Chí Phèo
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Chí Phèo is one of the most famous short stories written by Nam Cao. This story, which was first published in 1941 by New Life publisher, affirmed Nam Cao's talent and showed a deeply human value.
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[edit] Story
One day, when a man was catching eals, he accidentally found Chi Pheo naked and pale in a skirt, and then he was brought up by the villagers. Growing up, he became to a kind, strong farmer and was a tenant of Ba Kien. The young third wife of Ba Kien usually told Chi Pheo to press her legs with his hands. As a result, Ba Kien was jealous of him, so he made him to be prisoned. About 7,8 years later, Chi Pheo was completely different after being released from jail. He became a wicked monster of Vu Dai village. Firstly he went to Ba Kien’s house intending to slit his face as a protest. However, Ba Kien enticed him to be an efficient henchman of him. Chi Pheo was more and more cruel and always intoxicated.
One afternoon, as usual, Chi Pheo was both going and abusing but no one replied to him. He was very angry, so he wanted to destroy something in any houses in this village. He went to Tu Lang’s house ( Tu Lang was a cartomancer being left by his wife and son) while this man was driking wine alone and enjoyning the moonlight. Chi Pheo sat down and drank with him. After drinking with pleasure, he staggered out of Tu Lang’s house, didn’t went straight to his house but to the river bank. He suddently saw Thi No, a silly, ugly woman, usually passed by Chi Pheo’s cottage to take water, but that day she felt asleep. They spent the night with each other than both slept deeply in the moonlight. At midnight, Chi Pheo had a stomachache and heaved up. Thi No took him to his cottage, made him lie on the bamboo bed, covered him with some sleeping mats then went to her house.
When Chi Pheo woke up, it had been daylight. He felt tired out. He listened to acquainting sounds of daily life outside. He thought about the past, the present and the future and felt sad. He knew he was old but still lonely. At that moment, Thi No came in bringing a pot of hot onion soup. Chi Pheo was very surprised and moved because it was the first time he had been given by a woman. He wanted to be honest. He hoped Thi No would reconcile him with everyone.
However, because of her aunt’s disapproval, Thi No declined Chi Pheo’s love. Chi Pheo was broken-hearted. He drank wine to be intoxicated, but the more he drank, the more conscious he was. He took a knife to Ba Kien’s house, killed him then put an end to his life.
All the Vu Dai village talked a lot about that surprising crime. The people who had power in the village was delighted of the crime. The villagers still knew that Ba Kien had been killed but the other powerful people would not let them live in peace. In the end, Thi No thought about Chi Pheo and looked at her belly, then “in her head appeared an image of an old followed brick kiln and no one passed by…”
[edit] The titles of this story
- the old brick kiln. - the perfect couple. - Chi Pheo The old brick kiln was the obstruction closed to Chi Pheo’s image at the beginning of the story, when he was a baby in a skirt at the uncultivated brick kiln and the last image, after Thi No hearing Chi Pheo had killed imself terribly, she remembered having lived with him as husband and wife then glanced at her stomach thingking of the old brick kiln. Perhaps there would be Chi Pheo’s boy born at this very brick kiln to “ take over his father’s work”. Thus, “the old brick kiln” was a symbol of Chi Pheo’s indispensable appearane, connected with the main topic. “The perfect couple” let readers take notice of Chi Pheo and thi No, one is the cruel monster of Vu Dai village, one was and very ugly woman. This name is sensational and suitable with people’s liking at that time.
[edit] The topic
The topic of this story accused cruel colonial- feudal society of having deprove both human appearance and character of kind agrarian people. Moreover, Nam Cao respectfully found out and affirmed their good nature. Vu Dai village was the art place of the story. It was always dark and unpeaceful with drastic conflict of different classes. That was a small inmage of Vietnamese villages before the August revolution.
[edit] The character
Chi Pheo’s life could be divided into 3 stages : Stage 1 : Chi Pheo was a good farmer but was imprisoned due to Ba Kien. Stage 2 : Colonial proson helped Ba Kien to turn a kind, strong farmer into a bad monster. Chi Pheo was deproved of his human appearance. His curses were his reaction to all his tragic life. It belonged to a man who was both intoxicated and conscious and aware of his depraved lonely life.
All Vu Dai villagers excluded Chi out of the society. As a result, both his body and soul were badly destroyed. Being oppressed, agrarian people had no other choice but to struggle by being scoundrel.
Stage 3: concentrated on the love between Chi Pheo and Thi No. With a generous heart, Nam Cao let Chi Pheo turn back to his human life naturally. The bowl of onion rice soup that Thi No cooked for him made him see her simple, sincere love to him. He seemed to be reviviscent and lived with his true good nature. He was dying for love and a good life.
But his love was smashed so Chi Pheo was desperated. He brought a knife going to Ba Kien’s house. He did it counciously with deep thought: a fire of furious that his enemies hadn’t let him to be a good man had been burning smoulderingly in his body. The fire immediately flamed up when he understood the fountainhead of his tragedy. As can be seen, the death of Chi Pheo was vital because death could help Chi Pheo get rid of a monster’s life and his enemies were all of the current corrupt and cruel society. To Chi Pheo, the crave for living honestly was more treasure than his life.
Ba Kien was a unique character created by Nam Cao’s talent of describing inner feelings. Ba Kien appeared when Chi Pheo was intoxicated and slit his face as a protest in front of a crowd. To reach his purpose of stamping out Chi’s resent fire and making him to be a dangerous henchman, Ba Kien used sweet talk to change the situation. Ba Kien was quite a cruel, wicked, greedy man.
