Top 15 essays analyzing the picture of a poor district in the short story “Two children” by Thach Lam (grade 11) best

Thach Lam is a mature writer in the Tu Luc Van Doan group with a writing style that cannot be confused with any other writer. His writings are gentle, profound, manipulative and gentle. They are like whispers, but they have an haunting effect on the reader. The stories he tells often have no plot, because everything is written in the lightest and deepest material. “Two Children” is one such story. This short story has painted a picture of a poor district with poor and destitute lives in society.

Thach Lam always makes readers realize the subtlety in the soul and in the sentences. The lightness has made Thach Lam’s writing unique. “Two children” is a story revolving around An and Lien’s life in a poor district town with tedious jobs that are repeated every day. Through these two characters, the author wants to send readers many messages about life, about the difficulties that people have gone through.

The background material for the story is the scene of a poor district that is always struggling, hidden in every page. Perhaps it was the painting that inspired Thach Lam to express his feelings. And is this the poor district of Cam Giang – where he was born and raised.

The scene of a poor district town appears in the first sentences “The sound of drums is empty on the market of a small district, one by one echoing in the distance to call the afternoon …”. A drum sounded in the dying afternoon, and perhaps the scenery and people were immersed in a state of absentmindedness. Why did the author choose an autumn afternoon as inspiration to paint a picture of a district town? Because autumn is always the most sad, reminiscent, and emotional. The image of two children appearing with their daily tasks of “lighting the lights” and then “closing the coffin” and watching the train returning from Hanoi, suddenly light up and then fall into despair again.

The image of the district town in the late afternoon was sketched by the author through the details: “The market has been meeting in the middle of the street for a long time. The people have all returned and the noise is also gone. On the land, there is only garbage, grapefruit peel, market skin, longan leaves and bagasse. A humid smell rises, the heat of the day and the familiar smell of dust make the Lien Tuong sisters the unique smell of this land and homeland. A few vendors who came back late were arranging their goods, the poles were already in the light, and they were still standing and talking to each other for a few sentences. That is the scene of the poor neighborhood at the end of the day, a withering, fading and even solitude appearing before the reader’s eyes. Perhaps this was the reality at that time in the north of our country. Everything seems precarious, without emphasis, without attraction and without life. All are just simple things, close but subtle poverty.

Soft, smooth sentences describe a lonely, quiet space in a poor street. On that gloomy background appeared the silhouettes of poor children. “The poor children at the edge of the market crouched on the ground and searched again. They pick up bamboo sticks, bamboo sticks or anything that can be used. I’m touched, but I don’t have the money to give them.” A more bleak picture when poor people appear, seem to have doubled the poverty and misery of this land. And readers see the beauty of Lien’s soul, holy and noble.

In that picture of a poor village, there were many other fates, all of which created the chaos of the town in the late afternoon. That’s the picture of Ti’s mother and daughter cleaning up the goods, but “didn’t earn much”. Or is it the image of the Lien sisters since moving to this poor street, two sisters selling goods to their mother on a booth she rented from someone else, a bamboo mat with a diary.

Quiet people, diligent people watching the poverty unfold in front of their eyes but could not do anything. Interspersed with materially poor people is the image of a crazy old lady who often buys alcohol at the store. The image of Mrs. Thi “turning her neck back to take a clean drink, put 3 cents in her hand and staggered away” makes the reader feel touched about a human life, a life of a restless, unstoppable person. In the middle of this district town, everyone seems to be looking forward to a train from Hanoi to come here with more noise, commotion and bustle. Perhaps the train has great significance for the people in this land. Because “the ship seems to have brought a bit of another world through”. It could be a world with the former prosperity of the two sisters Lien, with a more prosperous and peaceful life.

The train is probably the dream, the desire to reach the light of the people in this poor district. “Two children” is a gentle story, without dramatic situations, but it makes the reader feel haunted about the lives and the poor land in the years when our country was still in the midst of bombs and bullets.

Thach Lam (1910-1942) was an excellent short story writer of Vietnamese prose in the first half of the twentieth century. In Thach Lam’s literature, there is a natural and harmonious combination between the two elements of reality and romance, so Thach Lam’s literature is both gentle and elegant and has a deep sense of taste. The short story “Two children” printed in the collection “Sunny in the garden” 1938 is a unique short story typical of Thach Lam style. Short story through the eyes of two children, the writer recreated a picture of nature and a picture of rural life in Vietnam before the August Revolution. Through these two paintings, the writer has evoked many profound social meanings.

Thach Lam has chosen the time as “the hour of the end of the day” when the autumn drum does not call the afternoon to describe the little people who seem to be more and more sad when the afternoon fades to night. The image of the sun shining behind the bamboo groves, the pink clouds, the bamboo range of the village turning black, the night of the district town with the sky of thousands of sparkling stars, the fireflies flashing in the dense deep darkness. When the market ends, the noise also disappears, on the market floor there is only garbage and full of market peels, pomelo peels, longan leaves, the hustle and bustle gives way to the solitude of the dead market causing a poignant feeling. Usually, when people want to know the cultural economy of a rural area, people look at the market. Here Thach Lam also describes according to that concept. First, he gives the reader an image of a dead market. That reminds me of a very poor and flooded countryside.

The sound of autumn drums, the sound of frogs ringing in the fields, the buzzing of mosquitoes, and the gentle sound of eagle flowers have created a melancholy signal that signals a life without much joy. The familiar smell of dust, the color of wet hooks, the smell of smoke, the smell of grass, the smell of buffalo dung is the unique taste of this homeland, the taste of poverty and deadlock.

In short, the nature of the town is very peaceful but imbued with sadness and affectionate love of a writer who is always in love with what is the expression of the old soul. The writer has used the pen to borrow scenes to describe love, to borrow scenes to describe people to describe life. Thanks to this style of writing, the writer has indirectly built up a general image of the life picture of a rural area in Vietnam before the August Revolution. In this work, the writer’s pen focuses on describing the images of poor, poor, dark, and shaky lives and people.

The scene of human life, first of all through the eyes of Lien’s sisters, showed poor children crouching on the dead market floor. After the market ended, these poor children went to the market floor to pick up the leftovers to serve their lives, but because the market was poor, the remnants of the market had nothing, they just picked up a few bamboo sticks. There are very few bamboo sticks left on the market floor. From that we see that the lives of these children do not promise anything good. In describing the life status of the workers, the author has spent many observations and descriptions about the mother and daughter of Ty. Ms. Ty is a farmer who only knows how to “catch crabs and shrimps” all day, and even at night, she doesn’t make much money when she wears a cot to sell water, but every night she prepares to sell and hope. The scene of living in the district street every night appears, and the poor Uncle Xam and his wife sit on a tattered mat, with a white basin in front of them to wait. Poor old lady Thi always goes home in the dark. Better than the Lien sisters, who have a grocery store, but every day they can’t sell them, so many lives are ruined in a broken hammock.

All these scenes have one thing in common: extreme poverty, extreme poverty. It is a dark flood with no hint of the future. But we already know that man is the soul of a country land. Describing people in poverty and hardship, the writer has evoked the poverty of rural people before the August revolution, which is pitiful, remarkable, and heartbreaking.

To describe the picture of a dark poverty-stricken life, the writer has placed in the dark background of heaven and earth. Although nature is forever beautiful “a summer night as smooth as velvet and with a cool breeze” those nights still embrace the lives of the flood. To describe this darkness, the writer used very evocative details when the roads to the village, the roads leading to the river were dark and dark, sometimes it was all dark, sometimes it was dark. black. With those details, the writer has spread his eyes to cover the darkness on the poor district streets in the dark night, to emphasize the smallness and wobble, the writer sometimes uses the image of “light beads” from her grocery store. Ms. Lien emitted “light slits” from the opposite restaurants, “yellow sparks” of Uncle Xieu’s fire, sometimes “small light pants” from Ms. Ty’s lamp. Especially to emphasize the small spots of light, the writer described her lamp to light up a small area seven times. It is an image that shows the obsession with the smallness and solitude of light in the infinitely fragile night, depicting the darkness covering the light, the small light flickering in the dark, the writer aims to express a dark life picture.

The scene of human life in “Two Children” is not only poor and dark but also monotonous and boring. Every day, when the market ends, the poor children go to the market to find and pick up the remnants of the market. Every day, Miss Ty, Uncle Pho Sieu, Uncle Xam are poor, and Lien and sisters are still cleaning and waiting, their customers are none other than Mr. Thua’s family, and Mr. Luc goes to call the shrimp nest killer to come over. . Then the drivers stopped by to drink water, so day after day the rhythm of life went on steadily. From sellers to customers, they are big bosses but still poor close to the ground. That scene of life is exactly like the poet Huy Can wrote: “A couple of times around, the same posture goes back and forth, and the same number of people’s faces”.

In that life scene, writer Thach Lam described the scene where Lien Thuc sisters waited for the train. It is a manifestation of the awakening of the individual consciousness of these people who want to reach out to the light, but the light of their lives ahead is like the light of a train that flickers for a moment and then immediately sinks into darkness. . At the end of the work, the lamp of Ms. Ty flickers again in Lien’s sleep, which the writer also aims to affirm that the lives in the district are still climbing lives, all in the dark. .

Through the story of two poor children looking at the district town in the afternoon and evening, the writer has quietly presented a living space of a poor rural area before the August revolution. From this living space, the writer reminds readers of the poverty and impasse of the villagers “in the dark land of the rice fields in the past”. Through this life scene, the writer Thach Lam indirectly condemned the ruling class at that time for being irresponsible to the villagers and the writer also expressed deep humanitarian feelings for them.

Although “Two Children” is not the best short story, it is quite typical for Thach Lam’s artistic style: simple, gentle but delicate, profound. The story seems to be nothing: almost no plot, no dramatic conflict, nothing special. “Two children” is just a piece of the quiet everyday life of a poor district town from dusk until late at night, with familiar colors and sounds: unrecorded autumn drums on a small hut, a Afternoon on the horizon, a damp smell of the earth, the sound of dogs barking, frogs, buzzing mosquitoes… the sounds of small, sparse people, a fresh tea shop, a burden noodle shops, an afternoon market scene with longan shells, shells, garbage and poor children stooping to search, collect, a night train passing by… and vague sadness with the longing to the poor of “Two Children”.

That’s almost the case. But those trivial images, through Thach Lam’s kind heart, delicate pen, rich in poetry, seem to have a soul, shimmering in colors, capable of stirring up a secret and sensitive place. the most sensitive part of the emotional world, capable of awakening and arousing so many feelings of compassion, torment, tenderness, and compassion. It is the story of “Two children” but also the story of a poor district town with small, poor people who are quietly walking into the dark night.

