A Daughter’s Filiality, A Courtesan’s Moral Propriety and a Wife’s Conjugal Love: Rethinking Confucian Ethics for Women in the Tale of Kiều (Truyện Kiều)

Abstract

Nguyễn Du’s Truyện Kiều (“The Tale of Kiều”) is widely regarded as the epitome of Vietnamese culture and literary heritage. This essay seeks to read The Tale of Kiều intratextually to explore the implications of a powerful yet subversive tale of a woman whose unconditional commitment to filiality resulted in her gut-wrenching descent into the abyss of despair as concubine and courtesan. It seeks to show how an intratextual reading reveals the heroine of the story to be a well-educated, strong-willed, intelligent and courageous woman whose character transcended all the rigid stereotypes of traditional Confucian ethical admonitions for women. It will also discuss how Nguyễn Du sought to redefine the relations between parent–child and husband-wife, as well as explore their significance for reconceptualizing Vietnamese Confucian ethics for women away from the “Three Bonds” and “Three Obediences” to a virtue ethics for women that is derived from the Confucian Five Relations.