspective, it can be realized that in Western Orientalism, Eastern culture is a culture prevented from the development. It takes a lot of time for the old colonies resisting to the history created by the West.

While Said is interested in the Western construction of the East, in Can the Subaltern Speaks? Spivak emphasizes the circumstance of speeches, the self- representation and the inevitable silence of the subaltern. She proposes other essential questions such as: How successful was the colonial power in silencing the colonies? The colonies have their own voices or just reuse the ‘borrowing’ voice of colonialism? Is it the best resolution in trying to restore the voice of the weakness by separating them from the colonial culture and featuring everything they stereotyped from the one conquers them? And whether the voice of the weakness can be represented by indigenous intellectuals?

For Foucault, culture is constructed by various opposite discourses. This is the reason why though colonial discourse is the dominant discourse in the colonial period, it could not eliminate completely de-colonial discourses from colonies. In fact, intellectuals from colonies (from the East) always demand to ‘rewrite’ the colonialist discourse (from the West) as one way to perceive the colonial invasion as well as to find a pathway for their own nation. This effort can be seen as one way of ‘decolonization’.

1.1.2.2. The process of cultural interaction and the choice for the future path of

the colony

H.K.Bhabha is a prominent scholar pays special attention to the complicate cultural interactions which contain many contradictions inside as the consequence of colonial invasion.

Despite the fact that there are many controversial opinions, the notions of cultural interaction such as ‘hybrid’ can be seen as an effective way of decolonization of Oriental people. It is really difficult for the East to fully restore its own cultural

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identity which already broken due to the colonial invasion, however, the East has never completely abandoned their cultural heritage to become a replica of the West. The East has always questioned of its minority status and the reason why it is forced to integrate into a completely different political and cultural environment. In doing this, Eastern intellectuals simultaneously create a new cultural identity for themselves in the interference of Western and native cultures.

One more important question is what will be the potential future path for the colonies as well as for all nations which was colonies? Particularly, the cultural development should follow the previous directions of the invader or return to primitive culture or combine both of these two solutions? Cultural interaction and adaptation are inevitable consequences. All the cultural products, of course, are marked by the hybridity. The extent of hybridity and negotiation depends on the choice of colonial intellectuals.

In post-colonialists’ viewpoint, the East and the West (associated with the concepts of identity, race, nation) are not the concepts which have defined intentions but rather the products of discourse, unceasingly be rewrited along with the historical process of East-West contact. The requirement of perceiving and rewritten the Western discourse of native intellectuals really need to be researched as one way to put the Eastern voice on a par with the West’s.

1.2. The requirement of constructing discourses of the West (France) in parallel with the East (Vietnam) of Vietnamese intellectuals from the late 19th to early 20th century

1.2.1. The Western (French) - Eastern (Vietnamese) contact in Vietnam in

the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century

The contact between Vietnam and Western countries began at the end of the sixteenth century when our country traded with Portugal, England and France. However, the East-West exposure image in Vietnam is most evident in the French- Vietnamese contact when the French colonialists invaded our country since the middle of the nineteenth century.

Like any colonialist, the French occupied Vietnam, built up their fortunes with violence, maintained their occupation with violence, all for the physical purpose of "seeking profit". However, the negotiation of power between colonialism and colonialism always appears. According to Nguyen Van Trung, the colonists built "myths" to cover up their exploitative mind, to appease the tensions between colonialism and colonization: "the myth of civilization", "colonial grace." ",... But the "myth" created by the colonialists is not only beneficial to colonialism, it also contains the dangers that colonialists must always control. Because "It has been, in the illusory intention, the one who talks about Democratic Freedom, highly recommends that the partnership is not to be done but to conceal oppression and oppression, but the magical words still have to be said. What freedom, cooperation is... Therefore, making listeners know how to be free, true democracy ". “The danger is that not all native speakers who are educated in open colonial schools will make all the henchmen for France or will obediently listen to their miraculous words. On the contrary, the natives only took advantage of the colonial means provided to understand the colonialists and found the anti-colonial way. "

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In general, French colonial heritage in Indochina as well as any invasion is still controversial. That controversy probably stems from the "myths" created by the French colonialists. The discourse on the West - the East of Vietnamese intellectuals and intellectuals at this time is not only a product of the attraction of "others" (the West) but also the need to redefine the essence, the need to have a voice in order to get out of the "forced silence of the subaltern" to the great power of the West. It is also the need for them to create national discourses, considering it the foundation for the East-West reconciliation process. In other words, awareness of the West (France) always goes hand in hand with awareness of the East (Vietnam).

impact on the

And it was the changing and regulating the power of French colonial rule in transformation and Vietnam, which also had a significant differentiation of the perception of Vietnamese people about the French in the late nineteenth century - early twentieth century.

1.2.2. Perceiving the West (France) Firstly, the West is perceived as a foreign power can be exterminated by a determinative spirit. Form this point of view the West is not different from the Northern invaders in the past (for example, the discourses of Nguyen Dinh Chieu).

As time goes by, it is more and more obvious that the Western enemies who come with the gun and their own civilization actually much more dangerous than the Northern enemy. Thus, the cynical thoughts gradually appeared as the reactions of a part of Vietnamese intellectuals who were aware of the greatness of the West (France) as well as the weakness of the East (Vietnam), able to anticipate the defeat if the East maintain its reaction but unable to find a potential way for their nation (in the case of Phan Thanh Gian (1796-1867)).

The story of perception of the West thus not just closed in revealing the Western (French) as the invaders but also became the story of ‘going abroad’ or ‘visiting France’ for achieving the true perception of France as well as find the appropriate answer solving the difficult situation of the nation. That is exactly the journey of Vietnamese intellectuals from the late 19th to early 20th century, a period marked with plenty of prominent figures such as Truong Vinh Ky, Nguyen Truong To, Phan Boi Chau, Phan Chu Trinh, Nguyen Van VInh, Pham Quynh, Nhat Linh, Nguyen Ai Quoc, etc.

After visiting the West (France), they all made adjustments in their perception, namely, the West becomes an entity that has many worth learning qualities such as the self-reliance. Therefore, the West is not only a foe but also a ‘fair-play’ partner that the East can follow to develop.

(1) This kind of reaction can be seen through some figures have innovative thought and non-violent spirit such as Nguyen Truong To, Truong Vinh Ki, Phan Chau Trinh, Nguyen Van Vinh (1882 – 1936), Pham Quynh (1892 – 1945), Nhat Linh and the Self-Strengthening literary group, etc.

In spite of different attitudes and specific direction of practice, the ambition of all of these intellectuals referred above is enlightening the people. Consequently, the historical figures followed this attitude almost focused on East-West reconciliation in an effort to bring about cultural equality.

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(2) The second one is the reaction of intellectuals who not only realized deeply the power of the West in contrary to the weakness of Vietnam but already found new ways to change the situation. While admitting the rise of the West (France), they are conscious of the irreconcilable conflicts between the East (Vietnam) and the West (France). These conflicts even culminate otherwise the colony carries out violent riots to gain the independence from the Western protectorate.