Few works have the image of the dark night depicted densely, again and again… as an unending obsession like in Thach Lam’s story “Two children”: the work opens with signs of a “day ends” and ends with a “dark solitude”, in which, black, darkness covers and reigns all: the streets and alleys gradually fill with darkness, darkness After all, the deep road to the river, the road through the market to the house, the alleys to the village were even darker. A drum in the district gave a short, dry sound, didn’t resonate far away, and then immediately sank into the dark… The whole train from Hanoi brought light and passed in a moment. go into the dark”…

In this background of a scene of dense darkness, are the pieces of life, the people living in the dark. They are ordinary people, appearing only briefly, almost like a shadow, from the image of Ti’s mother and daughter with poor water to a family of sams living on the ground, to the whole family. nameless people: a few vendors who came home late, poor children stooping to collect, explore…

All of them are not described by Thach Lam in detail: origin, origin, fate … but perhaps because of that, their fate appears even more small, poor, everyone lives silently, humiliation, greed. Van Thach Lam is like that: light on the left, inclined to evoke and express the inner life: living in silence, in the dark, but between them, there can’t be a lack of human love. Through the exchange of words and intimate gestures between them, we realize the concern and attachment. And they all seem to be gentle and kind through Thach Lam’s benevolent pen. But among so many people, the writer only went deep into the spiritual world of “two children”: Lien and An. They are not the most destitute type of society, but they are typical for children of good families, who are falling into poverty, deadlocked because of decline and unemployment.

It is no coincidence that the author used “Two Children” to name his short story. The dark image of the district town and the equally dark people living here appears through the eyes and moods of the Lien sisters, especially Lien’s. At the beginning of the work, we see the image of Lien sitting quietly next to some black paint “her eyes gradually filled with darkness and the sadness of the countryside afternoon permeated her innocent soul” and “she felt sad. Thach Lam does not describe their material lives in detail, the writer mainly goes deep to show Lien’s spiritual world with the vague, vague sadness of a young girl. She is no longer a child, but she is not an adult.The author calls her “sister” because Guo Lien is a person who only cares about her with affection, tenderness, and courage. Instead of her mother, Lien’s soul is still a young soul with innocent, innocent and simple desires.

Here, the writer has played the role of “two children”, understanding, sympathizing, sharing and describing the pure spiritual world of the Lien sisters: the image of darkness and the picture of the district that we have. The foregoing is felt mainly from the longing of the two children. Young souls are inherently observant, afraid of the dark and longing for the light. The picture of the district town appears through this mood: “The two sisters are slightly strained (on a cot that is about to break) sitting still and looking at the street…” Lien saw “poor children near the market crouching down. on the ground to search” but “I don’t have the money to give them …”. It was getting dark, now Lien’s sisters saw the little boy carrying a fire and carrying a chair on his back in the alley. The two sisters stood still and watched “Grandma Thi” go into the dark. … “The two sisters had to sit still on the cot to watch the latecomers slowly leave in the night”… “Since Lien’s family moved here… Lien and I have to sit on the couch every night. a bamboo cot under an oak tree with the darkness of the surrounding streetscape”… The dark night for Lien “is very familiar, I’m not afraid of it anymore”. “Not afraid of it anymore” means once afraid. It only takes the word “don’t be afraid of it anymore” that evokes so many associations. Lien must have been afraid of the thick darkness that surrounded the first days of moving here. And now Lien is “very familiar”. Living forever in the dark and then getting used to it, just like suffering forever people also get used to suffering. There is something poor, resigned about the two words “very familiar” that the writer uses here. But Thach Lam’s pen and soul don’t stop there.

Suffering but not completely resigned, the writer has delved into the thirst for light in the deepest depths of young souls. He watched Lien and An look up at the sky with thousands of sparkling stars to find the Milky Way, and the duck followed the god Nong like a child still yearning for the miracles of fairy tales, but the universe is deep. so vast to the hearts of the two children, as full of secrets, yet so alien to their minds, that for a moment they were again looking down at the ground, and the intimate glow around her swaying lamp. Ti… Writers attentively follow their gestures and eyes and record that. But that alone is enough to make the reader’s heart flutter. Living forever in the dark, “very familiar” with the darkness, but the more they do, the more they yearn for the light, they follow, search, just hope for the light to come from all sides: from “thousands of twinkling stars” in the sky”, counting every light that passes through the bamboo, they dream of the light of the past, of the memories of “distant Hanoi”, “a bright, cheerful and noisy Hanoi” that has receded into the distance. headlines; they were engrossed in waiting for the train from Hanoi with “bright lights”; They even looked at the little dot of the green light hanging on the last car in the distance…

It is a world of wish, even if it is only a small wish, even if it is only an illusion. Without a deep compassion, without understanding the heart of a child, without a sensitive soul rich in poetry, it is impossible to express so subtly the hunger for light of people living in the dark. Reading “Two Children”, one feels like a writer of no creative fiction. Every detail is as simple as real life. Life just shows up on the writing page as it is. But the power of Thach Lam pen is there. From ordinary life stories which are flat, boring and monotonous, the writer has discovered a life in motion, with depth, in which light exists beside darkness, beauty lies in the the ordinary, the desire to dream in the resigned patience, the tumultuous fluctuations in the daily calm, the darkness ahead and bright memories… The unique feature of Thach Lam’s writing style is That is: the writer has used contrasting art in an almost natural way, without any embellishment or exaggeration, and thanks to that, the picture of the district becomes rich, true, and sexy.

Reading “Two Children” we are haunted and tormented by the dark night that covers the district and feel pity for the lonely and resigned life of the people living here. But “Two Children” also attracts us by the wild taste of the countryside on a “summer afternoon as lullaby” and “a summer night as velvet and cool breeze”… It brings to life. It brings back a whole past time, it awakens strong feelings of homeland, and enriches our souls with “smooth and deep” feelings.

Thach Lam’s “Two Children” is a “sad lyrical” short story. The work contains real pain and hidden beauty like the scent of orchids distilled from the sorrows of life. In particular, the picture of a poor district in the work clearly shows the style, talent as well as the message of humanity that the author wants to convey.

Thach Lam has a diverse voice, combining romantic and delicate realism, and emotional writing. The content of Thach Lam’s literature shows the reality of a ragged, sad but loving reality, full of humanity and compassion. Therefore, the writer’s short stories have almost no plot. The short story “Two children” presents a picture of nature in a poor district, where both nature and people are both poor and shabby and beautiful, poetic, lovely, and precious.

The picture of nature in the district town begins with “the sound of an empty drum on the small district watchtower, one by one, calling out in the afternoon”. The sound of drums evokes a vast space of heaven and earth that is both beautiful and sad. Mixed with that is the discrete echoing sound from loud to small of “frogs in the field brought in by the light wind”. Nature is emitted with soulful brushstrokes evoking a vague doom that makes people sob. Is there a “quiet as lull” afternoon in the eyes of Nam Cao or Vu Trong Phung? Thach Lam has sketched a picture of nature where the poor district is dyed with sadness but still exudes a poetic and lyrical look.

However, that poetic coat could not cover the decay of the lives of the dead in the poor district. The human lives looming in the landscape of the market or the dark night are pitiful. When “people have all gone and the noise is gone” all that is left is just a few people picking up the goods, the shadow of a few children going to collect the remains in a pile of ashes. The smell of moisture and moisture mixed with the familiar dusty smell of the typical idyllic land in that district town appeared in turn under Thach Lam’s ingenious pen. Lifespans, languorous, withering people expect something vaguely distant to emerge from the darkness. These are children picking up trash, Ti’s mother and daughter, Pho Sieu, crazy Thi… The district town is as poor as a soulless corpse and “so many people” are like restless shadows in the night. The two sisters Lien were placed next to a ramshackle cot, a few pipes of pipe tobacco, a bar of soap; Ti’s mother and daughter with a property is only a bamboo cot to wear on their head; Pho Sieu’s restaurant, Uncle Xam’s house on the broken mat or Mrs. Thi crazy … are all the most complete embodiment of victims of the dead in the district town.

In the painting of district streets, Thach Lam was very subtle when painting a picture with the contrast between light and darkness to convey the message of life. The darkness “fills in” of a summer night “as smooth as velvet and with a cool breeze”. The darkness is like a giant black pan over the poor district street. “At the end of the night, the road leading to the river, the road going through the market to go home, the alleys to the village are even darker.” Light is meager, sparsely overwhelmed by darkness. Light from afar from the universe “thousands of twinkling stars”, “the red-hot west” to human light is a slit of light emitted from bamboo, a glimmering American lamp or a bright artificial light. brighter than that from the night train. Thach Lam has let all people in the district expect the light from the night train to praise the basic human quality that is the desire for happiness. The train carried Lien’s lost childhood in the past and made her feel like she was living a peaceful life. The blue flame, the light from the train, the sound of the horn, the sound of the wheels… all happened for a moment and then went out, but more or less showed that people always try to lead a happy life despite the circuTaxances. how miserable.

Through the short story “Two children”, Thach Lam has shown a picture of nature in a beautiful but sad poor district and the reality of people who are hungry but always contain an optimistic soul and a desire for happiness. The work has revived the smallest feelings in the hearts of every reader who loves Thach Lam literature.

Writer Nguyen Tuan wrote: “Thach Lam is a writer who loves life and is respectful to the lives of people around. Today, when rereading Thach Lam, I still see the full aftertaste and pleasure of the past. works with literary character and quality”. Nguyen Tuan is a writer of the same generation as Thach Lam, also a member of the Tu Luc Van Doan, Nguyen Tuan has affirmed his unique aesthetic and loving humanity in Thach Lam’s pages.

Thach Lam’s story has no story, each work is like a prose poem, imbued with lyrical and compassionate nature. It is a kind of passionate love story. “Under the shadow of the royal orchid”, “The house of Le’s mother”, “The grocer”, “Two children” … are very good short stories by Thach Lam. garden”, publishing house “Life of the hand”, Hanoi, 1938. This short story represents Thach Lam’s artistic style, exploiting samples of everyday life that the depths of the soul of every life are filled with so many sorrows. pity, pity.

The story’s background is a poor, shabby district, with a train line passing, a station, a small market located between the village and the field. Time is a late afternoon and early night scene until the train passes. There were two children sitting in a small barbershop looking at the scenery and trying to stay awake waiting for the night train to pass. The story opens at a time when the district town is in the afternoon. It is known as a district town, but it is only a small, poor town in our country in the early years of the twentieth century that Tu Xuong mentioned: “The street is adjacent to the riverbank” … Scene of a late summer afternoon in the fields Village. “The West is as red as the sky…”, “A quiet afternoon like a lullaby” has the sound of empty drums, the sound of jumping frogs in the fields. Night gradually fell, the sound of mosquitoes buzzing in the slightly dark shops. The writer’s emotions overflowed with words, expressing a deep and heavy heart attached to the homeland. The rural painting that appears under the delicate pen of Thach Lam becomes close, intimate, idyllic but poetic.

