From Submission to Subversion: A Neo-Marxist Reading of Lan Cao’s Monkey Bridge

Abstract

In Monkey Bridge, Lan Lao draws the attention of the readers towards the victimization of the peasants by the feudalistic culture in Vietnamese and American design of the novel. It is not limited within the interpellation of the individual that is constructed and associated with capitalist society but also represents the revolutionary consciousness in the peasants to secure their inborn rights. Previously, the characters present as demure, docile and suppressed by capitalist ideology. They are restricted beyond the social periphery that they are framed in the name of education, gender, social status, tradition and culture. But as they acknowledge the alienated and indifferences of capitalist then they started to throw out the capitalist rule through political praxis. In the novel Uncle Khan gives a hectare land to Baba Quan taking Tuyet under prostitution. He imposes lots of tax on the peasant. Finally, Baba Quan joins the Vietcong movement and kills his landlord Uncle Khan. At the same time America intervened over Vietnam to overthrow communist rule which has been analyzed as working of capitalist imperialistic ideology. The common theme indicates the journey of the characters from submission to subversion.