THE SYMBOL “THE MOON” IN NGUYỄN DU’S THE TALE OF KIỀU

Abstract

The symbol “moon” is the most important cultural and artistic code in Nguyễn Du’s The Tale of Kiều. It exists in various shapes with different characteristics depending on social and psychological circumstances, mainly through the character Thúy Kiều. Through our survey and analysis, the “moon” in Nguyễn Du’s The Tale of Kiều proves to have  surpassed an ordinary natural image from the original text by Jin Yun Qiao [pseudonym of Qingxin Cairen (青心才人: Pure Heart Talented Man)]. The symbol is brimming with sentimental states and shades of life. More accurately, it pertains to physical and spiritual experiences in the secular world. First and foremost, we have discovered that through the subject of reflection and experience (Vương Thúy Kiều), the symbol “moon” is capable of expressing the deep layers of the subject’s ego. The specific goal of this article is to demonstrate the psychological and cultural implications of the “moon” by means of depicting its various manifestations in association with Thúy Kiều. However, it is necessary to place this analysis in general interrelations with other images and symbols in the text such as darkness, shades of the day, appearances of oil lamps, water element, the dream world, etc. All these components make up the negative space and the negative universe independent of the rest of the world. And the most important thing in these interrelations is the specific expression of the physical and spiritual states of the character Thúy Kiều. To reach our goals, we first focused on the text of the Tale of Kiều. Then, we referred to the related interdisciplinary theoretical views from Cultural Semiotics, Existential Phenomenology and Matter Psychoanalysis.