Lu Xun and His Cultural Legacy

May Fourth Movement

A Madman’s Diary (1918)

May Fourth MovementMay Fourth Movement

On May 4, 1919, students in Beijing demonstrated against the Chinese government’s humiliating policy toward Japan, resulted in a series of strikes and associated events.

■ Throughout the 1920s, students, activists, and new intellectual leaders promoted an anti-Imperialist campaign and a vast modernization movement to build a new China through intellectual, literary, cultural and social reforms, which were later dubbed as a part of the “May Fourth Movement” or “May Fourth New Cultural Movement.”

Traditional Chinese culture was disparaged as the reason for the country’s “backwardness,” while Western ideas of science and democracy were believed to be the remedy to “save China”.

The official adoption of the vernacular - the spoken language - in writing was one of the most important achievements. It was deemed as the only fit medium for the creation of a living, “modern” Chinese literature.

Beginning in the May Fourth period, various branches of Chinese literature also took new directions. Novel/fiction (xiaoshuo 小説 ) has since become the most popular and prominent literary genre.

May Fourth MovementMay Fourth Movement

The debunking of Chinese (Confucian) tradition entailed an unambiguous construction of Chinese tradition and Western modernity as oppositional dichotomies in cultural terms.

■ Chinaold, pasttraditionalpassive spiritualfeudal, agricultural family based intuitive pessimistic, fatalistic dependent

■ Westnew, present modernactive material democratic, industrial individualistic rational optimistic, progressive independent

May Fourth MovementMay Fourth Movement

Lu Xun and His Writing Lu Xun 魯迅 (1881-1936)

Pen name of Zhou Shuren A leading figure in the May Fourth Movem

ent A founding member of several leftist orga

nizations, including League of Left-Wing Writers, China Freedom League, and League for the Defense of Civil Rights.

His 25 short stories were published in two collections, Calls to Arms/Outcry 呐喊 (1923), and Wandering 彷徨 (1926). A Madman’s Diary was published in New Youth, 1918.

“I felt that medical science was not so important after all. The people of a weak and backward country, however strong and healthy they may be, can only serve to be made examples of, or to witness such futile spectacles; and it doesn’t really matter how many of them die of illness. The most important thing, therefore, was to change their spirit, and since at that time I felt that literature was the best means to this end, I determined to promote a literary movement. ” (P. 4, Reader)

What could have gone through Lu Xun’s mind when he saw the slide picture depicting the execution of a “fellow Chinese” by the Japanese military?

Lu Xun, Preface to the Call to Arms,In Shaoxing Hostel there were three rooms where it was said a woman

had lived who hanged herself on the locust tree in the courtyard.... For some years I stayed here, copying ancient inscriptions....the only visitor to come for an occasional talk was my old friend Chin Hsin-yi. He would put his big portfolio down on the broken table, take off his long gown, and sit facing me, looking as if his heart was still beating fast after braving the dogs....

"I think you might write something...." I understood. They were editing the magazine New Youth, but hitherto there seemed to have been no reaction, favourable or otherwise, and I guessed they must be feeling lonely. However I said:

"Imagine an iron house without windows, absolutely indestructible, with many people fast asleep inside who will soon die of suffocation. But you know since they will die in their sleep, they will not feel the pain of death. Now if you cry aloud to wake a few of the lighter sleepers, making those unfortunate few suffer the agony of irrevocable death, do you think you are doing them a good turn?"

"But if a few awake, you can't say there is no hope of destroying the iron house."

■ What do you think of the story of “an iron room with no windows or doors (p.6, reader)”? What sense of hope or future, if any, does Lu Xun convey?

A Madman’s Diary 1918

How to read a narrative text:

Story ( or Content) is the sequence of events abstracted from their specific telling in the text. In other words: what happens in the story.

Discourse ( or Expression), is the specific telling of a story. In other words: how the story is told.

Narration is the process of producing those words by an agent (narrator) who is responsible for the act of telling the story. It is through the narrator(s) that we are presented not only with the plot but also with the ideas and feelings of the characters.

A Madman’s Diary 1918 What is the type/genre of the text?

First modern short story in Chinese literature What form/structure does it take, and why?

Two-tiered narration: preface and diary Who is telling the story? What kind of language(s) does it use?

Why? Inner narrator and outsider narrator (two first person narrators) Classical Chinese language in preface; Vernacular in the diary Contrast between false yet polite society and insane man’s sanity

For whom the story is written? The poor; peasants; oppressed Chinese people Readership influence symbols and writing style.

Further Thinking

What is the madman criticizing? Is this story about actual cannibalism? What does cannibalism stand for?

Is the madman a cannibal too, perhaps without knowing it? Why does he vomit after eating a dish of fish? What do people do to each other that makes them into cannibals? Are we all cannibals in some respect?

Lu Xun ends the story with the famous line “Save the children.” How is this story connected to the historical situation of Lu Xun's time? Is modern capitalism any better? What about the experience of Chinese and Russian communism? What sort of a society was Lu Xun striving to bring about? How is it possible to "save the children"?

What does his being cured implicate? Is he eaten? If “Dairy of a Madman” is deemed as an example of the “new” Ma

y Fourth literature, then how effective is the story in achieving the goals of the movement?

“Madness is sanity” Madman as a rebel and social critic To expose the cannibalistic feudal society; To condemn the oppressive nature of

Chinese Confucian culture; To provoke patriotism and nationalism; To promote social change; To convert people from "cannibalism" to a

higher level of humanity.

A discourse of modernity or a discourse of madness? – An alternative reading Why does modernity have to be uttered through insanity? Madman’s voice & Lu Xun’s inner voice

First-person narrative suggests an individual power in collective (cannibalistic) society;

“A vertiginous interplay between madness & rationality” The higher fidelity is to madness, the more susceptible the story

to self-deconstruction Kuangren:

a positive & romantic self- address for many subsequent revolutionists.

Individualistic “I” vs. totalization “we” C. R.: a counteraction or a logical culmination of May 4th?