From Dramatic Text to Educational Stage: An Ethical–Performative Approach to Luu Quang Vu’s The Soul of Truong Ba, The Butcher’s Body

Abstract

This study explores how ethical and personal development can be integrated into literature education in Vietnamese secondary schools. While dramatic texts are often treated as to literary analysis, this research consider them as performative ethical spaces where students both interpret and embody values. The aim is to demonstrate how drama can foster moral reflection, empathy, and civic responsibility alongside linguistic and literary skills. Methodologically, the study combines textual analysis of Truong Ba’s Soul in the Butcher’s Body (Luu Quang Vu) with perspective from performance studies (Fischer-Lichte, Boal), ethical literary criticism (Nussbaum, Rosenblatt), and discourse theory (Foucault, Hall, Fairclough). It also incorporates classroom observations and small-scale dramatization to illustrate how students confront ethical dilemmas and cultural values through performance. The results demonstrate that dramatization transforms the text from a static object of analysis into a dynamic site of ethical inquiry, aesthetic imagination, and dialogic interaction. Students develop critical thinking as well as reflective abilities as ethical and cultural agents. The study therefore suggests a pedagogical move from interpretation-based instruction to experience-based learning and demonstrates the value of drama education in competency-based reform. At the same time, the research expands the significance of literary studies by showing that drama is not merely a text for analysis but also a performative ethical space in which cultural and social values are negotiated and reconstituted. On this basis, it proposes “Repositioning Drama Education: From Literary Text to Ethical Performance Space” as a theoretical contribution to both literary research and a practical approach to teaching.