But “Two Children” is not only a picture of nature, but first and foremost a picture of life. It is a picture of the life of a poor district in the past at dusk and at night, observed and felt through the innocent and sensitive souls of two children – sisters Lien and An. Before the hour of the end of the day, Lien sat quietly next to the black paint pills, she felt “sad heart”, her eyes “darkness is gradually filling” and the sadness of the countryside afternoon seeped into her innocent soul. her poetry. It was getting dark, the houses had lights up: “The hanging lights in Uncle Pho’s house, the American lights in Mr. Cuu’s house, and the green string lights in the guest shop…”. The sand on the street “glitters everywhere”, the road “more bumpy” in the twilight scene. The market “long gone” is a sad and shabby scene of the picture of poor street life in the evening. Not a noise, peel, grapefruit peel, longan leaves, bagasse and garbage left on the ground. A few vendors who came home late were packing their goods. A few poor children at the edge of the market stooped to search “pick up bamboo sticks, bamboo sticks or anything usable left by vendors”. They move around like helpless souls. Seeing them, Lien felt compassion, but she did not have money to give them. Poverty is the common scene of everyone’s life, every house, and the smell of dampness, dust, and heat is associated with “the unique smell of the land and of the homeland”. That is the taste of the “Life Pond”, of misery and poverty. My shadow seems to be filled with fairy tales, blurring the landscape and weighing heavily on the lives of “small” people in the poor and destitute districts. The tiny shop is covered with log paper, the bamboo cot where Lien’s sisters is filled with darkness. At night, “the streets and alleys of cockroaches gradually fill with darkness”. The deep road to the river, the way through the market to the house, the alleys to the village were even darker. The sound of the drums holding the guards, the sound of frogs croaking from afar, the sound of flowers falling on Lien’s shoulders, the sound of the peddler’s heavy burden, the “crispy” laughter of the old lady… all those sounds “sink right into the dark”. The district street at night is quieter and full of darkness.

In the scene of shabby, desolate and full of darkness, poor and miserable lives appear. Ti’s mother and daughter’s life seems to be associated with the dark night. “The little boy carried the fire and carried the chair on his back and out in the alley.” His mother, Sister Ti, followed “with a cot on his head and carrying a lot of furniture …”. During the day, I hunt for crabs to catch shrimp, every afternoon I clear the goods “from dusk until night” but “don’t earn much!”. The image of the mother and daughter of Ti reminds us of the life of mother and daughter in the story “Cold wind at the beginning of the season”: the mother is looking for crabs to catch snails, the child’s shirt is torn, standing in front of the cold wind. .. Thach Lam has been for poor mothers and poor children with much compassion and mercy! The image of old lady Thi is a bit crazy “laughing”, holding a cup of boiling wine and laughing loudly, “walking while leaning back”, draining the wine and drinking it in one breath, scribbling “staggered” ” in the dark … also reminds us a lot of pity about a dark life in a poor district. The scene of Uncle Xam’s family was dreary. The sound of the lute was blaring, sitting on the mat, in front of his eyes was a white iron basin, the son was sitting on the ground “playing to pick up the dirt buried in the sand by the roadside”. And the uncle sold pho in the night, a luxury gift that the Lien sisters could never buy. The uncle’s pole called “snobby”, his shadow “carried down to an area …”. All contribute to the dark scene of life in the poor and destitute districts, the lives of misery, decay and hardship.

It can be said that the two sisters Lien are the central image of the life picture of the poor district. The home scene went downhill, Lien’s father lost his job, the whole family left Hanoi to return to their hometown, and his mother worked as a mess. The two sisters were assigned by their mother to look after a small grocery store, walled with diary sheets, selling a few matches, a few pieces of soap, a little wine. Lien is a young girl who knows how to pose, she is proud of her silver sarong at her waist. Since far away from Hanoi “a bright and sparkling area, Hanoi has too many lights”. Get used to the darkness of the poor district. Lien’s lamp … “every light particle passed through the bamboo screen”, the American lamp crept in Mr. Cuu’s house, the light’s halo was “moving on the stall of Ms. Ti” with small silk and gold dots “floating”. where Uncle Sieu’s pho… from night to night. Lien was still sitting on the cot watching. Late at night, “Lien’s soul eats quietly, there are vague feelings that I don’t understand”. Every night, An and Lien were sleepy, but still tried to stay awake waiting for the night train to pass. Lien looked at the train from afar, “the blue flame, crushed the ground like a ghost”, the train’s whistle sounded again and stretched out in the distant wind, the train approached, passed “the bright light carriages”, then it “walking into the dark. leaving red embers flying on the railway”. The train had run far, but the two sisters were still looking at “the little dot of the green light hanging on the last car …”. With many sad marks. The night train is like a consolation, a vague longing, a dream that never goes away, a little bit of light for everyday poverty. The night train “as if it brought a bit of another world through”. Waiting for the train to arrive, regretting the passing train. Booming for a moment. It lit up for a moment, and then, “from the station, darkness and shadows came back”. The night train has become a great event in the poor town: “So many people in the dark expect something bright for their daily poverty”.

The picture of poor street life after the train passed, the late night gradually became quieter and vaster. Only late at night, “lemon warm drums and dog bites”. Sister Ti prepared her things, and the auntie fell asleep on the screen. Lien gradually fell into a quiet sleep “quiet and full of darkness” like a quiet night in a poor district town. The street scene is poor with people living around and lamenting, poor and dark. Sisters Lien, mother and daughter Ti, Mrs. Thi a bit crazy, Uncle Sieu peddling pho, his wife and uncle Xam wilted, the rice cooks, the driver sat smoking! So many poor little people. Thach Lam has described the poor streets and districts with scenes, people, and details that are very real and touching. He gave the people of his homeland, the poor, the dark, a warm sympathy and pity. The poor street scene is both realistic and full of humanity.

In “On behalf of you” – Anthology Thach Lam, Literature Publishing House, in 1988, writer Nguyen Tuan wrote: “The story of Two Children has a very bad taste. It evokes a feeling of belonging to the past, At the same time, it also builds something in the future. In the worldview of a young couple in a rural town, the image of a train and the sound of a train whistle has become a habit of emotions and desires. Two children”, find infinite preoccupation with a tender and deep homeland.

Two children describe a picture of a poor, sad town with lonely lives. People living in the district mentioned above all make a living every day. Each character is deeply psychologically analyzed by the author, moving people’s hearts.

The opening of the work is “the sound of empty drums” at the time of sunset. The sound of empty drums is the end of the afternoon in the cold village. People, landscapes, nature prepare to go to rest after a long day. With his creativity, Thach Lam has described the human mood with a picture of nature. “One afternoon as calm as a lullaby, echoing the sound of frogs chirping in the fields brought in by the gentle wind.” Through the immediate reality, the author gives his views and feelings before the difficult life.

In a poor district, people have big dreams. The scene of the end of the day with the buzzing of mosquitoes, frogs, drums, emphasizes and adorns the stillness of the space. The street is poor, there is no noise, so quiet that even the slightest sound can be heard. Only when we read in detail about the picture of the district town, we can understand the feelings of each character.

Next is the image, the color of space with “the west is as red as a burning fire and the clouds are pink like a dying coal. The row of village bamboos in front of the village is blackened and clearly cut in the sky.” The sunset space is beautiful, but very quiet and gloomy. The image evokes human sadness, ending a normal, quiet day like every other day. The image of “the bamboo range in front of the village is blackened and clearly cut in the sky” is a familiar picture of the poor countryside. The bamboo range represents the idyllic nature of the Vietnamese nation.

The district town is poor, the image of people is not in a hurry, the picture of the countryside is peaceful. The scene of the market ended, people went home after a day of work, the noise of the market also disappeared. The residual sound is that “on the ground, there is only garbage, grapefruit peel, market skin, longan leaves and bagasse. A humid smell rises, the heat of the day and the smell of dust are so familiar, making the sisters think that it is the unique smell of this land and of this homeland. The space is quiet, the market scene is sad and empty, making people more depressed.

The image of people in the district’s streets appeared with the image of “Poor children at the edge of the market crouching on the ground, walking and searching. They pick up bamboo sticks, bamboo sticks, or whatever can be left by the vendors.” It seems that this life is too strict, even for young children. Their lives are too poor, heavy burdens on their shoulders, the responsibility they have to work.

The district town is poor and shabby, people are more pitiful than the children of Ms. Ty with a simple load of water, few people visit to ask. Mrs. Thi wanders around buying wine late at night, and her figure “walks into the dark, the laughter of the guests fades towards the village”. Uncle Sieu sells pho, but “in this small district, the gift Uncle Sieu sells is a luxury gift with a lot of money”. Next is Uncle Xam’s family, with the voice of the piano, receiving prizes from passersby. The market is over and people’s lives in the district streets are also gloomy, poverty and deprivation are covered.

When painting the district town in two children, we see that the mood of the characters Lien and An before the end of the day is also very sad. Lien feels in detail the smell of the land and homeland, she is very sensitive. After a day’s end, people’s lives in the district are also tragic, Lien is deeply saddened. Lien is a kind girl, she is touched by the poor children. However, “I myself have no money to give them”. This is a girl with a sensitive soul, dreams, and cares for others. Thach Lam wants to use the character Lien to express his feelings and thoughts.

The picture of the district town is sad, gloomy, poor countryside, people with boring fates. The essay with creative descriptive art, going deep into people’s hearts. The picture of the real town in front of the eyes and the people’s thoughts and dreams are vague.

A writer once asserted: “The important thing in literary talent is one’s voice, one’s own unique voice that cannot be found in the throat of any other person.” Indeed, each artist, when standing on the literary stage, needs to have a unique style, a “personal voice” or a different “eye” in order for their work to leave a deep impression in the heart. Readers. “Once the style becomes the writer’s flesh and blood, it will create a distinct aesthetic tone that cannot be mixed with anyone else’s.” And Thach Lam has successfully completed his mission. In “Two Children”, he gives readers a different feeling, completely different from the works of his contemporaries. In particular, he discovered the picture of poor street life when the afternoon fell.

Coming to “Two Children”, everyone can’t help but wonder why a writer can sneak into the middle of such poor district streets and find out in detail? The answer is easy when we look back at his biography: when he was young, Thach Lam lived in his hometown in Cam Giang district, Hai Duong province… Perhaps it was during this time that Thach Lam helped him understand and understand. empathize with the people and rhythm of life here. There is not only a picture of nature with a gloomy and desolate landscape, but also a picture of life in a poor and tired district… Besides, it is printed in the volume “Sunny in the garden”, “Hai Phong”. child” is one of Thach Lam’s most unique short stories. The work brings together two elements of realism and lyrical romance.