For instance: Phan Boi Chau, Nguyen Ai Quoc. 1.2.2. Perceiving the East This period witnesses an unprecedented proliferation of concepts such as ‘nation’, ‘lineage’, ‘people’, ‘compatriot’, ‘soul of the country’ in discourses. Especially, ‘nation’ becomes a ‘sacred’ concept since it includes of traditional powers.

The concept “nation” does not just refer to geography territories but rather the idea of a spiritual cohesion of the people in one country so that exists as the fundamental basis for the power of community cohesion in contact with ‘the other’ (the West).

This definition is even more demonstrated in the context of the French invasion, in other words, when national sovereignty and territory are threatened. Coming back to spiritual fulcrums such as ‘the soul of country’, ‘compatriots’, ‘the ancestor’, etc. is the common tendency of many authors in this period, for example, Pham Tat Dac (Conjure up the country’s soul), Tan Da (National oath), Phan Boi Chau (National history of Vietnam), etc.

The efforts to promote ‘the national soul’ are concretized through concrete practices such as: efforts of featuring the Vietnamese, efforts of tracing traditional cultural and literary material, efforts of constructing symbols of national heroism and patriotism, efforts of finding a potential pathway for the nation, …

1.3. The academic perspectives of the East-West discourses of Pham

Quynh and Nhat Linh

1.3.1. The academic perspectives of the East-West discourses of Pham Quynh 1.3.1.1. The first tendency: Considering the East-West discourses of Pham Quynh

from a political perspective, by which negating the value of his works

We can mention some scholars that follow this tendency just as: Ngo Đuc Ke, Huynh Thuc Khang, Dang Thai Mai, Truong Chinh, Vu Ngoc Khanh, Nguyen Van Hoan, Vu Duc Phuc, Thieu Son, Tran Đinh Huou, Le Chi Dung, Nguyen Van Trung, etc.

1.3.1.2. The second tendency: assessing cautiously and openly the East-West

discourses of Pham Quynh, by which appreciating his contribution on cultural aspects

Some scholars can be mentioned here just as: Duong Quang Ham, Le Thanh, Vu Ngoc Phan, Pham The Ngu, Thanh Lang, Tran Dinh Su, Nguyen Ngoc Thien, Nguyen Hue Chi, Tran Van Toan, Bui Viet Thang, Tran Manh Tien, Trinh Ba Đinh, Tran Van Chanh, Nguyen Đinh Chu (in the second time discussing of Pham Quynh). 1.3.1.3. The third tendency: Re-evaluating the East-West discourses of Pham

Quynh, by which exculpating and appreciating his contribution

For example: Nguyen Van Khoan, Khuc Ha Linh, writer Vuong Tri Nhan. 1.3.1.4. The fourth tendency (a neutral tendency): Directly pointing out the

role of an ‘intermediate intellectual’ of Pham Quynh

For example: Prf. Trinh Van Thao, Prf. Nguyen Đinh Chu (in the third time

discussing of Pham Quynh).

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1.3.2. The academic perpectives of the East-West discourses of Pham Quynh 1.3.2.1. The first tendency: Considering the East-West discourses of Nhat Linh in recognizing the influences of Western culture and literature on Nhat Linh’s artistic works as well as his efforts to modernize national literature

For example: Truong Chinh, Vu Ngoc Phan, Truong Tuu, Pham The Ngu, Prf.

PhD. Tran Van Toan, Dang Tien.

1.3.2.2. The second tendency: Acknowledging contributes of Nhat Linh in terms of literary, however, suggesting that his opinions of modernization are both positive and negative

For example: Prf. Dang Thai Mai, Prf. Phan Cu De, Prf. Tran Dang Suyen. The two prominent phenomena (Pham Quynh and Nhat Linh) in Vietnamese literary history are exactly the typical instances for the complexity of the resonance in the process of receiving literature. While respecting all the opinions from various viewpoints that listed above, we also realize that although these different cognitive tendencies have mentioned the concerns of Pham Quynh and Nhat Linh about the East-West discourses, they still not only fail to create a conceptual system from general view but also fail to reveal the mechanism constructing such discourses or the way these discourses govern the cultural and literary practices of these two writers. Moreover, there have no studies that put Pham Quynh and Nhat Linh in comparison. Thus, studying the East-West discourses of Pham Quynh and Nhat Linh is a potential way for bringing about systematic and meaningful interpretations. Of course, we also aware that the arguments in thesis themselves just arose from one of the various perspectives suggested by the resonance theory in literary cognitivism.

1.3.3. Suggestions for researching the East-West discourses of Pham Quynh

and Nhat Linh

The most striking common characteristic of such discourses of Pham Quynh and Nhat Linh is the duality of the colonial subject: while admitting that the Western (the French) are civilized and progressive in the contrary of the weak and backward Eastern (the Vietnamese), they also long to overtake the weakness by following the West for strengthening the nation, at the same time attempt to construct ‘a national identity’ (which so-called ‘Vietnamese character’). Although both of two scholars follow the tendency of reconciling the East-West clashes from a cultural perspective, their East- West discourses have many different points. To some extent, Pham Quynh is inherently a Confucianist influenced by French culture. Pham Quynh’s era is the first period of the process of coming into contact with the West. Meanwhile, Nhat Linh (despite composing some works such as Confucianist tradition and Spinner), basically, is both a bourgeois and a member of the intellectual generation who received the Western education. In Nhat Linh’s era, the contact with the West had become so deeply that we can see many uncontrollable rapid changes in the process of modernization. While Pham Quynh suggests a theoretical orientation and outlines some ways to actualize his theory, Nhat Linh, as a social activist, embarked on cultural and literary practices. Learning from the West but not giving up the oriental traditional culture, from the beginning, Pham Quynh decided to find the way to combine and reconcile the West with the East, distill the appropriate elements from cultural tradition then using them as the basis for

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acquiring the Western knowledge. Meanwhile, with the guiding principle of “make people realize that Confucianism is an obsolete ideology”, Nhat Linh’s discourses attacked the feudal citadel by criticizing backward customs as part of cultural tradition. Applying Western culture in the Vietnamese context, Nhat Linh and the Self- Strengthening Literary Group showed a desire to create a new national identity. While Pham Quynh consciously determines his reader as the elite class, Nhat Linh writes for popular readers, especially the urban readers. These similarities and differences between two scholars are able to bring about interesting suggestions in researching the East-West discourse of Pham Quynh and Nhat Linh.

CONCLUSION OF THE CHAPTER 1

In chapter 1, we introduced the system of theoretical foundations and cultural premise as the foundation for implementing the thesis. It is clear that the need to create Western-Eastern discourse of colonial intellectuals in the context of Vietnamese society in the first half of the twentieth century is entirely real and has created new steps for Vietnamese culture, both reflects the normative results of post-colonialism about (former) colonies and has its own characteristics and diversity at the cultural depth. All these things will help us to better understand the Western - Eastern discourse of Pham Quynh and Nhat Linh with complex power, knowledge relations.

