Dehumanization in Modern Literary Criticism: Under the Ylang-Ylang Tree and A Little Joke

Abstract

This article applies the system of three methods, including literary comparison, structural analysis, and cultural history, to clarify the dehumanization towards sustainable development trend in modern literary criticism, specifically feminist criticism, ecological criticism, and landscape criticism. This trend is characterized by three qualities: the blurring of the central personal sensibility, the connection to the changing context and thinking, and the awareness of the inevitable binding correlation between human and nature. These arguments are experimentally verified through the short stories Under the Shadow of the Ylang-ylang Tree (Thach Lam) and A Little Joke (Anton Chekhov). The research results can be applied to the research and teaching of literary theory, and Vietnamese literature at the university level, and high school level, in line with the direction of the 2018 literature program renewal.