First of all, the picture of poor district life at dusk. The image of the poor, shabby afternoon market “a market meeting in the middle of a street for a long time”. Everyone in the market had already left and there was no noise. Only “garbage, grapefruit peel, market peel, longan leaves and sugarcane leaves” remained. Especially the taste here, a characteristic taste that cannot be mixed with any other region: “A humid smell rises, the heat of the day is mixed with the familiar smell of dust, making women think about it. is the smell of the land, of this homeland”. Human images are also sketched but poor, sparse and monotonous. Those are poor children searching the ground, “picking up bamboo sticks, bamboo sticks or anything that can be used”; it was the Lien sisters; Ti’s mother and daughter…

Especially the crazy old lady Thi, who was addicted to alcohol, laughing and laughing. The image of the old man “walking into the dark, the laughter of guests gradually diminishing towards the village” makes us think of a circle and no way out. Thi is the representative of a dead human life, the most pitiful people. Thus, with a few sketches, Thach Lam has shown readers a picture of a poor and destitute street life, each person has a scene, but they are all the same in poverty, fatigue and boredom. In addition, the author also expressed his feelings through Lien’s mood, “Lien saw it and felt pity, but she herself did not have money to give them”. This is the human love, the compassion of a human being. Or through the questions and concerns of Lien with her mother and sister, Ti shows us the concern, encouragement, and questioning of people in poverty. Indeed in all circuTaxances, especially in poor situations, we need to care and share with each other. Through this, the author also awakens us about compassion, delicate and sensitive souls…

According to the timeline, next is the picture of district life at night. First, through the symbolic style of the landscape and the space of the district, the author has highlighted the lives of people living in the dark while also describing the stagnant and dark human life, but there are still glimmers of light in them. “So many people in the dark expect something bright for their daily poverty.” The pace of life here is always boring and regular: Ti’s mother and daughter clean up every day “All streets in the district are now shrinking to where Ti’s water stalls are”, Uncle Sieu carries pho. going to the village and then carrying it back, Uncle Xam’s family mainly lived on the pity of people; Lien’s sisters have to pay for goods every day, sit on bamboo cots,… Life is so cramped and monotonous over and over again! It can be seen that despite being poor, people still rush with what is inherent, the most genuine.

The last is the picture of the district town when the night train passes. The image of a special train is described by the author very meticulously, thoroughly, in the correct sequence from when the train is about to arrive, the train arrives and until the train passes. The train passed as the last activity of the night strong and vibrant, breaking the silence of the district town. This image is a different world from the world in the district town, like a shuttle through the night, the light of the train can erase the dim, lonely lights in the district. The sound of the train is strong enough to overwhelm the monotonous ensemble! The sisters also fell asleep waiting for the train, but still struggled to stay awake, showing their longing and longing to witness that last activity full of hope.

Besides, the train passing by is also awakening the world of beautiful memories of a bygone era “Silently following dreams. Hanoi is far away, Hanoi is bright and cheerful.” “Lien remembers that when she was in Hanoi, she enjoyed delicious and strange foods – at that time Lien’s mother had a lot of money – to go out to the lake to drink red and blue cold drinks”. It is the train that evokes, arouses aspirations, dreams of a better world and future. It can be said that seeing the train is not only pleasing to the eye, but it is also Lien’s thought, it fills the immense void in the souls of the Lien sisters with nostalgia and dreams. It was this night train that Lien saw more clearly the stagnation and bondage of the poor dark life of her life and those around her. Thus, “Two children” is a realistic picture of a bygone era, life in the district only brightens up for a moment. With his talent, with his own “eye”, Thach Lam has painted a panorama of district life since the evening.

Thereby, by using romantic penmanship; The contrasting images, the author has highlighted the life of the district town. It can be said that Thach Lam’s pages are very beautiful. Beauty radiates from evocative, sexy images; Human love with a very kind heart. With the pen of Thach Lam, the text is rich in identity: gentle, objective, showing compassion for the people of the district, he still discovers their aspirations.

“Two children” is the result of Thach Lam’s creative process and distillation of the quintessence of life and aesthetic emotions. Unlike other writers from Tu Luong Van Doan, Thach Lam believes that “For me, literature is not a way to bring readers escapism or forgetting; On the contrary, literature is a noble and powerful weapon with which we can both denounce and change a false and cruel world, and at the same time make the reader’s heart more pure and richer. For him, true literature is literature that serves people, speaks for people, literature “for the sake of life”, not literature “for the sake of art”. It can be said, “art is the domain of the original”. Therefore, “it requires a style, that is, there must be something new and separate expressed in your work”. And Thach Lam excelled in doing that. The writer has brought his own voice to leave a deep impression in people’s hearts.

Thach Lam is one of the key writers of Tu Luc Van Doan. His works are more about pure, gentle but extremely deep emotions. Behind the pages imbued with poetry is compassion and humanity for the lives of the poor in society. The short story Two Children is one of his most prominent stories. Capturing the moment of the end of the day, Thach Lam has painted a bleak life but also full of dreams of people here.

Thach Lam chooses the time of sunset, when everything begins to prepare to enter a state of rest. With a delicate and sensitive pen, he not only captures the spirit of human life but also a picture of nature. Through these two paintings, the author’s views and emotions are expressed in front of real life.

The picture of nature is dreamy but full of sadness, the remaining sound is just “the sound of empty drums on the hut of a small district; One by one sounding out to call the afternoon”, far away is the sound of frogs chirping with the sound of the wind. The sound was thought to be tumultuous and bustling, but it turned out to be intense, anxious, and gloomy. Perhaps the space must be quiet and still to fully capture every sound out there. At this time, the sun also gradually enters a state of rest: “The West is as red as a fire”, “The clouds are pink like a dying coal”, bright colors, hot colors but all are evocative. the doom. The rows of bamboo villages in front of the black face are clearly cut against the sky, making the scene shrouded in gloom as darkness gradually surrounds them. With a slow tempo, the musical verses are like a poem that paints a peaceful and mellow scene of a natural picture. The picture of a beautiful sunset, dreamy, quiet but full of melancholy, gloomy.

Besides the picture of nature, Thach Lam also brings his drawings towards the picture of human life. He captured the scene of a dead market. It is often said that, if you want to know what life is like there, you just need to go to the market to know. And Thach Lam did the same. The scene of the market after the meeting appeared dull and shabby. The hustle and bustle had disappeared, and now only silence remained. Only a few sellers left late to clean up the goods, they chatted quickly with each other a few sentences. On the market floor, there is only rubbish, market, grapefruit peel, etc. The poor children at the edge of the market crouched on the ground, searching and picking up bamboo sticks or whatever is left. again… their situation is pitiful, pitiful. Ti’s mother and daughter search for crabs and snails during the day, and at night, they clean up the water to sell, even though they work hard, they still can’t make a living. The crazy old lady Thi is an alcoholic, always immersed in yeast, appearing with laughter, etc. Lien’s sisters also keep a small grocery store, selling simple items to regular customers. . Lien, An are just children, but they have participated in the livelihood. The lives of the people here are round and boring, they represent long, tired lives. Deep down they are always longing, waiting for something brighter for life, but still vague, unclear.

The most prominent in that picture is the delicate and sensitive soul of Lien. She is delicate, sensitive to the changes of nature in the dying moments, feeling every little detail that is familiar to life here: “a damp smell mixed with the familiar smell of dust. too…”, a familiar scent that has been attached to her life for many years. “Lien sat quietly next to some black lacquer …” Looking at the scene, it seemed that the sadness and tranquility of nature penetrated deeply into her young, sensitive soul. Lien is also a girl with a kind heart, rich in love. That is the concern for Ti’s mother and daughter, thoughtful questions, containing love, pity and concern for her family’s situation. Hearing the laughter, knowing that it was Thi, Lien “quietly filled a quart of wine and gave it to her” and “stand still and watched”¬. She was touched by the image of poor children picking up trash, but she herself did not have money for them.

The picture of the district town at dusk is a lyrical passage. That poetry radiates from nature, from the idyllic and familiar homeland scene, the sound of empty drums, the cry of frogs in the fields, etc. Poetry is also expressed in a sensitive and delicate soul. of Lien when feeling about the surrounding life. Not only that, the poetry is also imbued in the words, the sentences are rhythmic, rhythmic, rich in music: “Afternoon, it’s afternoon. A quiet afternoon like a lullaby, echoing the sound of frogs croaking in the fields brought in by the light wind” has added lyrical quality to the work.

The painting of the district town in the late afternoon depicts a beautiful and sad picture of nature, and shows the life around, deadlock, and poverty of the people here. Behind the picture of the town, we can see the love of nature, as well as the deep humanity of the author: cherishing their fates and changing their dreams. Unique descriptive art, imbued lyricism are also factors that make up the success of the work.

Coming to Thach Lam, everyone knows that he is an excellent talented writer of Vietnamese literature, a romantic writer who belongs to the group “self-help literary troupe”, but Thach Lam’s writing is inclined to a life of poverty. , the deadlock, the hardships of the peasants, petty bourgeois, and poor townspeople. Therefore, in Thach Lam’s compositions, there is a realism and lyrical nature that blends and creates a unique feature in the way of art. Thach Lam’s short story “Two Children” has expressed that quality. Appearing in the work is a picture of nature, a picture of life, a picture of people’s moods.

Perhaps what every reader when coming to Thach Lam’s “Two Children” must immediately feel is the picture of nature, the sunset of nature in the poor district when a day is over. That picture has both colors and sounds very typical of the Vietnamese countryside. That painting was placed by the author in three times: dusk, evening and late night. All three of those times seemed to fade away in time and space.

First of all, the reader must see the sunset scene, which has both the colors of the sun “the West is as red as a burning fire and the clouds are pink like a dying coal”. And the image of darkness came “the bamboo range in front of the village turned black and clearly cut into the sky”. All those colors seem to signal that a day is over, the time for people to be real with themselves has come. That picture has the sound, the familiar sound of the Vietnamese countryside “the sound of empty drums on the hut of a small district, one by one ringing out to call the afternoon” that sound sounds so gentle, slow, heavy, sad, numb the whole heart. The sound of autumn is no different from the drum sound in the poem “Self-love” by Ho Xuan Huong.