Chapter 2 THE EAST-WEST DISCOURSE OF PHAM QUYNH

2.1. The subject of discourse: Pham Quynh - “An intellectual of two worlds” Pham Quynh (1892 – 1945) is an intellectual growing up during the defeat and dependence of Vietnamese monarchy on France. The Confucian ideology as an effective means to protect feudal state had shown all its impotence and weakness, gradually being transformed by the education taught in French of protectorate government.

However, Pham Quynh grew up in the early stages of building a colonial education system when the French school system was still in a state of edification and experimentation and had to accept challenges from traditional education institutions in Vietnam.

Pham Quynh himself only benefited from French education when he graduated from the Hanoi Interpretation School and his thought was still based from traditional education. But it is an important prerequisite for Pham Quynh to absorb Western culture and ideology directly, especially when Pham Quynh's career is closely linked to the strategic plan of the French.

In 1907, Dong Kinh Nghia school was organized and developed strongly, greatly contributing to the movement of reforming the thoughts of the Vietnamese people. The

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French "considered the efforts of the" native "to educate themselves in the ways chosen by themselves as a political act against the colonial regime" so suppressed and ordered the closure of Dong Kinh. Nghia Thuc after eight months of operation.

“Drawing on the experience of the Dong Kinh movement from the Dong Kinh Nghia Thuc movement, the French colonialists clearly realized that it was not only possible to ban negative and repressive violence but also to satisfy the demands of civilization and new reform. initiated by Dong Kinh Nghia Thuc, it is essential to satisfy another way and take the initiative only. ”

compiling textbooks colonial Phong and the for

And Pham Quynh is one of the people chosen by France to fulfill that plan when he became Secretary-General of the Tri Tri Tien Duc Association, the journalist school. Nam According to Nguyen Van Trung, Nam Phong and Khai Tri Tien Duc Association are "a model of Dong Kinh Nghia Thuc of the colonialists".

It can be said that Pham Quynh was a scholar penetrated with the inheritance of both Confucian and Western ideology, but mainly through self-study, self- accumulation.

As Prf. Trinh Van Thao puts it, Pham Quynh is “an intellectual of two worlds” “who stands at the borderline between old and new, “tradition and modernity”, “the East and the West”, between the intention and the consequences beyond the thinking of the person France .

2.2. The media system of the East-West discourses of Pham Quynh The media system of the East-West discourses of Pham Quynh is primarily the press (his articles on Nam Phong magazine) and speeches (polemics and debates) with discussion text as the center genre

Pham Quynh uses discussion text in an academic way targets to elite class as the main receivers. In our opinion, Pham Quynh’s discourses can be read as the proses orienting and spreading the thought

2.3. The east-west discourses of Pham Quynh 2.3.1. Perceiving the West (France) In his discourse, Pham Quynh acknowledged that the arrival of the French in Vietnam is an inevitable happening in history. He mentioned the characteristics of the French with praises. Pham Quynh also commented that the way the French dealing with colonized nations is so different from other colonial regimes. The concepts such as ‘loyalty’, ‘belief’, ‘hope’, ‘gratitude’ used so many times in Pham Quynh’s texts to show the attitude of the Vietnamese toward the French. For example, The Mission of France, A letter to the Minister of the Colonies, Toward a Cóntitution, etc. His discourses appreciate the civilization of the French, by which persuaded the Vietnamese to believe in the protectorate of the French. This attitude can be explained if we note that Pham Quynh is not only the editor of Nam Phong (the newspaper received funding from France) but also the secretary of Tien Duc Enlightenment Group.

2.3.2. Perceiving the East (the nation) The encounter with the West as ‘the other’ not just brought about a completely different experience from the contact with China in thousands of years but awakened in the scholars of Pham Quynh’s generation the ‘national identity’, urged them to find the answer for the questions “who am I?” as well as “what is the truly Vietnamese

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identity?” In his career, Pham Quynh efforted to restore the fragments of national history: from traditional customs, traditional food and ways of living to the Vietnamese folklore. His effort is a great action to revive the national appearance.

2.3.2.1. Vietnamese culture – a unique native culture a. The variety of cultural spaces Pham Quynh composed Going to the Perfume Pagoda’s Festival, Ten days in Hue, One month in the South… right after becoming a reporter of Nam Phong magazine. In his proses, Pham Quynh expressed his love with nature as well as his desire to explore the traditional customs and cultural heritage of all national regions. Indigenous culture, thus, appear gradually through Pham Quynh’s travel discourse.

b. A special indigenous cultural heritages Pham Quynh surveyed and compiled disquisitions on national heritage in many fields such as art, mausoleum, and customs of the New Year or worship of ancestors. From these cultural aspects, he generalized what can be called the traditional culture of Vietnamese people.

Pay much attention to the cultural field but the most attractive problem for Pham Quynh is the language problem. One of the most consistent opinions of Pham Quynh is praising the national language and literature as the ‘distinct voice’ for the nation. For him, national literature began with verbal proverbs and folk songs of Vietnamese peasants as well as the classical literature written in Nom script. Therefore, he wrote a lot of disquisitions on the origins, artistic values and significant of Vietnamese proverbs, folk songs, as well as written literary works like Kieu’s story. Moreover, to construct the continuity of national language, Pham Quynh suggested many important problems just as Study of Han-Nom ancient capital (1924), Han-Nom ancient literature (1928), Texts for tally card songs (1923), etc.

Under the direction of Pham Quynh, for a long time, Nam Phong magazine

always maintained the entries of proverbs and folk songs.

Not only researching, surveying, collecting and preserving the national artistic treasures in the efforts of proving the vitality of the national language, Pham Quynh also considers traditional literature on a par with the literature of other countries to highlight the ingenuity of poets of each country.

Pham Quynh’s consciousness of appreciating the national language in comparison with other languages is also expressed through the work Vietnamese Dictionary (1931) of Tien Duc Enlightenment Group in which Pham Quynh held the position of General Secretary.

2.3.2.2. Vietnamese culture and the effort to be everlasting throughout the

vicissitudes of history

(1) Effort to liberate from being a ‘little disciple’ of China Pham Quynh is conscious enough to recognize that the dependence of Vietnamese culture in Chinese culture has two primary causes: the first one is the historical context and the second one is the attitude of resignation and self- deprecation of the Vietnamese themselves that prevent them from empowering internal resources to define their own national identity.

However, Pham Quynh always has an optimistic look: “In the folk’s words, it is the fight of an egg and a stone. The Vietnamese ‘egg’ is in danger of being shattered.

