Vu Lan season, read heart-touching literature

Literature has many stories and poems about maternal and paternal love that leave a deep impression because parents are the most beloved images associated with everyone's childhood.

The Tale of the Old Man (Nam Cao) and The Ivory Comb (Nguyen Quang Sang) are famous works about father-son love, which have been included in textbooks.

Sharing with Tuoi Tre, Associate Professor Dr. Bui Thanh Truyen, Chairman of the Theory - Criticism Council of the Ho Chi Minh City Writers Association, commented that the topic of family, especially about parents, is the closest, simplest and most sacred topic for the art public. In literature, this is also a creative field with many achievements, leaving a deep impression on readers.

On the occasion of Vu Lan 2025, many writers and critics shared their unforgettable memories of famous literary works about paternal and maternal love.

Touch the heart

The short story Ivory Comb (Nguyen Quang Sang) depicts the father-son relationship that is separated by bombs and bullets of war. The poem Talking to My Child (Y Phuong) is a message from a father hoping his child will inherit and promote the good values ​​of his homeland.

In Lao Hac (Nam Cao), the poor father's greatest wish is to keep the garden for his son to use as capital to do business. No matter how hungry and miserable he is, Lao Hac still thinks of saving for his son first.

As a literature teacher and head of the East Wind Literature Club at Vo Truong Toan Secondary School, Saigon Ward, Ho Chi Minh City, Ms. Doan Xuan Nhung highly appreciates works written about parents, especially those that have been selected as materials in textbooks for both the new and old programs:

"Because the material that makes up the work is the familiar motherly and paternal love. These are images and memories associated with everyone's childhood memories. This is also the reason why they easily capture the hearts of readers, whether adults or children."

Mr. Bui Thanh Truyen said that reading pages written about parents, readers can easily sympathize, easily find great happiness in a return to their roots, childhood, family love and the warmth of the human world... from there, they will have more positive energy to live a more grateful, responsible and complete life.

Philosophy of life with children for life

Totto-chan at the Window by Tetsuko Kuroyanagi is the work with the family sentiment aspect that impressed Mr. Bui Thanh Truyen the most: "As a teacher, I really appreciate this "two in one" role.

In Totto-chan at the Window, Totto-chan's parents are people who love their child deeply and respect her freedom.

Without her mother, her first teacher, who was so loving and considerate, there would be no Tetsuko Kuroyanagi - a famous Japanese writer, actress, TV host and social activist.

For nearly half a century, the work has remained a timely and useful reference for family and school education in many countries around the world, including Vietnam.

During Vu Lan days, the poem "Sitting sadly, missing my mother in the past" by poet Nguyen Duy is often recited and performed in pagodas.

The poem was written by Nguyen Duy in 1986, on the anniversary of his mother's death, who died when the poet was only 3 or 4 years old. He grew up in the arms of his grandmother. The image of "mother" in the work was inspired by Nguyen Duy's grandmother.

According to Nguyen Duy, "mud-dyed skirt, brown-dyed skirt for four seasons" and "mother lulls the way of life/ milk nourishes the body, songs nourish the soul" are the two most "valuable" verses that he is fond of. In his hometown Thanh Hoa , rural women at that time often wore shirts dyed from brown roots, skirts covered in black mud. That image evokes the hard work of mothers and grandmothers that is deeply imprinted in Nguyen Duy's childhood memories.

"When I was little, I often listened to lullabies through folk songs. The older I get, the more I realize that my mother's and grandmother's lullabies contain life philosophies and lessons on how to be a human being that will stay with me forever," Nguyen Duy told Tuoi Tre.

Literature helps us love our parents more.

According to Ms. Doan Xuan Nhung, some young people sometimes lack direct verbal expression of their feelings to their parents:

"Children are still shy because they think they are too familiar with their family. I think literature will help them express their love for their parents through words, text messages, or letters.

Reading literature helps children increase their vocabulary to express emotions to further nurture "existing emotions" as critic Hoai Thanh commented: "Literature gives us emotions we don't have yet, trains us in emotions we already have."

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Lam Lake

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/mua-vu-lan-doc-nhung-ang-van-lay-dong-trai-tim-20250909093335119.htm