Lu Xun (1881-1936)
Modern China's foremost modern writer. First to write in
vernacular Chinese (instead of formal, scholarly Chinese).
Mao Tse-tung on Lu Xun: "The chief commander of China's
cultural revolution, he was not only a great man of letters but a great thinker
and revolutionary."
Family--Confucian scholar-officials. But, they fall on hard
times as father ill through alcohol and opium addiction. Father dies, probably
due to folk remedies given as treatment rather than advanced medicine. Lu Xun
resolves to bring western medicine to China.
Role of Japan. Early on adopted some western technology. Best
place for Chinese intellectuals.
Sent to Japan to study medicine.
"Famous anecdote" of the execution of the
Chinese spy. The soul more in need of healing than the body.
Translation. Jules Verne, Maxim Gorky, other socialist Russian
writers. World Literature. New voices, perspectives, vitality to stagnant tradition.
Literature not only to comment upon society but to actively
change it.
Addressing society's ills through perspective of those who
have become its victims. The personal example illuminates the political.
Thematic in both stories. The necessity to evolve (from the
old order that is fiercely resistant to that evolution).
Idealism of Youth exchanged for complacent resignation to
one's fate or duty.
"Diary of a Madman"
Challenge values of History. Lion Rabbit Fox society. Rejoining normality is
abandonment of "insane" ideas.
1. According to the elder brother, where is the "madman, now that he is
"sound and fit again"?
2. The diarist reads a history book; "across every page were the words
BENEVOLENCE, RIGHTEOUSNESS, and MORALITY" (1686). What is perceived to
be written between the lines?
3. The narrator has a realization about himself in relation to his little sister.
What realization?