Some features of the “educated – uneducated” opposition in stories by Nguyen Huy Thiep

A specific artistic feature of stories by Ngueyn Huy Thiep (1950–2021) is the opposition “town – village”, which often attaches to the opposition “educated – uneducated”, or “intellectuals – common people”. However, the opposition of educated people and uneducated one has a number of peculiarities. Thus, in the stories of the present time we find the opposition “intellectuals – common people”, but in historical stories uneducated common people are opposed by Confucians (nhà nho), representatives of educated class typical of traditional Vietnam. At the same time, in a number of stories the “educated – uneducated” opposition has been transformed into the “public person (con người xã hội) – natural person” (con người tự nhiên) opposition. Once again this confirms the conclusion that hostility to educated people is one of obvious ideological dominants being the conceptual base of the writer’s work.