“Late night echoes the drums of guarding”

It’s the same sad, slow, scary drumming sound. Or sounds like “the sound of frogs chirping in the fields brought in by the wind”, “the buzzing of mosquitoes” are familiar sounds that every countryside has. The sound of bamboo cots creaked like sad music resounding in the late afternoon. For Lien, how can she forget “the smell of mold rising up, the heat of the day mixed with the familiar smell of dust, making Lien think it’s the unique smell of the land and of this homeland”. All these sounds, colors, and flavors seem to blend together, bringing to the reader’s heart a gentle and peaceful countryside. That late afternoon seemed to give way to the dark night. That dark night scene seemed to evoke colors for readers, the color of darkness seemed to cover all places in this district, “all the way to the river, the road through the market to home, the alleys to the village. darker and darker.”

That scary darkness haunts the people here, it dominates everything from people to life. The light is not absent, but it is small and creeping, not strong enough to tear the night. That light seemed to make the darkness more immense, darker. That was the general scene of the Vietnamese village at that time. In that quiet night, one could hear the sound of leaves falling on Lien’s shoulder softly, one after another. That sound was not strong enough to reverberate and sink day and night. Only then do we see the value of light, it becomes priceless and very precious. The night scene makes the space even quieter. And all just expect the last operating night train of the day to pass.

On the background of that picture of nature, human life activities took place. It is the scene of the market ending and the lives of people dying “on the land there is only garbage, grapefruit peel, market peel, longan leaves and shriveled rice”. That’s all that’s left of the end of the market, which the image suggests are cheap country gifts. Since then, it has also been seen that the lives of the people here are poor and needy. The author has chosen the end of the day, which is from dusk until late at night, to highlight the life of people withering, deadlocked. Why did the author choose the image of the end of the market and not another image? Is it only the end of the market that can evoke a dead and dead life in the dark night with no light, no future ahead. Those dying human lives are appearing in Lien’s eyes at the dead market. Does the character Lien have a very sophisticated look? Unlike Westerners, Vietnamese people are often slow-moving, like in the finished market, but “a few sellers come back late and are arranging goods, the pole is already in the light, they still Stand and talk to each other for a few more words.”

On the street, “poor children at the edge of the market stoop on the ground to explore, they pick up bamboo sticks, bamboo sticks, and anything that can be used left by vendors.” . Even children of school age have to participate in the struggle and sacrifice to earn daily food for themselves and their families. Even An and Lien, even though they are better off, have to help their mother look after the goods. That person’s life is not only children but also Ti and her children. She earns a living by working day to day catching crabs and snails, at night she sells water. The goods she sells are cheap things, so the whole shop she only carries once on her shoulder. Her guests are “rice waiters or chauffeurs, a few soldiers in the district, or a relative of the teacher’s family”. The number of guests, which was already small, is not stable for many days or days. It is all predicted that poverty will cling to her family. Ti’s answer to Lien is like a sigh of the fate of life. oh my! Sooner or later, it doesn’t matter” it shows the boredom mood that can’t rely on this restaurant to make a living anymore.

Perhaps in this poor district, Uncle Sieu’s family is the most well-off family. But your customers are also less and less, your customers must be people with economic conditions. Because your item is a luxury item with a lot of money. It is predicted that his life will be ruined because people on the train only buy packs of cigarettes… don’t pay attention to your pho. Or Uncle Sam’s family only knows how to make fun with the sound of the lute. In that poor life, no one had money to listen to him sing. Naughty children crawled out of the tattered mat. That life is also Mrs. Thi, even though it only appears briefly, it also leaves a haunting impression in the hearts of readers. Each language of the old lady’s only proves that she is still aware of life. “Ah, Lien Thao? She did not completely lose all feeling, but the most painful thing was that she was an alcoholic, she was always in an abnormal state with “cheerful laughter” different from the laughter of a child. I don’t understand why she fell into such an unusual state, but it aroused a vague fear. Will there be one more old lady in that miserable life?

The writer’s sympathy is shown through the look and feel of the character Lien, through which we can see the pity and pity for the unfortunate lives of time: beyond all perfection. life but in them is always rich in love between people and people. For Lien, a young girl who was just growing up when she saw “poor children near the market crouching down on the land to explore. They picked up bamboo sticks, bamboo sticks or anything” she was moved again. She loved them and wanted to give them money, but she herself did not have any. Or when Mrs. Thi came in to drink, she just “quietly poured a full cup of ti wine and gave it to her”. She was afraid to look at him, but she loved him and poured him a little more wine to satisfy his need. As for Ti’s mother and daughter and everyone around, Lien is considerate, gentle and thoughtful. But life did not give them what they wanted, but also pushed their fate into dark paths with a life of extreme poverty. Faced with that situation, the author expressed his sympathy for the poor, destitute, without future, without light of the people in this district. Who is that? It was Lien’s family, Ti’s mother and daughter, Uncle Sieu’s family, Uncle Sam’s family and those poor children. All of them just live around in this poor district, even if they want to get out, they can’t.

Understanding that, the author has lit up their lives with dreams and burning desires for a better life. It is also their dream “so many people in the dark expect something bright for their poor daily life” that dream is not only about material value but also spiritual value. That dream is conveyed by the author to the image of the train because it is the last activity of the late night. More than that, the train that appeared every night seemed to bring a different world from the poor, dark life that Lien Lien lived with. When “the searchlight was out”, the two sisters Lien stood up to see clearly. The two sisters, Lien, eagerly looked forward to the passing train. As the train passed, the sisters stood up to take a closer look. That train brought to the dark town a little of the light of an adolescent world with “shiny light carriages, luxury cars, glittering copper and nickel, bright windows”. When the train passed, leaving many regrets in Lien’s dream about a distant Hanoi, the bright, cheerful and noisy Hanoi that when she lived there. It is the nostalgia of a brilliant past “Lien can drink cold glasses of green and red water, go to the lakeside” but now Lien can’t have it.

Is it possible that in order to paint a picture of nature, a picture of human life in this poor town with deep sympathy, Thach Lam must have an extremely delicate pen? Thach Lam is a romantic writer, so the way to look at and describe nature in the work “Two Children” is very delicate and sensitive. The author takes the point of view from the late afternoon “afternoon, it’s afternoon. A calm afternoon like a lullaby”. The sentence seems to sow in the reader’s heart a gentleness, but it also evokes a dead and dead life. And the scene of the night falling is also full of gentleness, “the night has begun, a summer night as smooth as velvet and with a cool breeze.” All evoke a quiet, peaceful and peaceful country soul, which is placed under the delicate, deep, emotional gaze. That has been conveyed by Ha Van through the character Lien – a young girl with a rich, delicate and loving soul.

The poetic and romantic beauty in the story is felt through the way of looking at time. Time in the story is not described briefly but slowly through Lien’s observations. Created melodies that hummed deeply into the hearts of readers “afternoon, afternoon. A smooth afternoon like lullaby” it shows a smooth, smooth, gentle look. Or “the sound of empty drums on the hut of a small district, each echoing out to call the afternoon”. The sentence seems to suggest something calm and gentle, time goes by slowly with each step of the wind, “the night has begun, a summer night is as smooth as velvet and a cool breeze is blowing”, the Smooth sentences imbued with poetry and flexibility make it difficult for readers to resist fresh emotions, making people’s hearts fresher and cleaner.

But perhaps what creates the romantic beauty in the story is the quiet and peaceful countryside of Vietnam. The sound of mosquitoes began to buzz, or the sound of autumn in the hut of the small district. The sound “resounds the sound of frogs croaking in the field, brought in by the gentle wind”. These sounds are full of Vietnamese country spirit, the melancholy mood seems to permeate the reader’s mood. Each countryside is quiet, monotonous with discrete sounds. The shadow image is the space of art. The opening scene is the scene of the end of the day, the ending is the quiet night full of darkness. Throughout the entire work is mainly dark space. The drums beat loudly and then sank into the dark night. Or the image of the train whistling away and sinking into darkness. Is that shadow image not the darkness of nature but the darkness of human life? The dark image that haunts people here evokes a life of poverty, with no way out and no future. But in Lien’s eyes, it became “a summer night as smooth as velvet and with a cool breeze”. Sitting quietly next to some black lacquer “her eyes gradually filled with darkness and the sadness of the countryside afternoon penetrated into her innocent soul”. Lien “feels sad before the hour of the end of the day”. These sentences evoke poetry and settle the emotions in the reader’s heart.

The romantic beauty of the story is described and built by writer Thach Lam when describing the light in the story. The author’s subtle emotions have caught the look of the character. To discover the rare light in the light of human life. These are particles of light, slits, dots of light, halos, areas of light, and halos. Even discovered the stone on the light side and the dark side. How delicate must the author be to discover such a precious light? The poetry in the story is expressed through Lien’s recognition that “the dome of the sky with thousands of competing stars, mixed with the light trails of the flying fireflies, is either on the ground or in the branches of the trees”. From there, the reader can see the poetic beauty of silence.

Thach Lam’s short stories often don’t just stop at a deadlocked, cramped, poor life. The people in this district also have the bold beauty of Vietnamese people. Although poor, but always industrious, suffering hardship, living always with warm and harmonious feelings. That is the affection by Lien’s caring action with the children, Mrs. Thi or the mother and daughter of Ti. That concern not only helps them materially but also mentally to improve their lives. The image of the train is the only activity left in the day, it has great spiritual value. It was a passionate excitement for the two Lien sisters. When the train arrived, the two sisters Lien stood up to take a closer look. The image of the train compartments running one after another, the light is less than once, the people are also less. The train leaving has left many memories of Hanoi far away, crowded and bustling. Reminds me of the happy past that Lien no longer has.

If “poetry is reality, life and even poetry”, then “Two Children” by writer Thach Lam is such a work. The story is not only about life but also poetry. The poetic quality shows Lien’s vision, in Thach Lam’s voice, discussed throughout the story. And as Thach Lam said, “literature makes people’s hearts purer and richer”, perhaps his “Two Children” has met those requirements. Therefore, the work is not only valuable to the literature of the period 1930-1945, but it also asserts its position in the future literary career of the country.

In the national literature, there are few people like Thach Lam. With seemingly simple short stories, there is no plot, but what the writer writes, his soft voice has left deep thoughts, thoughts, and gentle but profound echoes for readers. “Two Children” (printed in “Sunny in the Garden”, published in 1938) is such a short story. Under the innocent eyes of “Two children”, readers seem to join in, follow along, and then the picture of nature and the life of the poor district town, the simple people, the current flood. up.

In the fading afternoon sun, in the half-light and half-darkness, and in the flickering of the vast night with a few flickering lights, life appears like tiny objects, in a towing lamp that’s running out of oil. slowly turned, and then fell into the deep night. The scene is not attractive, human activities are sporadic and monotonous, but the afternoon picture gradually darkens, flickering lights but keeps attracting readers to follow along with little Lien by observation, The girl’s sense, sensitivity, innocence, by the vivid and true appearance of the picture of poor street life, has caused lyrical emotions, creating a feeling of sadness for the reader.