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But the fact is it has never been shattered and this unequal fight unceasingly repeated throughout the history. Notwithstanding, Vietnam always survives integrally”. Pham Quynh is the one who dismissed all the differences to highlight the characteristics of Vietnamese culture in the spirit of ‘surviving integrally’ for being everlasting throughout historical changes.

(2). Efforts to assert the national status before the French colonialists “Vietnamese people can not consider France as their country, just because they

already have their own country”

Talking with the French about the Indochinese federation, Pham Quynh affirmed the national status of Vietnam. In his document, Pham Quynh states that the Vietnamese born not to be slaves. According to Pham Quynh, “the Vietnamese are suffering a personality crisis”. And “In this crisis, as a nation, my people are searching our own country but we still have not found it yet”. Nevertheless, Pham Quynh emphasizes that: the country his people longing for will never be France. In searching for a country, it is not completely a bad condition. The important thing is the Vietnamese should extract the quintessential and appropriate values, take them as the cornerstone to self-define and complete the outline of the nation with the wholehearted spirit.

2.3.3. Efforts of constructing a new appearance of national culture in the future 2.3.3.1. Aims of Pham Quynh The advocate Pham Quynh aimed at is building Vietnam into a constituitional monarchy under the protectorate of France. Pham Quynh’s constitutional monarchy keeps nothing but the shell of feudalism. In his imagination, the court will hear the voice of the folk through the medium class (intellectuals). Pham Quynh’s perspective is really reasonable because in his period, Vietnamese intellectuals and Vietnamese people still deeply attached to the monarchy. Moreover, when popular knowledge is low, the mode of constitutional monarchy is an advantageous choice that makes imperial court become the one directing and uprising popular knowledge.

If the presence of the French in this country is a historical fate, the most necessary thing for Vietnam, a country has left behind a history of twenty-five centuries, is a protectorate as the guarantee for its capability of civilizing and modernizing based on the available cultural quintessence of the civilization of the East. Thus, Pham Quynh aimed at finding a way to rely on both the French and traditional cultural quintessence to eliminate the subordinate position of the colony.

2.3.3.2. Ways to do In order to achieve his goals, Pham Quynh set up the following methods and

practices:

(1) Asking for guidance from the French and persuading the Vietnamese Pham Quynh tried to reconcile the conflicts arising from the lack of understanding between France and Indochina, after that, persuaded the French and the Vietnamese ‘to move closer together’ so that his basic policy could be set up .

Using the Vietnamese tradition of humanity to convince the French, Pham Quynh pointed out an optimal way: “if the French wants to maintain their dominance, they have to base on the consensus of conscience and human will”.

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On the Vietnamese side, they need to understand that the presence of the French is inevitable, caused by the weakness and backwardness of Vietnam. Pham Quynh convinced the Vietnamese to recognize that they should follow the French for their own profit but not for the French.

From Pham Quynh’s perspective, the necessary and sufficient condition that makes the French and the Vietnamese can “move closer together” is the common purpose of “restoring a lost nation for the Vietnamese”.

Thus, Pham Quynh did not effort to restore the national identity but also acknowledged the profit of enlightenment discourses of the French. His desire is relying on the French to revive the nation

(2) “Renew” Oriental cultural quintessence in reality Pham Quynh did not only introduce but also praise positive elements of oriental cultural doctrines that still have the ‘current values’. For example, he put attention on sustainable values of Confucianism.

Pham Quynh also compared Manh Tu with Western modern philosophers such as Jean Jacques Rousseau. He pointed that the encounter between civilizations is really considerable, regardless of geographical distance.

For Pham Quynh, Buddhism could help Annamese to overcome the spiritual

crisis they are suffering.

Thence, Pham Quynh hoped to able to reach the harmony between the East and the

West as well as between the European science and the Asian wisdom.

(3) Learning Western thought and academy In his essay On national education (Nam Phong, volume 163), Pham Quynh issists that in the past, Vietnam does not have a true national education. Thus, Pham Quynh focused on translating Western encyclopedia works into Vietnamese to uprise the popular knowledge. He is the first Vietnamese person translates, introduces and discusses on ancient Greek and Roman philosophy as well as classic doctrines of Descartes, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau, Auguste Comte, etc.

In particular, Pham Quynh focuses on introducing literary theories and new methods of reading literature. He surveyed and translated not only French literary history but also dominant viewpoints of the writing career, the way to write a novel, poetry, drama and contemporary famous works. All of them are the suggestions for developing a new national literature following the Western pattern. In other words, Pham Quynh discusses literature from the view-point of an enlightenment philosopher, writes theories for the composers and contributes to construct the Vietnamese modern literature.

(4) Building a new education accorded with the Vietnamese In Pham Quynh’s opinion, one of the most essential reasons for building an education accorded with the Vietnamese is that the traditional elite intellectuals had lost their prestige and historical roles. For him, the criteria identify the development of a nation is the upper class. Thus, the reformation has to begin with this class. Following a proper education will help the upper class to change the national image.

An appropriate structure for national education is what Pham Quynh efforted to spread. His idea is integrating the Western thought and the Eastern wisdom, absorbing Western science and civilization but sticking with national language and tradition.

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The issue of language is always highly appreciated by Pham Quynh. He considers it as the basis for developing national culture, even for asserting the existence of the country.

Pham Quynh emphasizes the need of developing Vietnamese language (Latin scripts) but it does not mean that he excludes Han characters and French. In contrary, learning French is a way to reach out to human civilization. At the same time, keeping Han characters can help us to understand the quintessence of national culture.

Thus, in efforts of constructing a new image for national culture in the future, on the one hand, Pham Quynh tried to persuade the French to develop the tradition of humanism and politeness in protecting Vietnam, a nation has long traditional culture; on the other hand, he convinced the Vietnamese to inherit national ancient culture, combine it with Western progressive thinking, thenceforth, uprising the popular knowledge to eliminate the weakened colonial status.

2.3.4. East-West discourses of Pham Quynh and the turn of the receptiony Pham Quynh is a typical enlightened writer of modern times who has a firm belief in language, believing that language will convey his intentions to everyone and his discourse will help people to change.

However, the language often has a turn in the reception that the creator of the text cannot know, especially when Pham Quynh chooses Nam Phong - a newspaper based on the French budget - as the system means of spreading your discourse.

In the role of editor of Nam Phong, Pham Quynh praised France but clearly, in Pham Quynh's discourse, there is always the regulation and negotiation between colonial power (France) and the favorable factors for the nation (Vietnam). On the other hand, as the editor of Nam Phong, Pham Quynh can rely on French policies to create great boosts in the process of improving intellectual standards and improving culture. But the fact that he praised France is also the focal point leading to the heartbreaking outcome that President Ho Chi Minh must say is "unexpected".

