2 tasks,1st 500 words,2nd 750 10 hrs needs get 90+

Short Paper: Dumb Luck Review

Overview: Fiction can be a powerful tool for thinking about world history. In the hands of a skilled author, a novel can reveal much about the time in which it was written, or the time in which it is set (which are potentially two different things).  Through reference to historical events, patterns of behavior, customs, culture, language, social and political dynamics, gender, race, or religious norms, and more, fiction can reveal many dynamics about important themes in world history that other sources cannot.

Goal: Your goal in this assignment is to explore Vu Trong Phung’s novel Dumb Luck and to highlight particular characters, moments, exchanges, ideas, events or themes that tell the reader something interesting about the era in which it was written: 1930s French Indochina. This is a period historians call “late colonialism” in which colonial powers such as France and the Great Britain were attempting to reform colonial rule and institutions in order to sustain their legitimacy against increasingly bitter attack from local reform and anticolonial movements in their colonies. You can highlight anything you want, but as you read and think about the novel, keep a few questions in mind:

1. The main characters in the novel, such as Mr. and Mrs. Civilization or Ms. Deputy Customs Officer are in some ways ‘representative’ of social roles in late colonial society. What are some of these roles, and what does the author’s description of their appearance, language, and behavior tell us about how French colonialism was changing Vietnamese society?

2. Red Haired Xuan and other characters in the novel are constantly grappling with what it means to be “modern” in a society where many people still hold to “traditional” values and practices. What does the novel tell us about how Xuan and others view the ideas “modern” and “modernity.” What practices, views, and values are seen as modern, and which are seen as “old” or “traditional,” and what value is attached to them? To what degree are “modern” and “traditional” stand ins for French and Vietnamese?

3. How does the author portray French colonialism (as mostly evil or benign, corrupt or clean, clumsy or efficient)? How do the characters experience colonialism? What institutions and practices do they associate with it?

4. What does it mean to be both modern and Vietnamese in late-colonial era Vietnam, when French cultural and political dominance seem so profound? Where, if at all, do Vietnamese pride, identity and nationalism show themselves in the novel?

5. What can this novel tell us about the broader experience of living under colonial rule, just a few short years before it would collapse during WWII and then come under sustained assault from anticolonial movements after 1945?

两页，single space，字号12pt, 字体times new roman

交稿时间：美国东时区，周五（2.14）之前