“The General Retires”, a Story by Nguyen Huy Thiep and the Problem of the Socialist Realism Hero

Abstract

The article discusses “The General Retires” (1987), a story by Nguyen Huy Thiep, one of the most well-known Vietnamese writers of the last quarter of the 20th century. His prose marked the break with the literature of socialist realism, dominated in the DRV from the mid-20th century. The center of the story is a hero of socialist realism characterized with a set of certain traits which let him serve a role model to educate a builder of a new socialist society.The theme relevance is determined with the insufficient study of the Vietnamese type of socialist realism, as well as its fading in the Post-Renovation period.The analysis of the story has shown that among its characters only the General possesses some traits of the socialist realism hero. He is a fighter for high ideals. The rest are common people with their merits and defects. Thus, the writer fixes the change of the ages: the heroic age is fading being changed with the ordinary age. The socialist realism hero is transformed into an individual with his individual interests. The new hero has been taken out of the context of struggle for a better future, obligatory for the literature of socialist realism. So, the General's death is symbolic; it may be interpreted as the farewell with socialist realism and with the hero typical of it.