38 pages • 1 hour read
Duong Thu HuongParadise of the Blind
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1988A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Hang
Hang is the narrator and protagonist of the story. She grows up in poverty in Hanoi with her mother. She never knows her father, although she’s told she resembles him, and this absence of a protective parental figure in her life leaves Hang feeling lost and outcast throughout the novel. Hang also feels torn between loyalties on competing sides of her family: Her mother’s brother ruined the lives and livelihood of her father’s family during state-run land reform campaigns. Hang is in her twenties and lives in Russia as an exported worker at the opening of the story. When she boards the train to Moscow, she is “a pale young woman with a lost, worried expression, stooped shoulders, and cheap maroon suit. A frightened human being of about eighty-two pounds” (16). Still a young adult, Hang has already worked herself to the bone in sacrifice for others, like her own mother and aunt.
Hang eventually finds her place between tradition and modernity as she performs the funeral rites for Aunt Tam at the end of the novel: “I was indifferent to the sacred in all this, and I still don’t believe in the cults and rites. But the affection between two human beings is something I will always hold sacred” (250). She goes through the traditional funeral rituals for her beloved aunt, but ultimately, Hang defies her aunt’s dying wish that she lives in her home with the altars of their ancestors. Instead, Hang dreams of using the inheritance from her aunt to escape the cycle of sacrifice and suffering in her family.
Que
Que is Hang’s mother. She raises Hang on her own. Que’s own parents die when she is a young adult, and Que stays behind in the village where she grew up to care for the family home and ancestral rituals while her brother Chinh joins the Communist forces. When Chinh returns, Que makes constant sacrifices to appease him. She works constantly to buy food for Chinh’s two sons and eventually develops a sisterly relationship with Chinh’s wife. Sacrificing for Chinh’s family makes Que feel she has a purpose: “She now had her place in the Do family. She didn’t feel abandoned or disdained anymore. This was her mission: to gather, coin by coin, the money necessary to serve the needs of her brother” (176).
Que struggles because Chinh’s dedication to the Communist Party forces her to choose between her married family and her birth family. Que makes a humble living as a street vendor; Chinh admonishes her repeatedly to leave the independence and uncertainty of her small business and join the ranks of laborers at state-run factories. Que feels obligated to support her brother, but in doing so she inevitably intensifies the divide between the two sides of the family. Que’s loyalties are torn throughout much of the novel, but she slowly slips into sacrificing even her relationship with Hang for the sake of supporting Chinh. In response to Que’s focus on, and sacrifice for, Chinh and his family, Hang gravitates towards a relationship with her Aunt Tam as a protective family figure.
Uncle Chinh
Uncle Chinh is the younger brother of Hang’s mother. He is the antagonist in the novel and a teacher of Communist ideology, “a noble profession, far superior to all others” (48). He represents the rising Communist order in Vietnam and spurns ancestral tradition. His speech is characterized by exuberant Communist rhetoric, while his actions often highlight the hypocrisy of Communist leaders. The contrast between Chinh’s speech and his actions serves to satirize the ideology, incompetence, and corruption of Communist leadership throughout the novel.
As an enforcer of Communist land reform, Chinh destroys the lives of the villagers whom he deems exploiters, landowners, or businesspeople. Hang’s own father falls into this category of state-identified dissidents. Chinh is a Communist authority figure, and Ton’s family is land-owning peasantry. This establishes ongoing conflict between the two families in the novel. Despite the fear he inspires and the power he wields during Land Reform, at the end of the novel, Chinh is an old man working for an underground import-export business with young bosses who mock his ideology.
Aunt Tam
Aunt Tam is the sister of Ton, Hang’s father. She represents traditional family values in the novel and serves as a contrast to Uncle Chinh’s communist rhetoric and ideology. Chinh and Tam’s conflicting morals and values divide the family, often forcing Que and Hang to choose between the two sides of the family. Tam lives her entire life in the countryside and has a determined work ethic. She relentlessly pursues efforts to earn money for herself when Communist-driven Land Reform rips away her family home and land. She has not forgiven Chinh for his role in destroying her family’s land, wealth, and social standing, and she blames Chinh for Ton’s death. She also holds a grudge against Que for supporting Chinh. Despite these deep grievances with her in-laws, Tam always maintains her composure.
Tam takes a protective role in Hang’s life, providing for her in ways similar to those in which Hang’s own mother provides for Chinh’s sons. While Que sacrifices herself for Chinh’s comfort, Tam lavishes food and money upon Hang, giving her permission to share what she doesn’t need for herself. Tam also celebrates Hang’s accomplishments, such as when Hang is the first in their family to gain acceptance to university studies. When Tam dies at the end of the novel, she leaves Hang her home in the village along with an inheritance buried in the garden.
