[THE FEMALE GAZE ON WAR]

War literature is not novel for most of us, especially those who were born and reared during a time of global unrest. Nonetheless, how often do we perceive a topic that does not appear frequently yet gives numerous ethical values in literary works – the portrayal of women in battle? As many people still contend, “War is only for men and women can only provide logistics as well as non-combat support”. In fact, whether being on the home front or the front lines, women carry their own feelings. Today, let us explore women in wartime literature together with VFSA.

Indeed, women were not seen much in wartime literary works. However, Vietnamese literature still bears witness to and preserves the imprints of women committed to battles for the country. They are not always in the position of sturdy rearguards but also fight on the bloody battlefield. 

They are female youth volunteers who everyday labour without ceasing on the Truong Son trail. Despite being eighteen or twenty-year-old girls, they fight day and night to restore a peaceful future.” They live and fight like depicted in the sentences:

“We went without regretting our lives

(How can you not have regrets in your twenties?)

But if everyone regrets being twenty, what about the Homeland?”

(Khúc bảy – Hồ Thành Công)

Returning to soil in their twenties, those known and unknown women become the immortals in legend.

As for the diaries of Dương Thị Xuân Quý and Đặng Thuỳ Trâm, they contain the sensations of budding youth, as well as highly real-life and poetic thoughts. Besides, we meet Nguyễn Thị Như Trang in “Màu tím hoa mua” with her exceedingly simple yet noble characters, even author Lê Minh Khuê with her imaginative thinking about the world of female characters in the work “Những ngôi sao xa xôi” which is full of sparkle, dreams, and everyday beauty. Not only do their literary works on the topic of war convey their determination to fight for a peaceful country, but also the pain that mothers and wives have to endure. 

At the turn of the twenty-first century, poets and authors continued to delve extensively into the war topic. Not only writers who formerly wore a soldier’s uniform or lived through a wartime experience but also young individuals who grew up after the war wrote works on the subject. Writer Đỗ Bích Thuỷ once declared, “Until I can write something authentic about soldiers, I will still have a conscience about it.” This statement proves that the topic remains writers’ favoured topic from ancient times to the present. But it is also a topic that many authors sometimes purposely ignore, yet Lê Minh Khuê is different. She is willing to commit to and write pages about war and post-war. The work’s language and thoughts are straightforward, not flowery, yet classic and passionate. It makes her literature both sagacious and more prickly and reflects the harsh realities of war at the time. This topic also caused the writer to think about it continually, accidentally enticing her, and it appeared to have an indescribable allure to her. “Coming to the topic of war is not that significant; first of all, I wrote for myself when thoughts about it were still there,” she said in a brief interview on the publication of her work. Her choice of this particularly “tough” topic, which is now incredibly scarce, was an audacious decision. That even gave rise to the present-day Lê Minh Khuê, a Lê Minh Khuê who dared to write on issues that most writers avoid, even never write about. “I am constantly haunted by the topic of war in this small country. I wrote about the war from the perspective of the one who grew up in the postwar”. That is why poets did not choose this topic to write about because they felt that digging up the past could be a “double-edged sword” and perhaps, writing about this topic might cause writers to be traumatized over the painful past to bring the country back to peace. Consequently, Võ Thị Xuân Hà felt haunted and she was scared to write about this topic from her or the deceased’s perspective, but rather from the perspective of young people growing up after wartime. 

Aside from the ferocity of the wars in Vietnam, the same period in history saw countless fights with similarly ferocious destruction. World War II was one of humanity’s most devastating and horrific wars. During that conflict, the Nazi army carried out a brutal and callous campaign known as the Holocaust – the genocide against the Jews, and the carnage resulted in the deaths of 6 million innocent Jews. Among them, there is a 13-year-old girl who stands out and is known to many people because of a classic diary that pointed out the brutal crimes of fascism, that is Anne Frank. The girl was born in 1929 into a German-Jewish family. Her family had to emigrate from Germany to the Netherlands because of anti-Semitism since Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933. Unfortunately, in 1941, Germany occupied the Netherlands, and from there, dangers began to lurk around her small family of four. Anne and her older sister, Margot, were transferred to a Jewish school, where she and her family had to wear distinguishable badges when going out,… Their lives were completely flipped, and they always had to live in fear and high vigilance. This period was also when Anne began writing her first diary pages.

