Tale of Kieu -- an Term Paper

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Once one of the primary societal obligations is undone, when Kieu's father is imprisoned, a chain of cosmic events is set into motion. It becomes impossible for the rest of society to function well, and in a moral and orderly fashion. Kieu is good, beautiful, and talented, but because of a terrible twist of fate (showing the story's Buddhist influences) a rift is created in the ruling societal order (a catastrophic occurrence in Confucian thought). She is thus condemned to her immoral and imperfect fate, a fate she does not deserve. Despite her best and good intentions and good characters, she cannot enjoy a happy life, as she desires.

The heavenly significance of Kieu's story, which extends beyond her family, is highlighted by the persistent existence of the Vuong family's deceased muse and former servant Dam Tien. As a spirit voice, Dam Tien counsels, guides, and provides some much-needed comfort to Kieu during critical junctures of the girl's struggle. Dam Tien's presence underlines the persistence and necessity of filial obligations and the connection between the individual self and the collective, ancestral past -- but the 'lower' nature of the living status of Dam Tien also shows a greater affection and respect for members of the poor serving classes and social order than is evident in some Confucian ideas about the need for deference in the social hierarchy.

Of course, the primary interest for many readers is the romantic relationship between the star-crossed and originally betrothed lovers Van and Kieu. But the morality of the tale denies the pair full happiness and the full delights of marital bliss. At first, Kieu refuses to marry Kim because she feels that she has become an unclean woman, and will dishonor him, despite her earlier vow that the two would be together in eternity, despite her vow before marrying the Scholar Ma.

An additional complication, of course, is that Kim is now married to the good woman Van, even though she is not as esteemed in Kim's estimation as Kieu. Kim marries Van because he believes Kieu has committed suicide.

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This is Kieu's second apparent attempt at suicide during the course of the poem. Over and over, the theme of the wheels of fate determining human destiny, rather than the human will is stressed -- Kim and Kieu are condemned never to be together permanently in body, but their souls are conjoined in eternity. Kim even dreams before his marriage to Van that Kieu will be saved from her supposed demise.

When Kim and Kieu are reunited, Kieu at first refuses to marry Kim. Kim points out, however, that she married the already married Ma before, in a much less fortuitous match, and that Van does not object. When asked what to do about her 'stained' state, however, the solution Kim proposes to Kieu's dilemma is that Kieu's will marry him, but not sleep with him. Instead, she will achieve her originally chosen state of virtue, by living with Kim as a nun. Because Kieu has lost her chastity she cannot have a relationship with Kim as she desires in body, but the two will keep their vow to marry and live as if betrothed in pure and intact spirit alone.

Kim, in contrast, will continue to live and have children with Van, thus honoring Van's status as a decent woman. Thus -- and this is of paramount importance, all obligations are honored, as Kieu and Kim are married, the new relationship between Kim and Van is not sundered, and the chastity of the ideal wife is upheld as well. As the poem states, in proclaiming its central moral: "Our karma we must carry as our lot -- /let's stop decrying Heaven's whims and quirks. / Inside ourselves there lies the root of good:/the heart outweighs all talents on this earth. / May these crude words, culled one by one and strung, beguile an hour or two of your long night. / (167)

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