In his discourses, Pham Quynh expressed a fervent belief in the progressive and enlightening discourse of the French that hardly mentioned their harsh rulings to the Annamites. This caused him to fall into the state of stigmatization as a French pen-writer, abetting the French rule over Indochina. From that suspicion his contributions to culture and education - which are relatively independent of politics also become zero, even no longer recognized. More gently, some critics argue that the colonial method of Pham Quynh's cultural roots is too abstract, far away from reality - although it is theoretically correct but not feasible, not suitable for dominating colonialism. Pham Quynh's view is also a challenge to the masses of Annam at the time when he put the historical mission on the elite intellectuals - something that goes against the tradition of community culture of Vietnam.

However, the difficulty for Pham Quynh is not only the incomprehension of his compatriots but also the suspicion of the French - the people whom he placed the fate of his nation under their protection. On January 8, 1945, in the report of the Governor Healewyn, to the Admiral Decoux and the General Mordant, there was a written statement: "Pham Quynh's claims demand to return to full autonomy to protect the two lands (Trung Ky and Tonkin), reject the colonial regime in Nam Ky and establish a

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Vietnam State ... So far it is a cautious but determined opponent against the imperialism of France and he may soon become a dangerous enemy ”[28, 178].

This shows that the French also guard Pham Quynh. In his discourses can recognize the protection, encourage the ideological and scholarly learning of the French to improve society, but he never accepts the full dominance of the French, never accepted to be a copy of the French. In the limited situation of a pro-French courtier, Pham Quynh tried to cleverly refine things that are beneficial to the nation (preserving the national sound, preserving cultural identity and improving intellectual standards). For Pham Quynh, there may be many important things, but most importantly, Vietnamese people have to have their own voice - their own "national soul", "nationalism" and to have their own identity of a "Vietnam Country" with a long tradition of history. All that remains - no matter how it is - is important to make that identity more and more valuable and respectful of other countries, especially those in which we are working hard to get closer and study.

Pham Quynh himself also conveyed the confidences through the image of Mrs. Kieu and the poem crying Nguyen Van Vinh: “Living like I live is humiliating/ Dying like you died is honor”.

Thus, although he was able to spread the East-West ideology, making the national language more and more developed and always trying his best to create a way for the future of national culture, Pham Quynh's life still met tragedies from different interpretations (both sides - Vietnamese and French) about their discourse.

CONCLUSION OF THE CHAPTER 2 According to Nguyen Van Trung in “French colonialism in Vietnam is actually and legendary”, "The French colonialists launched myths to hide the essence of the colonial regime, and ultimately these myths denounced substantially and facilitated the psychological collapse." The case of Pham Quynh and Nam Phong is a typical example. Pham Quynh has made considerable contributions in the strategy of creating the two main myths of "Enlightenment" and " Vietnam and France are equal and friends", but it is clear that these myths contribute to the Vietnamese people to improve their intellectuals’ self-awareness of their ethnicity, understanding the concepts of progressive thought of mankind, awakening the desire to live humanity in the spirit of Vietnamese people in the early twentieth century.

Through chapter II, we analyzed the subject of discourse Pham Quynh as a cultural subject under the influence of objective reality from many sides but at the same time his cultural heritage also greatly affected the society.

Obviously, the French colonialists set out to advocate but not always control all those guidelines. There are always power negotiations and intellectual crossings between colonialism and colonialism, between East and West, between tradition and modernity ...

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Chapter 3 THE EAST-WEST DISCOURSES OF NHAT LINH

3.1. The subject of discourse: Nhat Linh - “a new-style western-educated

intellectual”

Nhat Linh – Nguyen Tuong Tam (1906 – 1963) grew up in the middle of the colonial period when the colonization had success in educating a new intellectual generation – the western-educated intellectual generation. Western ideologies had attacked and destroyed all feudal strongholds encompasses the Vietnamese life throughout thousand years of history. Nhat Linh’s era is the era of the most radical change from middle-age pattern to the modern one, from the isolation to the integrating with the world.

Nhat Linh himself experienced primary school in Cam Giang, attended high school at Buoi School, continued to study Medicine and Fine Arts but left only 1 year, then left to France to study, study science and study on journalism and publishing profession, passing the Bachelor of Science degree. Thus, Nhat Linh is a relatively perfect product of colonial, normative and classy education that is different from the self-study, self-study generation of Pham Quynh. Nhat Linh is the generation of young people who are "directly plugged in" the latest Western ideological and literary knowledge and movement.

In the French schools that Nhat Linh used to study, we paid special attention to Indochina Fine Arts College. Because, choosing to study at this school, Nhat Linh himself must have an aptitude for painting and a talent for art. Not to mention that Indochina Arts College is a French school but has the advantages of having the first principal Victor Tardieu.

There is something like that with Alexandre Yersin, Victor Tardieu coming to Vietnam as a "collaborator". He has a "long-time career in the country as a painter" who "loves the profession, teaches students devotedly, encourages creativity, acquires new things, finds traditional arts to develope a Vietnamese art innovation constantly”. Art teachers from the West did not force their students to become copies for Western art, on the contrary, "Tardieu and his associates feel the need to adjust, help Vietnamese painters to find a profound meaning to the basic inspiration from the tradition of Eastern art”. It was that in this atmosphere of this humanistic and open-minded art, even if only for one year, Nhat Linh - one of the first generations of students of Indochina Fine Arts College must have also received one the energy source promotes creativity beyond all limits, overcoming the imposition of becoming Western copies.

However, as Prf. Trinh Van Thao points out, the intellectuals in this period are mostly the youth. In other words, this is the period of the young leaders and the genius in various social and cultural fields. In particular, this intellectual generation has “the capacity of perceiving knowledge more strongly and deeply than the intellectual generation of 1925. They have characteristics of the youth, ready to approach new things as well as to grasp an opportunity”. Nhat Linh is a genius and a leader like that. Nhat Linh was truly creative as an artist - intellectual, making significant contributions to the contemporary social and cultural life.

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3.2. The media system of the East-West discourses of Nhat Linh Nhat Linh is the editor of both Phong Hoa and Ngay Nay two independent newspapers self-financing refuse to receive funding and the direction of the protectorate government. The two newspapers which greatly contributed to the modernization of the national press considered as the representatives of the Self- Strengthening Literary Group – one of the most professional and influential literary groups of Vietnamese literature in the 20th century. Nhat Linh, thus, chose the press discourse as a means to popularize his thought.

While Nam Phong magazine used both Chinese, French and Vietnamese, the two newspapers of Nhat Linh totally use Vietnamese. While Pham Quynh chose discussion text as the center genre, fiction is the primary genre of the Self- Strengthening Literary Group’s literature. While Pham Quynh’s prose works tend to orient both the French and the Vietnamese, especially the upper class, the Self- Strengthening Literary Group takes advantage of fiction to approach the popular audience, mostly the Vietnamese from urban class. 3.3. the East-West discourses of Nhat Linh 3.3.1. Perceiving the West (France) Nhat Linh’s attitude towards the West is a dual attitude: in the one hand, he desired to reach the Western standards to overcome the position of weakness, in the other hand, he detested and criticized what the West had done to his country. The West is both a universal civilized value of mankind and a greedy, cruel colonial in Indochina. The duality of Nhat Linh’s perception of the West, thus, is different and goes further than Pham Quynh’s acknowledgment of the protectorate of the West.

