CONSTRUCTED AND CONSTRAINED: REPRESENTATIONS OF WOMEN IN NÔM NARRATIVE POETRY THROUGH THE “MALE GAZE” THEORY

Abstract

Drawing on the “male gaze” theory and feminist criticism, this article examines a corpus of Nom narrative poems (truyện thơ Nôm) centered on the themes of love and marriage to elucidate the construction of female figures through a masculine lens. Utilizing interdisciplinary research methods including statistical classification and structural-systemic analysis, the author decodes linguistic signs describing physical appearance, secluded domestic spaces (khuê các), and the self-expressive discourse of female characters. The findings reveal that women in Nom narrative poems often manifest as “products” of patriarchal ideology: graceful, frail, and melancholic, serving as aesthetic objects or “ornaments” for male-authored literature. Consequently, the study unmasks the manipulative mechanisms of male authors and the inherent gender prejudices within the medieval context. This research not only highlights the passive position of women but also provides a novel approach to gender power relations in medieval Vietnamese literature, offering new insights for contemporary gender studies.