Discourse and symbol in Le Minh Phong’s novel The Path

DOI: 10.18173/2354-1067.2020-0054

Abstract

Following Mikhail Bakhtin’s poetics, the article approaches Le Minh Phong’s novel The Path from two characteristics including discourse and symbolization. The writer created the coexistence and dialogue between two symbols of awareness and body and used it to present the understanding of people’s lives in modern society. Surrounded by irrational taboos, people fell into the status of losing their voice power. Regaining that lost power, as for the character by Le Minh Phong, is a hopeless path. Hence, the world in the novel exhibited gloom, tearfulness, blood and death, along with the sound of screams, profanity and curses. With the achieved study results, the article contributes to assert Le Minh Phong’s position as a typical artistic style of contemporary Vietnamese literature