3.3.2. Perceiving the East (the nation) 3.3.2.1. Being in love with the beauty of traditional culture Nhat Linh early expressed his love for national culture. His first articles about The tale of Kieu on Nam Phong magazine and all the works he wrote in his twenties from Confucian Customs (written in 1924, 1925) to Spinner (written in 1926) clearly showed his admiration of national culture. As a young writer, he was anxious to find inspiration from traditional materials.

After becoming the general editor of Phong Hoa and Ngay Nay - two newspapers had a great influence in society, despite advocating for ‘the most Western’ and ‘the newest’ things, Nhat Linh still spent many pages in his newspapers to write about the beauty of Vietnamese customs.

3.3.2.2. The East imprint in the creation of the East (Vietnamese) cultural

border line - West (France)

The Eastern impression in Nhat Linh’s works is not exposed in the appearance, even in the shape of what he inherited from Western schools. One of the most evident proofs is his most famous painting. Unlike other caricatures, his silk painting Scène de Marché de rue Indochinois (painted around 1926-1929) composed with all the serious spirit. The combination of Oriental characteristics (in topic and material) and Western artistic techniques make his painting become an evidence for the cultural interference inside the cultural subject Nguyen Tương Tam.

Another very famous cultural product of Nhat Linh is the figure Ly Toet. George Dutton in the article Ly Toet clam in the ward said that Ly Toet, a typical

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image in Phong Hoa newspaper, is "a mixture of two humorous lines: French political caricature tradition and the tradition of folk satire that has long formed in Vietnam.

The character of Tuy in Life of prostitutes (Đời mưa gió) is not only close to the image of Marguerite Gautier in The Lady of the Camellia (Alexandre Dumas) and Emma Bovary in Lady Bovary (Gustave Flaubert) but also the silhouette of the female lovers in the Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio. As for the White Butterfly novel, although the character, storyline, storytelling, ideological image ... have a great influence from the West, the image of the center "white butterfly" has a query meaning on the human beings seem to be born out of the butterfly, which has become a legend in the Eastern culture of Trang Tu philosopher.

Thus, it can be said that the East imprint has become a constant, though more or less always imprinted in the creativity of Nhat Linh on the East (Vietnam) - West (France) border crossing.

3.3.2.3. Critical thinking: to gain equality, the East had to change itself In spite of the admiration of traditional beauty, this is not his main concern. The collision with the West makes Nhat Linh recognize the weakness of his country. Thus, with an intense critical thinking, the writer and his colleagues ridiculed the “bad habits”, the cumbersomeness as well as the conservativeness and the backwardness of the obsolete (for example, the figure Ly Toet, Xa Xe and some characters in their short stories). Their aims are advocating new ideas, breaking the feudal citadel, struggling for the liberation of the individual from the restraints of feudalism, fighting for the human right (see: “Stonyhearted” (Lạnh lùng), “The rupture” (Đoạn tuyệt))

3.3.3. Efforts of constructing a new image of national cuture in the future Nhat Linh had an ambition of constructing a new literature associated with a new-style cultural identity and a distinct culture belong to the Annamese that appropriate with their ways of thinking and feeling in a period of fluctuations. For Pham Quynh, the East is a concept of nationality, language, history as well as of territory. He particularly highlights “the soul of the nation” (language, therefore, is a signifier of the national soul). On the contrary, for Nhat Linh, the East is not a concept but concrete things always represented and should be modernized with the efforts of the Vietnamese (self-reliance). The emergence of the Self-Strengthening Literary Group can be seen as the most obvious evidence of his ambition.

3.3.3.1. A new hope for the East With that idea, Nhat Linh and his fellows step by step bring out changes in many fields of society and culture. The mission of the youth was stated directly in many works of Nhat Linh such as the essay The reverse boat published on Phong Hoá newspaper, volume 78 (22/12/1933). His desire to inspire the young generation can be seen through a system of action characters, for example, the image of the “the fighter” Dung (in two novels “The rupture” and “Half-fellows”) or the image of the new woman as Loan in The Rupture. These images manifest Nhat Linh’s new hope for the East.

3.3.3.2. Comprehensive reforms Looking forward to a new change, Nhat Linh did not just satisfy with working with concepts and thought (like Pham Quynh) but requested every concrete reform

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action. The strategies of Nhat Linh and the Self-Strengthening Literary Group shows that they really concerned about “educating the people, reviving the national temper, making life sufficient”, following the spirit of patriot Phan Boi Chau as well as reminds of the enthusiasm of Vietnamese intellectuals who took part in the Tonkin Free School.

(1) Reforms on literary field The most successful goal that the Self-StrengtheningLiterary Group achieved is probably the literary contribution. Among many literary genres, Nhat Linh chose a new genre which did not have much heritage from the past (just a few of Nom stories, medieval fantastic stories, and novels in Han scripts). The prose itself, in other words, had to develop with a lot of exploration and challenge.

Nhat Linh and his fellows left a prolific career of Vietnamese prose in terms of the number, scope of the topic, innovations in writing techniques as well as the journey of discovering human life from the perspectives of Western thought and philosophy.

The pioneer of narrative models Nhat Linh is worthy of being the leader of a literary group like the Self- Strengtheningsince he is always the pioneer of composing works based on new narrative models. Except for Nhat Linh, no author really has gone through all of the narrative models: Far from the ancient style of the 1930s in Confucian Customs and The spinner, he became one of the most aggressive members of the Self- Strengtheningwho writes novel and romantic fiction in a modern style (Autumn Sunshine, Flower Street Vendors. Moreover, he is the one who devoted enthusiastically to encourage the new voice in the literary circle. In doing this, he composed topical novels such as “The rupture” and “Stonyhearted”. Soon after, when his fellows continued to write topical novels and romantic novels, he becomes the first one who turned to write psychological novels such as White butterfly and Half-fellows. Nhat Linh, Khai Hung and The Lu are also the pioneers of fantasy short fiction, open up a new source for Vietnamese modern narratives. Some stories A shadow in the mist, Forest orchid, Dreaming story in a dream of Nhat Linh had able to construct a strange artistic space that is different from the landscape of “mud and slough in a boring flat downstream” (Nhat Linh). After all, Nhat Linh is the writer initially discovered the unconscious and contemplated of the invisible world that worldly people cannot explain.

With the experiences and achievements in many different narrative models, Nhat Linh increasingly got the mastery of prose works. He has a great contribution to paving the way for new tendencies. After all, he marked a great impression at the beginning of the strong wave of innovation of prose in the early 20th century.