At the beginning of the story, Thach Lam with his ingenious observation, with his talented pen, painted a simple but fanciful picture, making us feel like we were lost in the fairy world of ancient stories. Legend: “The sound of autumn drums on a small district’s hut; one by one, they ring out to call the afternoon. In the West, red like fire and pink clouds like coals about to die: the bamboo range in front of the eyes is blackened. and clearly cut the image against the sky”. The word “afternoon” is repeated over and over again, the rapidly spreading darkness permeates the innocent soul of little Lien, the “smooth lullaby, echoing the sound of frogs chirping in the fields” created in Lien. the “sadness before the end of the day”. The market has “long gone”, “all people have returned and the noise is gone”, only poverty remains, far from the body with “garbage, grapefruit peel, market peel, longan and cork leaves”, only the remaining “smell of dampness rises”, only the heat of the day, the smell of dust and the sight of poor children stooping and searching.

The “fairy” world that the writer built is different from the world of the old Cinderellas and Cinderellas! And then, one after another, the images of other poor people appeared: Ti’s mother and daughter were carrying a cigarette, wearing a bamboo cot to serve water, although they did not earn much: “Xam’s family sat on the mat, the white bowl in front of him”, Uncle Sieu’s pho shop came in “the sound of a heavy blow”; Mrs. Thi, “a bit crazy, still buys wine at Lien” with a laugh, walked into the vast dark night, swaying like a lamp in the wind of “Ms. Ti’s country”. “The vastness of the universe”, “towards the district another small and yellow fire dot hovers in the dark, disappears and reappears”; “The sound of the drums guarding the district gave a short dry sound, did not resonate far away, and then immediately sank into the darkness”. Day after day, afternoon and evening monotonously repeats that dullness like the miserable life of the people of this district. Is the light of that life just a flicker “just illuminating a small land” like Miss Ti’s lamp. The luxury, the large bright area of ​​the train passing through the district town in the night just passed by and disappeared into the dark night, just something so vague and unfamiliar that never came to the life of the Lien sisters, of the people of this district.

Without a word of criticism, without a condemnation, without asking a question, Thach Lam’s talented pen only describes the real life, the dark, hopeless life of the people of a countryside, a city. Poor district, why does it hurt us, sowing in our hearts a skepticism about the society when the writer lived. Such a contribution to life, such sympathy for the human condition, such description in his work, how beautiful the writer’s soul is, the literary value that Thach Lam created is so talented and worthy. how appreciated. We classify Thach Lam as one of the great names of the country’s literature in the period 1930 – 1945, readers are grateful to the writer for writing pages for life and consider him as one of the master short story writers who are true to the world. his talent, as the writer’s statement to the reader: “For literature is not a way to bring the reader escapism or forgetting, on the contrary, literature is a noble weapon. and powerful that we have, to both denounce and change a world that is false and cruel, while making the reader more pure and richer”.

Writer Thach Lam is a mature person in the Tu Luc Van Doan group, with a writing style with a personal and distinct color, not confused with anyone else’s. Van Thach Lam is extremely deep, gentle but sometimes sad, going deep into the heart of the reader. “Two children” is such a story, it paints a picture of a poor district street, where there were poor and miserable people in Vietnamese society at that time.

The story opens with the scene of a simple but fanciful picture, making the reader feel like he is lost in a fairyland in a fairy tale: The sound of empty drums on the hut of a small district; one by one sounding out to call the afternoon….Scenes and people are probably sinking into a state of absentmindedness, when in the late afternoon the drum sounds again. Perhaps the author chose the autumn afternoon as an inspiration to draw a picture of a poor district because autumn is a season that always brings feelings of sadness, nostalgia, and overflowing emotions. Two children appeared, did the daily work of lighting the lights and then closing the coffin, watching the train returning from Hanoi, hoping for something and then falling into an incomprehensible disappointment.

The scene of the poor district town in the evening is described by the author through the images “the market has been meeting in the middle of the street for a long time; everyone has returned and the noise is gone. On the land there is only rubbish, grapefruit peel, market bark, leaves left on the ground. Longan and bagasse A smell of moisture rising up, the heat of the day and the familiar smell of dust make you think it’s the unique smell of this land, of this homeland. The goods and poles are already in the light, they still stand and talk to each other for a few sentences…” The poor district streets in the late afternoon show a withered, desolate and lonely color. The reality of the North of our country at that time, everything was blurred, there was no highlight, just simple and simple things with poor and miserable people.

The author uses soft, gentle words to describe the lonely, lonely scene in a poor and lonely district street. And there, “the poor children at the edge of the market, crouching on the ground, searching again. They picked up bamboo sticks, bamboo sticks or anything that could be used. Touched, but she herself did not. have money to give them.” The misery seems to be doubled when poor people meet, but this also makes the reader feel touched and love Lien’s kind person.

And in that picture of a poor district street, there are not only children and Lien but also other characters who make up the chaos of the district town at dusk. Somewhere, Ti’s mother and daughter are cleaning up, even though they “don’t earn much.” Besides, Lien’s sister helps her mother at a stall she rented from other people since moving to this street. They are all hardworking people who work hard day in and day out, watching hunger and poverty happen but there is no way to change.

Not only those poor people, the picture of the district town also shows the crazy old lady Thi who still buys alcohol at Lien’s shop. Mrs. Thi often “turns her neck to drink a clean breath, puts three cents in Lien’s hand and staggers away” making the reader feel heartbroken, sympathetic for a human life at the end of life who has to live a hectic life to get through the day. no direction.

Those people, everyone is looking forward to a train from Hanoi running back, dispelling the gloom and desert with noisy and bustling sounds. Maybe because “the train seems to have brought a little bit of another world through.” And maybe in that world, maybe their better, more peaceful life. miserable people who want to change their lives.

It can be said that, “Two Children” is a gentle, profound work, without dramatic details, but also leaves in the reader’s heart something very profound about the poor fates, dream of a brighter tomorrow ahead.

“The writer has a talent for short stories” is none other than Thach Lam. His short stories harmonize the two elements of realism and romance “but still passionately love the countryside, deeply devoted to the nation”. The picture of the district town at dusk in the short story “Two children” is a picture that blends these two materials. Romantic by the subtle, realistic look by the pen describing the natural and human scene here.

From an early age, Thach Lam lived in his mother’s hometown, Cam Giang district, Hai Duong province, and had access to the countryside, so his work always contained scenes of villages with silhouettes of poor people. The painting of the district town at dusk in the short story “Two children” is covered by the writer as if observing from afar to faithfully depict life here from the lonely scene at sunset. with sound, air, and light to small people making a living. “He had a pen that was quiet, very calm, a pen that specialized in detailing very small and beautiful things.”

The writer describes the sunset scene of the district town starting with the sound of empty autumn drums, echoing sporadically one by one, signaling the hour of the end of the day, the marking point for the sky to be dark. The opening sentence is as gentle as a poem, evoking the gloomy atmosphere in a small town. Not only that, there is the sound of the village: “the sound of frogs chirping in the fields brought in by the gentle wind”, the sound of “mosquitoes have begun to buzz” at dusk. These sounds evoke a dull, quiet feeling with a rural rustic character. It takes a person who is sensitive, loves his homeland and has a subtle and profound insight to be able to quietly feel such simple things.

The color of the sky, the scenery here is red like a burning fire, pink like the dying coals of the cloud, showing that a day has passed, the darkness is beginning to spread by the black color of the bamboo village. clear figure against the sky. A unique comparison with a specific comparison image, highlighting the all-encompassing nightfall specification. The darkness covers “The houses have been lit” but the light is not bright and dazzling like the city, it is the “hanging lamp in Uncle Pho’s house, the American lamp in Mr. Cuu’s house, and the lamp in Mr. Cuu’s house. The green light in the guest shop…” These lights are so weak that they seem to bring people into the unreal world, one side is bright and the other is dark.

How about the taste? A musty smell rose, the heat of the day mixed with the dust so familiar the smell of the homeland, of the poor motherland. The writer’s lens panned close to the ground was the trash, grapefruit peel, market peel, longan leaves and sugar cane leaves. All are captured by the writer into the camera lens. The picture of nature in a deserted, deserted town, but also very sexy and poetic, is portrayed by the writer with gentle sentences, slow and gentle tone, but imbued with the sadness of people before the scene of the day. withered.

Nature is sad but full of lyricism, and what is the picture of human life at dusk? They are dead people. Small and poor people like the Lien sisters. Lien and An_the first two people appeared in the late afternoon scene with a “sad” mood because of the lonely afternoon market scene. Her sisters were assigned by their mother to take care of a small grocery store that sells random items, the income is not much, just hoping to help a little family through difficult times when her father lost his job, the whole family had to leave Hanoi to live in the countryside. Thach Lam boldly went deep into the inner world of the character Lien_the center of the story. The sadness of the teenage girl “penetrates into the innocent soul”, the heart is sad before the hour of the end. Little An is still as innocent as the age of a child. His pen has deepened the inner world of the character.

The familiar people of the Lien sisters were also carefully portrayed by the writer. They are also miserable and poor like Lien. That is the mother and daughter of Ti and her daughter, searching for crabs and catching shrimp in the mud and turbid water, and waiting in the evening to wait for a tea load under the eagle tree to sell to the rice handlers, cart drivers, soldiers or relatives of the teacher. Sometimes excited to drink a cup of water, smoke a pipe tobacco. They are not much richer than you. It’s not really living, but struggling to maintain existence in vain. Because people are too hard for a piece of rice and clothes.

Thach Lam’s humanitarian pen has contributed to the fate of a ruined life with the image of Mrs. Thi_ “a slightly crazy old woman who still buys alcohol at Lien”. That person was half awake, half drunk, half healed, and half sick. She went from the dark to Lien’s shop to drink wine and then “walked into the dark, the laughter of customers gradually faded towards the village”. Although only appearing through a few sentences, that person left us with many obsessions. That image has planted deep in the reader’s heart a concern and pity about a life scene in the dark, deadlocked and desperate.

It is also a picture of poor children, they are about the same age as Lien and An but had to “stoop” to pick up bamboo sticks, bamboo sticks or anything still usable left by sellers. . The word stooped shows the poverty of the children here, who should have been at that age to have fun and play, but they had to work hard. Their childhood is full of poverty. Thach Lam through these images has condemned the real society that does not really care about people’s lives, especially about children’s rights. He, like many readers, always wished for the children to have a prosperous life, study and have fun. In today’s society, although the country has been much more developed, there are still unfortunate children who suffer many disadvantages who want the attention and help of the community.