When the anti-Semitic massacre got more intense, Anne’s father – Mr. Otto Frank had made the decision of bringing his family and four Jewish friends to a “secret annex” (where used to be his working office) to hide. The house is distinguished into 2 separate parts by a bookshelf, which works like a hidden door for the family’s safety shelter. They were not allowed to go outside, must always keep their guards up not to make noises or the Nazi Germans would notice, and they only had food supplied from some of their close friends. Days went on as they had to face tedium, food insecurity, and distress every time they heard via the radio stories of unfortunate Jews being captured. All of these are told by 13-year-old Anne in her diary, with a meticulous and eloquent writing style. Going through each line and each page of her diary, you can clearly visualize a sweltering, oppressive house trapping an energetic, vivacious girl.

In such a burdensome situation, Anne was a small sparkling star amidst the cruel war. She still learnt sign language and read 4-5 books a day, she also tried to turn her old dress into a ballet-friendly one to practice her flexibility. Underprivileged backgrounds did not halt her from studying and wanting to discover the world. Notwithstanding, the little girl suffered from severe damages resulting from having to live out of other’s sight. Teenage crisis, disagreements with family members or unexpected attacks from the Nazi army had bestowed stress and anxiety upon her. Albeit with ups and downs, Anne kept vigilant and remained optimistic. She was the light that sparked up the souls of the “secret annex” members, so as to unite and overcome life-threatening obstacles together.

In her diary, Anne had written down sentences filled with purity and innocence, yet full of passion and maturity. Anne expressed: “ I want to go on living even after death!”. She strived to live, to give her best, and she wanted to be remembered for the values she had contributed to. Fascinatingly, her impact is greater than that. Anne’s voice is the timeless manifesto of Jewish people, the voice representing peace lovers around the globe, the “film” that unveils war generally and fascism in particular. In 1961, President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, had paid homage to Anne Frank in his speech, stating “Of the multitude who throughout history have spoken for human dignity in times of great suffering and loss, no place is more compelling than that of Anne Frank. Her humor, her humanity and her hope illuminate the hearts of men heavily clouded by the apparent willingness of those who seek power and domain over the soul of man to again deprive people of the right to live in peace, tolerance and freedom”.

Nonetheless, war is always brutal and insufferable. After two years of hiding in the “secret annex”, someone had spoiled Anne and her family’s location for the Nazis with only a little bucks in return for the information. All eight of them were sent to “deadly” concentration camps – where unfortunate Jewish people were captured. Two months at the “living hell” had led to the deaths of Anne and her sister, from severe malnutrition and illnesses at only 15 years old. Many could not hold back their tears and moaning for the passing away of an innocent girl, a true literacy prodigy. To make it even sadder, she died only a few weeks before the camp was liberated. War had recklessly stolen an exceptional genius of humankind.

Today, Anne Frank’s diary is and will continue to be a timeless masterpiece, the voice for the innocent and echoes the question to the human race: “What will war bring about?”, besides epic works of writers like Lê Minh Khuê or Võ Thị Xuân Hà. The female gaze on war had truly given us goosebumps, for every sentence they wrote could possibly portray a reality of bloodshed and meaningless war in all perspectives. Whether you had been present in the battleground or not, all had to suffer from the haunting trauma, mentally and physically. Every “scar” on the past generations is the deepest affirmation for people from all walks of life, that preserving peace is the top priority in all countries’ political and diplomatic policies. Please do not make Earth a worse place to live with “senseless” wars. 

Authors: Pham Quynh Duong, Nguyen Hoang Minh Chau, Bui Le Minh Hang, Pham My Ha