Paradise of the Blind

by

Duong Thu Huong

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Paradise of the Blind: Chapter 5 Summary & Analysis

Summary
Analysis
Que and Hang bring gifts back to Que’s old village, and they tell everyone about their life in the city. On the path to the village, Hang is excited to see a barley sugar vendor. Que tells her that this is the daughter of the woman who used to sell barley in the street when Que herself was little. Hang wonders if, in 10 years, she will live the life of her mother. This thought makes her shiver.
Hang’s visit to Aunt Tam marks the moment in which she starts to truly come of age and become disillusioned with her childhood. Hang later calls her childhood a “paradise,” because afterward she starts to see how it had concealed some of the tragic underpinnings of the society. Thinking about the barley sugar vendor’s daughter, she hopes that she will not fall prey to the same kind of stagnation.
Themes
Beauty, Disillusionment, and Coming of Age Theme Icon
Quotes
Que and Hang then go to Aunt Tam’s, which has an extravagant courtyard leading up to a modern house. There are large gardens and several outbuildings. An old woman, Madame Dua, who is working in the courtyard says that Tam is expecting them. Aunt Tam answers the door and immediately studies Hang’s face. Hang observes that her hands are knobby and rough. Tam says, “She’s a drop of his blood. My niece,” and starts to cry. She then invites Que and Hang into the house.
Hang’s introduction to Aunt Tam is emblematic of the dynamic between them for the rest of the book. Aunt Tam does not see or love Hang for herself—rather, she only sees Hang as a connection to her lost brother and the heir to their family. Aunt Tam will subsequently spend the rest of her life supporting Hang in whatever way she can, but Hang frequently feels these gestures to be more about Aunt Tam’s own desire to flaunt her wealth and support her family than about genuine love for Hang.
Themes
Traditional Values and Sacrifice Theme Icon
Love and Wealth Theme Icon
Quotes
The inside of the house is just as extravagant as the outside, and Hang is hesitant even to sit down. Aunt Tam offers them a spread of food that rivals a Tet feast: chicken, pâté, spring rolls, salads, and vegetable dishes. She raises a toast to Hang, calling on their ancestors to defend and support Hang’s destiny. Aunt Tam says that she is pleased that she and Ton will not have lived in vain, now that she has someone who can carry on the family line.
Just as Duong ties food and love together when Uncle Chinh visits Que, the same dynamic plays out when Que and Hang visit Aunt Tam. Food becomes not only a show of wealth but also an expression of love for these women toward their families. And again, Tam’s assertion that Hang can now carry on the family line illustrates how Tam thinks about her only in terms of the family line.
Themes
Traditional Values and Sacrifice Theme Icon
Love and Wealth Theme Icon
Night settles, and Hang hears the sounds of the villages, smells the aromas of the food cooking in neighboring houses, and senses the purity of the peaceful countryside. She thinks that in the morning, however, it will just seem like ancient swampland again.
Duong continues to convey the relationship between beauty and poverty. Even though there are moments in which the beauty is able to shine, Hang acknowledges that a majority of the time, beauty is stifled by the poverty of the town.
Themes
Beauty, Disillusionment, and Coming of Age Theme Icon
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Aunt Tam, Que, and Hang go outside for tea in the courtyard and talk about how Aunt Tam began rebuilding the house five years ago. Aunt Tam speaks about how during land reform, they cut the house in half for Bich and Nan. They gave her a hut next to the temple, leaving her only a few acres of “wasteland.” Tam recounts that she thought about suicide but believed that it would be too cowardly. So she sold the only two dresses that she had left for two baskets of potatoes and started to work on other people’s rice paddies in exchange for their help on her own.
The injustice of the Communist Party against Aunt Tam becomes even more evident here. Her home is given to people who are notorious for being lazy, while she, an incredibly hard-working person, is given a piece of “wasteland” to live off of. As Hang had pointed out earlier, farmers are incredibly dedicated to their work, and the fact that the house falls into complete disarray speaks to the disorganization of the land reform.
Themes
Communism, Hypocrisy, and Corruption Theme Icon
Aunt Tam continues her story: she worked as hired labor in the village and gradually learned how to make duckweed into flour and noodles. She invented a machine that would grind the duckweed, which she could buy for nothing and sell for a lot more. She says that she kept every penny she earned in her belt and slept with a knife under her neck. Eventually, with the money she earned from the noodle business, she cultivated her paddy to be the nicest in the village.
Ironically, Aunt Tam’s hardship pushes her even further away from communist ideology. She demonstrates how through incredible hard work and ingenuity, she can still rise from extreme poverty and become more prosperous than anyone else in the village.
Themes
Communism, Hypocrisy, and Corruption Theme Icon
Aunt Tam then recounts how a little over a year after being kicked out of her home, the Rectification of Errors returned her house to her—though they could not bring back Nhieu or Ton. The house was missing bricks from the walls, and animals ran wild all over it. They had sold the tiles and the antiques in the house. Aunt Tam cleaned the house for three days straight and then set up her noodle business.
Duong again returns to the Rectification of Errors to highlight both the ineffectiveness of the land reform campaign and the injustice that it wrought. The Party acknowledges their mistakes, but they have done irreparable damage to families like Tam’s.
Themes
Communism, Hypocrisy, and Corruption Theme Icon
