In Vietnam, throughout a long history of political and military struggles, the question of nation has been a central theme in ideological debates and literary creativity. The idea of nation helped bind Vietnamese people together and underline the difference between “us” (Vietnamese) and “them” (foreign invaders). Throughout much of the twentieth century, the concept of nation was carefully constructed to remind people of national sovereignty and the threats by foreign troops. This idea had a great influence on the representation of peasants in modern Vietnamese literature. However, this chapter argues that the idea of nation failed to efface underlying dimensions of social differentiation although it is emphasized as an important element in the depiction of peasants. Peasant characters occupy a large space in the domain of twentieth century Vietnamese literature, especially the period 1930–75, but they are treated as objects of mass mobilization for fighting against foreign troops and building a socialist state rather than the real focus of a literary text. More strikingly, it is revealed through novels and short stories that a long-enduring conflict between intellectual writers and peasants existed through different periods of social development.

This chapter will examine how the issues of nation and class are interrelated in the characterization of Vietnamese peasants. It begins with the emergence and development of peasant characters in Vietnamese literature until the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. Then it discusses changes and continuity in the depiction of peasants in the post-war literature and examine factors that enabled those changes.

1. The Emergence and Development of Peasants in Vietnamese Literature

Traditional Vietnamese society was made up of four classes: si (scholars), nong (peasants), cong (artisans), and thuong (merchants). However, the two main classes were scholars and peasants due to the fact that the development of trade and commerce was limited. As si (scholars) were ranked the highest and most prestigious, it is not surprising that the dream of most male peasants was to pass the government examination to become mandarins or scholar officials.