Women and Work

Conventionally, women in literature are usually associated with domestic environment, childcare and housework. In our modern time, there have been s number of social changes and it is common nowadays for women to have a job and be financially independent. This subsection will investigate how women are represented in relation to work.

ST: Anyway, I loved working there. It thrilled me to the middle-class marrow of my bourgeois bones. It seemed so decadent and exciting to wake at one in the afternoon every day and go to work at six and finish at twelve and get drunk with the barmen and busboys afterwards. While at home in Ireland my poor mother wept bitter tears at the thought of her daughter with the university education serving hamburgers to pop stars (Keyes 2003, p. 8).

TT: Nhung noi chung toi thich lam о day. Moi thu lam toi me tit, sung suong den tan tuy, cai phan tuy cua dan trung luu, nam ben tiong nhung cai xuong von thoi truong gia cua minh. Thuc day vao ldc mot gio trua, di lam ldc sau gio toi, xong viec ldc nua dem roi tiep theo la Ы ti voi dam pha che ruou va don ban ddng la vua loan lac lai vua sung suong. Trong khi do о Ireland, me toi, toi nghiep, dang cay dang sut sit nghi den canh co con gai duong hoang tot nghiep dai hoc phai phuc vu hambogo cho cac ngoi sao ca nhac (Keyes 2010, p. 12-13).

[But in general I like working here. Everything thrills and excites me to my marrow, the marrow of middle-class people, which lies deep inside my snobbish bone. Waking up at 1 in the afternoon, going to work at 6 in the evening, finishing at midnight and followed by heavy drinking with the barmen and table cleaner is exciting and decadent. Meanwhile in Ireland my mother, poor her, is bitterly crying when thinking about her daughter, who has graduated from university, serving hamburgers to pop stars]

After graduating from university, the heroine decided to come to London, and worked as a waitress in a restaurant. She uses a self-deprecating tone to describe her job, her background and her mother’s reaction to what she does. In the context of Irish society in 1995 it would be unusual for a person with higher education to work as a waitress; this can be understood from the female character’s description of her mother’s bitter tears. Therefore, the heroine has presented herself as a rebellious young woman who decided to do what she really wanted to do, no matter how society would react to her choices. She is also aware of her own decision to work in this kind of job as a waitress and how much of a contrast it forms to her middle-class background, which normally implies working as a professional in a prestigious job. The way she deprecates her background and her job reveals her attitude towards conventional expectations and stereotypes of being a middle-class person. Such representation makes her appear as a strong-willed, independent and risk-taking woman, who puts her personal interest as her top priority, knows what she wants to do and enjoys it. The heroine sees herself as an independent and risk-embracing woman who is aware of her personal values and individual desires. The Vietnamese version renders a similar image of the heroine. The translation emphasises the enjoyment that the female character obtains from working as a waitress, as in the Vietnamese version the work not only thrills but also makes the heroine excited. However, the self-deprecating feature may not appeal to Vietnamese audiences since the social classes in Vietnam were developed on the basis of education and occupation, which consists of the ruling classes, scholarly classes, working classes including both farmers and manual workers, then business or merchant classes while in Western countries the social class system is usually based on birth, financial power, political authority, and sometimes even skin colour. Therefore, the Vietnamese audience may not see the sense of humour in the heroine’s personality.

Both the English and Vietnamese versions promote the image of an energetic, independent and assertive woman who decides what she wants to do in life. Nevertheless, the woman still works in a job with few career prospects and in a way it indicates that careers still remains to be of secondary importance in women’s life in comparison to physical beauty. The gap between two languages, to some extent, lead to some loss in translation, which has a certain influence on the representation of women in English and Vietnamese.