Aunt Tam confesses that before the land reform, she never wanted to make a fortune—she only loved working. But from then on, she became obsessed with getting rich and worked constantly. She wants to renovate the house again and make it even more beautiful. She acknowledges that people say she is extravagant, but she says that the house is an offering to herself as a memorial of her suffering.
Duong again emphasizes how the Communist Party’s policies actually pushed people like Aunt Tam further away from adopting them: now, Aunt Tam wants to earn as much wealth as possible. Though she does not exploit the workers in her home, the wealth inequality between her and the other villagers is stark.
Themes
Communism, Hypocrisy, and Corruption Theme Icon
Quotes
Aunt Tam tells Hang and Que that Bich and Nan now live on the edge of the village and are decaying in their poverty. She then asks where Uncle Chinh is, and Que replies that he visited for the first time in nine years the previous month. Aunt Tam criticizes him for leading the land reform, but Que tries to defend him by saying that he was obeying orders.
Duong again uses the contrast between Bich, Nan, and Aunt Tam to emphasize the disarray of North Vietnam’s policies at this time. Despite the fact that Bich and Nan were elevated by land reform, in the end they are still left in complete poverty.
Themes
Communism, Hypocrisy, and Corruption Theme Icon
Aunt Tam then asks if Que knows how Ton died. Que says that she heard he died of malaria. Aunt Tam tells her the truth: he asked his wife in the Muong village for permission to come to town and help Que with Hang, but she refused. In shame and despair, he committed suicide by drowning himself. Aunt Tam says that if Uncle Chinh hadn’t persecuted Ton, this would never have happened. Both women start to cry. Hang watches, silent. She recognizes how the past poisoned Aunt Tam’s life, leaving her only with a desire for vengeance.
Uncle Chinh’s persecution of Ton also trickles into the heart of the conflict between Aunt Tam and Que through the rest of the book. Both women feel that they need to put their family members above all else. For Que, this means supporting Uncle Chinh in whatever way she can, even though he persecuted her husband. This is horrific to Aunt Tam, however, who argues that Uncle Chinh’s actions led to the death of her brother.
Themes
Traditional Values and Sacrifice Theme Icon
Presently, on the train, Hang observes as passengers fall asleep around her. She watches out the window and recalls her first winter day in Russia. She had stayed awake for six hours just to watch the snow fall. Light had made the snow sparkle, delicate and light like a dream from childhood. She describes how this beauty felt deeply sorrowful. Hang then recalls experiencing the same sensation as a girl, when her mother had taken her on a trip to a beach. It was a serene place with green water and intricate caves. She says that she’ll never know why the landscape’s beauty was so painful to her.
Hang’s reaction to the snow and the beach landscape hint at some of her later realizations. When she is young, she appreciates the beauty in the world, but it is only when she is older that she understands why it also makes her sad: the beauty of the landscape stands in direct contrast with the poverty and stagnation of the people within that landscape.
Themes
Beauty, Disillusionment, and Coming of Age Theme Icon
Hang recalls another time in which she had stared at the snow, after she had already lived in Russia for several years. One of her roommates asked who stole the sewing machine under her bed, which had been lent to her the previous day. Hang and her other roommates got defensive, saying they didn’t even know about the sewing machine. They all began to search the apartment, until the sewing machine was found in a drawer—the girl had simply forgotten she had moved it. The girl is upset and ashamed at having been so paranoid. Hang observes that when people lose something precious to them, their values seem to evaporate.
This incident with the sewing machine indicates another kind of disillusionment for Hang, and also for her roommate. They both recognize that when people experience something that pushes them further into poverty, they tend to lose their sense of their ideals and instead resort to paranoia and desperate accusations.
Themes
Beauty, Disillusionment, and Coming of Age Theme Icon
Hang returns to her memory of visiting the village for the first time. She and Que stay a week before she receives the money for her parents’ house. The next morning, Aunt Tam accompanies them to the ferry, giving them a large basket of provisions and carrying Hang on her back so that she doesn’t get cut by the branches. Hang describes how her aunt sometimes scares her with her intensity. When Que is out of earshot, Aunt Tam confesses to Hang that she is keeping the house and the rice paddies for Hang when she dies. She assures Hang that she can buy anything Hang might need: food, clothing, and medication.
Here Aunt Tam starts to establish her use of food and wealth as gestures of love toward Hang, as she provides Hang with everything she might need. But it is clear that their relationship is based upon the idea that she needs something, or someone, to live for—and Hang is simply her closest direct relative. The fact that Hang doesn’t feel truly loved or supported by Aunt Tam is evidenced in the fact that she actively tries to avoid her, because her love is so intense.
Themes
Communism, Hypocrisy, and Corruption Theme Icon
Before they say goodbye, Aunt Tam gives Hang a pair of antique gold earrings and a pair of rings. Hang confesses that she would be afraid to wear them at home because she might be attacked for them, but Aunt Tam insists that she wear them until she gets home. Hang thinks that they are inappropriate for a nine-year-old, and that there is something menacing about what Aunt Tam is doing, “like throwing flower petals on an abandoned grave.” Que and Hang then board the ferry and head home.
Aunt Tam continues to express her love only through shows of wealth. While Hang appreciates the gestures, she also recognizes that they have little to do with her and more to do with Aunt Tam. Her description that it is like “throwing petals on an abandoned grave” illustrates Hang’s acknowledgement that she is receiving this wealth only because of how she, as Ton’s daughter, links Aunt Tam to her past.
Themes
Love and Wealth Theme Icon
Quotes