METROPOLIS AS A DISCOURSE: THE CONFIGURATION OF URBAN SPACE IN NGUYỄN VIỆT HÀ'S “THỊ DÂN TIỂU THUYẾT”

Abstract

This article examines Nguyễn Việt Hà’s novel Thị dân tiểu thuyết from a discourse-analytical perspective, combining discourse analysis with Michel Foucault’s concept of heterotopia to highlight the ways in which both the urban subject (thị dân) and urban space are constructed within the literary text. Through two key arguments - the thị dân as an active subject within urban space, and the city as a heterotopic space in the process of discursive construction - the article elucidates the complex interplay between structures of power, memory, and the subject’s processes of construction and self-interpretation. In doing so, it demonstrates how Nguyễn Việt Hà deploys a discourse that reconfigures the notion of Hanoi within the consciousness of the urban citizen. The novel is thus approached as a discursive space in which memory, history, power, and identity are continuously interpreted and restructured.