Writer Thach Lam, like a talented cinematographer, recreated the scene of the district town at dusk, each sentence of his sentence like a meticulous slow panning lens, observing all the scenes and people in the rhythm of life here. At the same time, he is also like a talented artist who paints a picture of a dying day with lives as low as night lights. He is also a brilliant psychologist who understands the inner world of the character. Lien, a sensitive little girl with a kind heart, rarely sees her pity for her family, for the dying lives around her. Thereby showing the writer’s sincere feelings for people with poor and poor fate.

Romantic sentences with lyrical writing style interwoven with realism in short stories, gentle and elegant writing style have painted a picture of the evening in the district town with language materials that evoke poverty, hardship, catastrophically wasted. That picture has left people feeling a lot of aftertaste, wondering and worrying about the lives of poor people.

In Tu Luc Van Doan, writer Thach Lam stands in a separate line. Nhat Linh and Khai Hung can also write novels together, but Thach Lam can’t. Thach Lam’s voice is small, calm, deep, rich in aftertaste, and has a special inspirational power. Thach Lam turned to the small characters in the lower classes of society. Meanwhile, other writers of Tu Luc Van Doan tend to be high-class characters. “Two children” is a short story that represents Thach Lam’s style, for Thach Lam’s ideological tendencies, towards life, towards the good and the beautiful.

Thach Lam’s story has no story. The same goes for “Two Children”. Only two children from Hanoi moved to a poor district town, looking after a tiny grocery store. In the afternoon, the two sisters sat on a bamboo cot to watch the sunset, then at night, even though they were sleepy, they still tried to stay awake to wait for the night train from Hanoi to pass and then close. sleep shop. Thach Lam wants to avoid the mediocre writing style that attracts readers with thrilling plots, twists and turns, passionate love stories, or suspenseful conflicts. “Two children” attracts readers with real life material. This material selection is close to Nam Cao, Nguyen Hong, To Hoai (realist writers rich in humanity), and stimulates readers with good dreams and ambitions. That romantic spirit is associated with writers Nhat Linh, Khai Hung, and Hoang Dao. Thach Lam has a light style like butterfly wings on flowers. Painting in his language can be compared to silk painting, not oil painting. Thach Lam is still a romantic writer. Positive romance, beautiful.

In “Two Children” romance and reality blend together in the natural picture of a countryside on a sunny afternoon. Then the night gradually fell. “A summer night as smooth as velvet and with a cool breeze…” Nature is tall, wide, wide and poetic. “The West is as red as a burning fire and the clouds are as rosy as a dying coal.” But the village is full of darkness, pathetic. “It’s a bit dark in the store, the mosquitoes have started buzzing.” “Lien’s eyes, the darkness gradually filled”. “I only see a sad heart before the hour of the end of the day”. It is this very true picture of life that is imbued with the emotions of love words that causes a feeling of sadness and sadness for the reader. The ideological meaning of the story mainly comes from the picture of poor street life.

Under the eyes of two children, the scene of the district town appears to be specific, vivid and sexy. It was an empty, deserted market scene when the market was long gone. “The people are gone and the noise is gone.” The scene of the dead market exposes the poverty and squalor of life in the district. The diligent lens of the writer crosses the streets of the district: on the land there is only “garbage, leaving pomelos, market peels, longan leaves and sugarcane leaves”. The scene is also described by the writer’s delicate sense of smell “a humid smell rising up, the heat of the day and the smell of dust are so familiar, making you think of the unique smell of this land, of this homeland”. . The picture of the district in “Two Children” is full of obsession because of such colors and flavors.

In that desolate, sad scene, the image of poor, lazy, sleazy people of the district town gradually appeared. The children went to pick up the things that were dropped in the market. Ti’s mother and daughter put on a cot to carry a fire to clean the goods, “day, she went to find crabs to catch shrimp; at night, she cleaned this shop…”. Uncle Xam’s family sits on a mat, a white iron basin is in front of him.” The son crawled out to pick up dirty trash on the roadside, and the two sisters Lien and Lien’s mother cleaned the tiny grocery store when they were older. The family left Hanoi to go back to their hometown because Mr. Lien lost his job. The crazy old lady Thi bought alcohol and laughed and staggered into the dark. Through the eyes of little Lien, all life is engulfed in the immense darkness, only the lamp of Sister Ti, the stove of Uncle Xieu, the lamp of the United States, which is reduced to Lien’s… that is, just a few spots. In the dim light, those small sparks do not make the district town bright, but only make the night dark and dense. The image of a small lamp in the water stall of Ms. Ti that only illuminates that small area seven times in the district is a haunting and very suggestive image of small, shaky lives. , blind in the dark nightimmensity of life.

The street scene in the evening is like a sad song that the chorus repeats. Every evening, Ti’s mother and daughter also have a ceremony to clean the goods, and Lien’s sisters check the goods and then pay the bill, then sit on a bamboo cot to admire the scenery. Uncle Pho Sieu again carried the goods and blew the fire, Uncle Xam spread the mats and set the brass. The chorus kept repeating monotonous, boring. They also flashed a glimmer of hope. Hope is a tranquilizer for those wretched people. Nhat Linh also once said that the villagers are very poor in money but very rich in false hope “so many people in the dark expect something bright for their daily poverty”. How are the two children clearly aware of the stagnation, boredom, and deadlock they are living in as well as their vague spiritual aspirations. But with an innocent and sensitive soul, little Lien feels deeply, though only unconsciously, that reality, that aspiration. It was because of the desire to get out of that dark stagnation that the Lien sisters stayed up all night and waited for the train to pass. The ship seemed to have brought a bit of another world through, a completely different world for Lien, different from the glow of Miss Ti’s lamp and Uncle Sieu’s fire.

Thach Lam’s “two children” does not go into depth describing social conflicts and class conflicts. He also did not bother to depict the hideous faces of the exploiters and the tragic faces of the oppressed, for Thach Lam was, after all, a romantic writer. He sketched a picture of a poor district, true in every detail and in its spiritual depth. The picture of a gray village with pitiful little people is imbued with the author’s sincere sympathy for the poor working people living around deadlocked and dark. Through the gloomy picture of the district town and through the images of small people with a glimmer of hope, we can see the writer’s big dream is to change that suffocating life for the working poor. suffering.

Thach Lam is a writer specializing in writing short stories with a very unique writing style, very new: story but no story. One of his good and famous works that have left deep thoughts, thoughts, and gentle but profound echoes for readers is the short story “Two Children”.

“Two children” is just a piece of the ordinary life of a poor district from dusk until late at night, with the familiar colors and sounds of the poor district street and vague sadness with longings. poor thirst of two children. Under the innocent eyes of “Two Children”, the reader seems to join in, follow along, and then the picture of nature and the life of the poor district town, the simple people, the current flood. up.

Under the pen of writer Thach Lam, the district street appears in the fading afternoon sun, in the blur of half-light and half-darkness and in the flickering of the vast night with a few flickering lights. Life appeared as tiny objects, in the towing lamp that was running out of oil slowly turned, and then fell into the deep night. The street scene in the evening is not attractive, human activities are sporadic and monotonous.

The picture of the district street in the afternoon gradually darkened, flickering with a few lights, but kept attracting readers to follow along with little Lien. Lien is a girl with very sensitive observations and feelings, and it has the innocence of a little girl. In Lien’s eyes, the picture of poor street life has appeared very vividly and honestly, causing lyrical emotions, creating a feeling of sadness for the reader.

At the beginning of the story, a picture of a district town was shown under the ingenious observation of writer Thach Lam: “The sound of drums is empty on the hut of a small district; one by one it rang out to call the afternoon. In the West, red as fire and the pink clouds as dying coals, the bamboo range in front of the eyes is black and clearly cut in the sky.” The word “afternoon” is repeated again and again, as if to emphasize the darkness that is gradually spreading, covering the street and quickly seeping into Lien’s innocent soul.

The sound “as smooth as lullaby, echoing the sound of frogs croaking in the field” made Lien wake up with a “sadness”. The market is “long gone”, “all people have returned and the noise is gone”, and only poverty remains, far from the body with “trash, grapefruit peel, market peel, longan and cork leaves.” , only the “smell of dampness rises up”, only the heat of the day, the smell of dust and the sight of poor children stooping and searching.

And then amidst the gloom of the district streets when it was late afternoon, the images of poor people appeared one after another. It was Ti’s mother and daughter carrying a firefly, wearing a bamboo bed to clear the water even though they didn’t earn much. It was Uncle Xam’s family sitting on a mat, a white basin in front of him, that was Uncle Sieu’s noodle shop. in the “slapping sound”, and even the slightly crazy old lady Thi who still buys wine at Lien’s shop, laughed and walked into the vast dark night, swaying like a lamp in the wind of “her country’s shop”. A little”.

Day after day, in that darkness are poor laborers. Because of poverty, even in the dark they still have to work, they have to light the night into day to continue working. Is the light illuminating their lives just a flicker like Miss Ti’s lamp? The luxury, the great light of the train passing through the district town in the night just passed by and then disappeared into the dark night, just something so vague and unfamiliar that never came to the life of the Lien sisters, of the people of this district.

The short story “Two children” is typical for writer Thach Lam’s style: story but no story. Under his talented pen, Thach Lam has described the real life, the dark, hopeless life of the people of a rural area, a poor district town that sows in our hearts a skepticism about the society of the time. living literature.

Thach Lam was born into a family of literary traditions. His brother Nhat Linh, Hoang Dao, along with Khai Hung, Thach Lam are members of Tu Luc Van Doan. Self-help group in literary style “art for art’s sake”. The group’s works are painted pink, blacked out life, escaping from real life such as: Pine Hill with two graves, Soul of a butterfly with fairy wings, John’s oath, Life of flowers, Bright path, Halfway through spring,… Despite having legs in Tu Luc Van Doan, but Thach Lam’s writing is not like theirs, does not colorize, blacken, escape from life. Do not write about the lives of warm boys serving the urban elite. Thach Lam writes about the poor, stuck, and precarious life of the poor bourgeoisie and the small merchant class. He did not write about students and poor writers, private schools because this topic was deepened by Nam Cao’s pen.

Therefore, Thach Lam’s writing is very close to the people with critical reality, directing the pen in the style of “art for the sake of life”. In “The First Cold Wind”, he wrote: “For me, literature is not a way to bring readers escape or forgetting, on the contrary, literature is a noble and noble weapon. The force with which we can denounce and change a world of falsehood and cruelty, and at the same time make people’s hearts purer and richer.” Not only Thach Lam but also Ho Chi Minh used his pen as a weapon. Thach Lam’s story is like a lyric poem written in prose. It creates a feeling of calm, lightness, freshness. The story opens in the afternoon, ends at night, making the story space become mysterious with no way out of frail human lives as To Huu once wrote:

“In human life, rice is spilled, where do you know where to go to heaven and earth”.

