Types of Threatening Actions in Critical Realist Literature (1930-1945) and Their Evolution in Contemporary Vietnamese Literature

This study aims to interpret the evolution of threatening actions in Vietnamese literature across two pivotal periods: critical realism (1930-1945) and the contemporary era (post-1986). By employing an interdisciplinary methodology (literary sociology, psychology, economics) to construct a theoretical framework comprising four forms of threat (physical violence, institutional power, economic, and psychological), the paper analyzes and compares representative literary works. The findings reveal a fundamental shift from the tangible, top-down, and externally coercive system of threats in the colonial-feudal society to an intangible, pervasive, and internalized system in the contemporary market society (e.g., competitive pressures, identity crises, loneliness). Theoretically, the study contributes a new, incisive analytical framework for approaching literature. Practically, it offers a profound perspective on how literature reflects core social pressures, helping to understand the anxieties of the Vietnamese people through historical turning points.