The influences of Western modern philosophy and new experiments on

humans

Individual consciousness Firstly, individual consciousness in Nhat Linh’s works could be the consciousness of struggling for the right of individual life, against the oppression of feudal rites. For example, some female characters in his novel such as Loan (The Rupture), Nhung (Stonyhearted), etc. Secondly, it could be the consciousness of asserting personal

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freedom, struggling for the right of living freely and mastering one’s own life. For example, Zung (The Rupture), Zung (Half-fellows), etc. Moreover, it could be the freedom in behavior and lifestyle such as Truong (White Butterfly) and Tuyet (Life of prostitutes (Đời mưa gió)).

Human instinct S. Freud’s psychoanalytic theory in the early 20th century had influenced Vietnamese

writers including Nhat Linh and the Self-StrengtheningLiterary Group.

Influenced by Freud’s perspective, Nhat Linh’s Life of prostitutes invalidates the ‘idealistic’ approach to human beings to explore hidden things and other dimensions of the human soul. Human Immorality White butterfly is a unique novel of Nhat Linh. The title itself is a symbol of the illusory beauty of humankind. However, in the journey searching for this abstract beauty, Truong – the main character of the novel – has to go through plenty of sins and face with the dark abysses inside his heart.

Nhat Linh, thus, introduced a new concept as well as a new aesthetic norm of human that rejects the classical human pattern or moral pattern to consider human from ontological view. His goal is to free the human from the bondage of traditional moral measure.

(2) Reforming the Press in association with reforming the spiritual life of the people Nhat Linh’s leadership is reflected not only through the activities of the Literary Group but also through his management of the two newspapers Phong Hoa, Ngay Nay as well as Doi Nay Publishing House. With his outstanding talent, he remarked exactly both the talent and the fort of every writer. Based on these assessments, Nhat Linh oriented, assigned and helped other writers to promote their full forts, gaining success and enriching the “national literature”.

After all, a great deal of literary works, critical debates, editorials, reportages, artistic paintings, new musical pieces, fashion of garments or even some short news, humorous stories, advertisement posters, in general, every piece published on Phong Hóa and Ngay Nay according to Nhat Linh’s direction had made a great contribution to the process of constructing a modern perception, especially an urban sense for the Vietnamese in terms of language, the way of thinking, feeling and aesthetic concepts. Besides, the influences of his discourses also contributed to the great change that Hoai Thanh emphasized in Vietnamese Poets: “The West now has reached the deepest of our soul”.

(3) Reforming the social life following the Enlightenment model Since 1927, in The Dream of Tu Lam, Nhat Linh stated his desire: “I intend to have a lot of money to buy a thousand-hectares of farm and field… primarily serve to educate the people. Even though not spread, whenever predicting thousands of people will be happy because of me, I am satisfied”. Of course, there are somewhat innocent desires, but his attitudes toward the miserable life of the peasantry are immensely respectful. Later, in The Two Beauty, Nhat Linh returns once again to this theme while confiding his enthusiasm.

The Indochinese Democratic Front (1936-1939) created a breath-taking

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atmosphere for Vietnam, facilitating the Self-Strengthening Litarary Group to deepen their topic of social reforms in literary works. For example, some novel such as “Family” (Khai Hung), “The bright path” (Hoang Dao) can be seen as the way of concretizing Nhat Linh’s ideas.

The important thing is the topic of social reforms is not just a literary theme but actualized by Nhat Linh and his fellows into concrete action programs to reform rural life according to the Western civilization at the same time improve the lives of the peasants, creat justice on the basis of the rich’s sympathy to the poor. With the patronage of Saten - the governor of Tonkin, Nhat Linh established the Light Association activated based on three dictums: Society – Humanitarian – Reform.

The Lu once put it: “Brother Tam taught me so many things. His dream is so mighty”. Nhat Linh’s dreams arose from a heart imbued with national spirit, from the desire of dedicating to national culture so that they indicate talents of the leader.

3.3.4. The East-West dícourses of Nhat Linh – plans and unfinished things Although Nhat Linh and the Self-Strengthening Literature Group were welcomed by contemporary vox populi, the general editor of the two newspapers Phong Hoa and Ngay Nay, of course, had to face difficulties in implementing their ideas.

These difficulties arise from ultimate goals of the two newspapers. In satirical spirit, Phong Hoa “takes satire as the method, takes laughter as the weapon” to motivate the mass to abandon their old habits, begin to Westernize from material to spirituality. The goals and the objects of the satire were mentioned publicly by Thach Lam in Phong Hoa (volume 182, 10/4/1936). Especially, Phong Hoa focused on satirizing and attacking the coward Vietnamese imperial court which lost all power to the French colonialists.

This is the reason why the editors of Phong Hoa newspaper were always at risk

of being canceled by the authority.

Phong Hoa newspaper was canceled after publishing volume 190 (05/06/1936), Ngay Nay newspaper was forfeited by the Western after volume 224 (7/9/1940). The prohibitions of colonial government ended the career of the two most famous newspapers in this period.

The efforts to reform the society of Nhat Linh and his fellows as well as their thought of “a new life, a new spirit, a new soul” (Hoang Dao, Ten mindfulnesses) was not always supported by the public. For instance, Vu Trong Phung stated that the Westernized movement the Self-Strengthening Literary Group advocating is ridiculous. He even mocked at this movement in his satiric novel, Fortunate Destiny. Besides, many Marxist critics argued that Nhat Linh’s aspirations are “utopian”, “mushy”, and in disregard of the labors.

It is worth mentioning that in his career, Nhat Linh unceasingly meditated and self-interrogated his own pathway. His mindfulnesses were represented secretly through artistic images. Namely, he predicted a lot of difficulties of actualizing his dreams. Before 1945, he had described his hesitation in the short story “Two streams of water”: “Sinh pensively keeps her head down watching the flowing water and the garbage scattering while drifting apart on the water […] The image she is watching is nothing different to her life, the sad life of a boat-woman has no idea about her own

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future”. Sinh is the embodiment of beauty as well as the desire that cannot reach. Apart from The rupture, Autumn Sunshine and some short stories written in the first phase of Nhat Linh’s career when he still enthusiastically believed in his future path mostly have open ends. The end of Stonyhearted is the hesitation of Nhung. The end of Part-fellows is the separation of Loan and Zung. White butterfly end with the return of Truong but it also predicted a new departure. In those endings, we can not find the happiness of reunion. In the contrary, what obsessed us is the feeling of the unfinished and the deadlock because of dreams not fulfilled. Whether there are Nhat Linh’s predictions of the arduous journey to reconcile the East and the West?

This journey was once described in the meeting between a rigid dogmatic Eastern guy (Chuong) with an attractive Westernized girl (Tuyet). Tuyet is the one who awaked the ‘wild passions’ inside the traditional buy. Their encounter is full of enchantment but they can not live together. However, the days living with Tuyet were the memories that could not be faded in Chuong’s life. Once living with Tuyet, Chuong cannot return to Thu. It means he can not return to the peaceful happiness of family life. In other words, their encounter refers exactly to an unavoidable rule of the East-West contact. On the one hand, it is the enjoyment of studying the West; on the other hand, it is the sense of guilty with the tradition associated by the inferiority complex of the alienation of ‘the self’.