More than once we encounter a dark scene in pre-revolutionary literature. In the old days, at the end of the novel Turn off the lights, Sister Dau also resentfully rushed into the dark to keep her purity, but now, in Two Children, Thach Lam borrows darkness to describe the poverty of her family. poor countryside, dead land. Unlike Light Out, Two Children is not dramatic, conflicting, story but no plot, but the story just takes place according to the flow of Lien’s mood. However, the story is still deeply humane and humane.

Two children as a self-telling story about Thach Lam’s childhood. Lien is the author’s sister, and hidden in An’s shadow is the boy Thach Lam. Previously, Lien’s family lived in the city. After Mr. Lien lost his job, Lien’s sisters had to go back to their hometown to live and were assigned a small shop next to the train station by their mother, while her mother worked as a shopkeeper. Perhaps, the train station next to the small shop of the Lien sisters is the author’s recollection of Cam Giang station. The small district where the Lien sisters sold goods was very poor, and the author likened it to a dead land like the rotten society of Vietnam before the August Revolution. Using only a slice of time, Thach Lam has chained a large period of time, but before and after are the same. Before, too, after, the future of this poor district is still uncertain.

It is no coincidence that the author mentions the oil lamp seven times in the work, it seems to be the artistic intention, the highlight of the work. The poor district, or broadly speaking, the whole contemporary society is as fragile and precarious as Miss Ti’s lamp. Thach Lam’s story has a very own magic power. Two children crystallize all of Thach Lam’s forte. It is considered a masterpiece of Thach Lam and also a masterpiece of Vietnamese literature in the period 1932-1945. Through that picture of a poor district town, the author wants to send writers a message: use your pen. his life to save those little people, or change this fake life like in his debut work The First Cold Wind.

Thach Lam has brought readers to a countryside that has remained unchanged for a long time. The space in the district town is likened to a dead land, a pond of calm life. The sound of autumn drums not resounding from the watchtower broke the silence. The sound of the drum is like a hinge to close the world of decaying human lives, turn off the dark side like Ti’s mother and daughter, to open up a new world, a world of hope, waiting for “something from within.” dark”. Light and darkness competed for every inch of land: “The West is as red as a burning fire, and the clouds are pink like a dying coal”. The poor, decaying space, a forgotten life, in the evening time makes the story even sadder.

“There is nothing sadder than quiet afternoons

And the light regulates the darkness

The gentle wind pulls me through the tangled grass

A few pieces of black melancholy lurking in the branches.”

(Afternoon relationship – Xuan Dieu)

The space in the afternoon was so sad, it was placed in the time of the end of the market, “Where is the sound of the village far away from the afternoon market”. The scene now serves as the background for the people to appear. If in Trang Giang, Huy Can seems to be looking for a human figure, in Doan Van Cu’s Tet Market, we only see a human figure that seems to be only suggested:

“Countries return in droves

The sun fades on the grass dragging on

Banyan leaves are scattered around the market stall.

In Two Children, the scene of the market ending is more reasonable and vivid. The tents were dilapidated, bare, the last people left in droves, the poor children stooped to pick up the rubbish left behind by the vendors. What do they pick up, what can they collect when the other trash is just bamboo sticks, bamboo sticks, longan leaves, market bark,… Lien feels sad and loves them very much, Lien wants to give them money but she does what has money for them, so her compassion stops at sympathy only. All these scenes of the market are not described directly by the author, but are revealed through Lien’s sensitive soul. Writing about young children is also Thach Lam’s forte. The author lets these poor children, even though they are young, think deeply, but they still know how to make sacrifices and rely on each other to live.

There is an old saying “The first is near-sighted, the second is near-jiang”. Anywhere near the market near the river is the richest, busiest and busiest place. But with this dead land, there is no need to delve deeply into the poverty of this place.

Light has ceded space to darkness, turning the district town into a pond of calm life, a dead land. The scene in the district is now true to the saying “the poetry of the middle is beautiful”, the darkness crawls out from the heart of life,” it’s all dark, the road is deep to the river, the road through the market to home, the alleys to the village. darker and darker.” “Mosquitoes began to buzz”, “the bamboo range in front of the village was blackened, clearly cut in the sky”. All of this is Lien’s feeling in the dark. The district town is now engulfed in the dark night. To depict the reign of darkness, the author skillfully used contrasting art. The entry point into the darkness is just a few bright spots: the lamp is weak, sparsely lit, long shadows sway, flicker at and off like fireflies, blue like ghosts. The weak light caused the small island to be divided into two halves of light and dark. The light of the lamp does not make the space brighter, but on the contrary, it makes the picture really “tattered”, increasing the magic of the night.

To get out of that dense night, just face up to the sky, look for the stars in the other galaxy. But as Huy Can once said that the sky is “deep in the sky”, for the two children, the sky is vast and far away. Those stars are so far, so far away, like the rays of hope of people in this dead land. Too far, Lien has to return to reality, she returns to the little lamp of Sister Ti. The lamp in Thach Lam’s story is small but repeated many times, containing the author’s artistic metaphor. Just like that lamp, though weak, flickering with every drop of light, but it still tries to illuminate the surrounding space, the people in this poor district still have to hope, even in hopelessness. The district town at night is also the time when the country’s eternal music is resounding. The sound of frogs chirping in the field, the sound of insects groaning, the sound of crickets picking up. All create a sound system that emerges as the sound of a drum that does not sound like a lead note. But it is also not strong enough to resonate far, like the shadow of human life in the district. Light and sound are also weak and fragile like the life here.

The picture of a poor district town is not only drawn by the pitch black color of darkness, the dim light emitted by the lamp or the red light from Uncle Sieu’s pho oven, by the constant long-lasting country music, but it also radiates light. out a damp smell that seemed to be the unique smell of the earth, the smell of the homeland. That “tattered” picture serves as the background for decaying human lives to appear. The Lien sisters forced themselves to sit on a bamboo cot that was about to break, even though the eagle flowers fell on their shoulders in the sluggish market. Ti’s mother and daughter brought a few broken bowls to move to the bar where the hope of a woman’s life was early in the morning, but then it was hopeless. Uncle Pho Sieu, with a burden of luxury goods in this poor district, fell on his back because the goods were too poor, he was worried because that gift if not sold out today, his family might go hungry tomorrow and he wouldn’t be able to. capital to sell. But Pho Sieu can still hope, and the other poor Xam family, the whole family has only torn mats, the brass pot and the lute squeaking with every heavy sound, their hope is even more hopeless. . Then the crazy old lady Thi died half of her life, tilting her neck to drink wine and laughing at guests.

Perhaps before this poverty, the scene where people on the market day also only buy a few matchboxes and half a bar of soap, making Thi do not seem to want to wake up. He had to borrow wine to relieve his sorrow, to forget the poverty that persisted for more than half of his life. Sitting at the restaurant, Ms. Ti was just a few soldiers, smoking a few pipes and buying matches. The scene is ruined, the things are also ruined, the bamboo cot of the Lien sisters is ruined, the water bowl of Ms. Ti is also chipped, the tattered mat of the uncle Xam’s family, the old lady Thi with a ruined life. So many ruined people waiting for something from the dark.

“Walking around forever between a few poses

Come or go, there’s still the same number of people.”

(Rounding around – Huy Can)

Lien’s mother still told the two sisters to stay up and wait for the train to sell goods. But with Lien, on the market day, when she could only sell a few matches and half a bar of soap, even if she tried to wait for the train, she couldn’t sell much, because it was a losing business season, few people took the train, they often just buy a few packs of pipe tobacco. Lien still tried to stay awake waiting for the train for another reason. The train is the complete opposite of the city life. The train came with the bright light of the headlights, enough to break the night of the district town, different from the faint, glimmering light of Ms. Ti’s lamp. It brought with it both the blaring whistles as the train entered the record, and the grinding of wheels on the railway, echoing unlike the ever-changing country music. The people on the train dressed in luxury, moving around were different from the faltering, lethargic shadow, the owner of the dead land. The train is also the ray of light that carries the beautiful childhood to Lien and An. When Lien’s mother had a lot of money, Lien’s family was in the city, she was taken by her mother to the lakeshore, to drink cool glasses of red and blue water. Lien’s memory is a distant Hanoi, a bright, bustling Hanoi. The train came to bring Lien and An “somewhere” a bustling, developing life. And life in this district is a “moderate” life, secretive, backward. When the present suffers, doubts about the future, people often think about the past, which is an inevitable rule… It is not a coincidence that Thach Lam let the crazy old lady Thi end the afternoon. Mrs. Thi is the clearest proof of a forgotten human life in the land of the dead.

Today they may have as much capital as Uncle Pho Sieu, but tomorrow when their capital runs out, they will only have a small restaurant like Mrs. Ti, even decaying like Uncle Xam’s family, and then eventually fade to half like Mrs. Thi. , went into the darkness again, raised his head to the sky, looking for a faint hope. More than once, we encounter images of darkness. In Ngo Tat To’s Turning Out the Lights, at the end of the story, Mrs. Dau also plunged into the dense darkness, now, with the Two children, Mrs. Thi is also reluctant to step into the dark. Another feature we often see in pre-revolutionary short stories is that the authors love the art of contrast. In the word death row prisoner, light is also opposed to darkness, the high bar in the human soul is contrary to the surrounding circuTaxances, the light and sound of the ship in Two Children is also different from the country music. , the shadows hovering in the dead land. The ship is also the last activity that the two sisters Lien can cling to. It is like a spiritual buoy in the sea of ​​darkness. As for An, rubbing his eyes at the train is the only game of the day. For us, no one is without a childhood bathed in red and blue toys.

But for children who soon struggle with living like An and Lien, toys are a luxury. Every time I see the children in the neighborhood playing with each other, An craves it very much, but cannot play because An has to look after the goods, and has to help her sister take care of her instead of her mother. So before falling asleep, An also reminded her to wake her up when the train arrived. The train arrived, An was sober as if he had been given a new toy. Behind the gentle words, literary lovers can still feel the message that Thach Lam wants to reach: Save the children, don’t let them be alone and abandoned like An and Lien. Thach Lam has brought his pen deep into the poor district streets, as affirming that no matter how difficult and poor they are, in them, the poor rural people always hope for a beautiful life like this. so on the ship. When the train passed, Lien fell asleep. But for a girl who worked hard early, brought a sensitive soul like Lien, but did not know what to dream, in her head, only the flickering light of the lamp of Sister Ti appeared in her mind.

“My life is a night train

Guests are noisy at the departure and arrival stations

And early in the morning when the train arrives

The carriages are empty and lonely”…