CONCLUSION OF THE CHAPTER 3 Cultural hybrid products that colonial intellectuals build on the experience of indigenous culture and self-creative creativity both confirm colonial power and "disrupt" colonialism when it is difficult for colonial to control. Therefore, when Western influence is inevitable, if the colonial artists have consciously creativivty on the border of the East and the West, hybridization becomes an effective decolonial mechanism of the East.

We can clearly see the above comments through the case of Nhat Linh. Nhat Linh and the Self-Strengthening Literature Group are models of free artists and intellectuals originating from the West, composed in a spirit of criticism that is the product of the spirit of Western democracy but like a "double-edged sword “ which worried the West: when both praised as a universal civilized value of humanity and exposed to the evil nature of colonialism, at the same time, reavealed the apparent contradiction within colonists that colonists want to cover up.

CONCLUSION

1. This thesis does not on purpose praise Pham Quynh or Nhat Linh since these two characters themselves are the embodiments of talent, wisdom, vision, bravery, dedication, extravagance, illusion and helplessness. But these dualities make Pham Quynh and Nhat Linh become two figures have an attraction to readers. Behind the glory, Pham Quynh and Nhat Linh have many hidden feelings, even many tragedies. So far, they are still cultural phenomena that need to be reconsidered in order to revalue more exactly their contribution to national culture. In order to do this, the

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thesis is just one of plenty of perspectives suggested by the rule of resonance in perceiving literature as exploring these two essential and complex historical figures.

2. To be equal, be in peer-to-peer first; to strengthen the nation, beginning with the culture – these opinions had formed a consistent flow of thought of Vietnamese intellectuals in the early 20th century among which, Pham Quynh and Nhat Linh are typical representatives. Their thinking not only had demonstrated clearly through their East-West discourses but also is still available in the context of globalization nowadays.

3. Setting side by side the East and the West in their discourses, Pham Quynh and Nhat Linh showed a tremendous effort to establish the Vietnamese identity through discourses. In spite of plenty of challenges and difficulties in East-West reconciliation process, as well as a lot of doubts, misperceptions, and misunderstandings, it is clearly that:

Though discourses, Pham Quynh constructed the Vietnamese culture from historical fragments, at the same time, he sketched a new way for national culture in the future.

Though discourses, Nhat Linh constructed the Vietnamese culture in his way, transformed national culture into “an innovative hybrid product” between the East and the West.

In conclusion, through discourses, Pham Quynh and Nhat Linh affirmed that although Vietnam is a little colony but the Vietnamese should have and must have their own voice to eliminate the position off the weak. No matter how this voice was strictly controlled in the restraint of the colonialists, it produced power and protest movements. Both the guideline “satisfying both the Vietnamese and the French” of Pham Quynh and the desire to “use Western scientific methods to read Vietnamese literature” attached to his ambition of “constructing a Annamese literary style” of Nhat Linh aimed to remove the disadvantaged position of the Vietnamese people, see the Vietnamese as equivalent to the French, and at last, make the French seriously listen to the Vietnamese’s voice. By surveying the East-West discourses of Pham Quynh and Nhat Linh, the thesis intends to prove that the power governed the construction of the two prominent figures is a decolonized spirit – a radical decolonization begins with the original culture, the decolonization off their own, far away from traditional discourses. They are all writers who work openly and rely on "narrow doorways" from the myths that colonialists have proposed as "myths of civilization", "democratic myths", "French myths to honor ", ... Because of that, their solution has always get mixed and controversial reception.

4. Although the two scholars shared together the thought of decolonization, their discourses about the relationship between the East and the West have some differences and adaptations:

For Pham Quynh, the East and the West is considered as two opposite poles: the West is seen as ‘the other’ while cultural identity is seen as a strategy or a grand narrative that we can base on for finding the power from the tradition. In his period, the cooperation of Pham Quynh with the French is a natural alliance. As many other indigenous people in his time, Pham Quynh was not only involved in serving for the interests of the French but also for interests of his own nation. Whether reconstructing the national identity of sketching the paths for the future of his nation,

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Pham Quynh’s ultimate goal was to remove the state of ‘the weak’ imposed on the Vietnamese in colonial discourses.

Nhat Linh, in the other hand, refused to follow the promotion of “national identity”. On the contrary, his desire to free the Vietnamese from the obsession of French heritage as well as from obsolete thoughts restraining the creativity of the artists. Thus, Nhat Linh and the Self-Strengthening Literary Group efforted to confirm that Vietnamese culture despite learning but not the “duplicate” of Western culture. At the same time, Vietnamese culture refused to overrate the traditional values or honor them as insurmountable peaks. Instead, it is always eager to learn new things and create its own cultural peaks. Through discourse, Nhat Linh and his fellows created new cultural values in an attempt to help the East to catch up the West in all aspects. The national identity, for Nhat Linh, is nothing but the hybrid that constructed a new kind of identity which has the ability to empower the Vietnamese to decide their fate as well as to blur the borders, erase the East-West dilemmas.

From post-colonial perspectives, national identity is a product of discourses. This means that national identity is not a fixed concept but changes constantly in East-West discourses of intellectual generations. However, the emergence of Nhat Linh and the Self-Strengthening Literary Group is not an unpredictable phenomenon. Basing on ideological and linguistic backgrounds set up by Pham Quynh, Nhat Linh and other cultural activists in his time walked with vigorous stride. The East-West discourses from Pham Quynh to Nhat Linh, indeed, are the pieces of evidence for the inheritance and continuation of the tradition – one of the most characteristics of Vietnamese culture. 5. Through the process of studying the discourse of Pham Quynh and Nhat Linh, we find that the East-West correlation is very complicated in each case. From that complexity, we understand that the application of M. Foucault's theory of discourse and the results of post-colonialism in Eastern-Western discourse research is a promising direction that brings many results. meaningful results. From here, we can open the next direction to learn more about cultural objects.

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LIST OF THE AUTHOR’S PUBLISHED WORKS

RELATED TO THE THESIS

1.

Le Thi Van Anh (2010), "The ambivalence of the postcolonial subject in Slander by Linda Le", Foreign Literature Review, The Vietnam Writers' Association (3), p. 62 -72.

2.

Le Thi Van Anh (2017), "Interpreting the concept of the East through the image of a woman in The End, Estrangement, The Stormy Life by Nhat Linh", The Literature Research Collection - Postgraduate Conference on Literature, Ha Noi University of Education, Vietnam Education Publishing House (3), p. 128-135.

3.

Le Thi Van Anh (2017), "Spirit of Decolonization in Discourses of Pham Quynh", Literature Studies (7), pp. 41- 54.