Lu Xun

Lu Xun’s Fictions

A Madman’s Diary, a short story published in New Youth (a progressive journal of that time) in May 1918, had epochal significance, marking the beginning of a brand new literary era. This story attempts to expose the maladies of feudal patriarchy and the feudal code ethics. However, in the novel, Lu Xun doesn’t describe the harms of feudal patriarchy and the oppression borne by the madman in detail, instead he points to the cruel nature of feudal ethics through describing the mad man’s eyes, his derangement and frenzied words. A Madman’s Diary denounces the cannibalistic ethics of feudal society with a most sobering realistic spirit. Artistically, this novel is shaded with subtle symbolism. Before A Madman’s Diary was published, poetry and prose written in the vernacular had already appeared. But it was A Madman’s Diary that contained true revolutionary thought and seamlessly blended a thoroughly anti-feudal spirit and new art forms. A Madman’s Diary is regarded as the first piece of modern Chinese fiction.

Lu Xun’s short stories are brought together in two collections — Call to Arms and Wandering. Call to Arms includes 14 works written between 1918 and 1922. Works in this collection were marked by the strong patriotic and revolutionary passion that prevailed in China during the May 4th Movement. Wandering is made up of 11 stories including The New Year Sacrifice, In the Wine Shop and Soap written in 1924, and The Misanthrope, Regret for the Past, and Divorce written in 1925. Wandering reflects Lu Xun’s spiritual depression in the mid-1920s and his unending search for the truth.

Kong Yiji describes an intellect inflicted by the imperial examination system. The story is written with a laconic and simple structure and in concise language. It castigates the evil of the examination system in trampling and destroying people’s lives. Medicine is another famous short story exposing the life destroying feudal system. It depicts not only the uneducated common people who are devoured by feudal superstition, but also a young revolutionary who is killed by the sword of feudal autocracy. One incident in the story, where Hua Laoshuan buys a bun soaked in martyr’s blood in hope of curing his son’s disease, has become a well-known literary quotation referring to the need for enlightenment.

Lu Xun cares about peasants’ lives very much. Many stories in Call to Arms and Wandering truthfully depict peasants’ tragic lives after the 1911 Revolution. Stormreflects the never-changing rural life after Zhang Xun’s restoration by describing a small disturbance in the boatman Qijin’s family in Luxian County.

Hometown is a short story known to every household in China. Through the author’s first-person witnessing, of especially boyhood friend Runtu’s experience, the story opens up, before reader’s eyes, a fig of the tragic lives led by Chinese peasants in the 1920s. The story points to the countless tragedies peasants were forced to endure due to hunger, too many children, heavy taxes, wars, bandits, corrupt officials and cruel landlords. The author’s sympathy for and concern about the benumbed peasants and their sufferings has stirred generation after generation of readers’ hearts.

The True Story of Ah Q, which is included in Call to Arms, is Lu Xun’s most representative work. The story is set in Chinese society around the 1911 Revolution. The novel, through describing Ah Q’s tragic story of oppression, trying to resist oppression and being killed by the reactionary forces, reveals the class confrontations in the rural areas at that time and criticizes the bourgeoisie’s unthoroughness to and alienation from the masses in leading the 1911 Revolution. The author, on one hand, showed great sympathy for Ah Q’s unfortunate experiences, while on the other hand, expressed anger at his being so easily discouraged. Through criticizing Ah Q’s self-deception, Lu Xun hoped to waken Chinese peasants’ awareness and desire for revolution. The True Story of Ah Q has gained worldwide fame and is one of the greatest works in the history of Chinese literature. Among Lu Xun’s Native fiction,Village Opera is the most exemplary, in its skillful description and praise of the virtues of peasants.

Some works in Wandering deals with peasant women’s fate. The portrait of Mrs. Xianglin in The New Year Sacrifice is again a forceful indictment of the life-destroying feudal code of ethics. Divorce is the last of Lu Xun’s stories that deal with social realities. It reveals, very profoundly, the situation in rural areas after the 1911 Revolution and points out that the fate of peasant women had still not at all changed. In the Wine Shop, Soap and The Misanthrope, in Wandering, reflect intellectuals’ life. Old Tales Retold draws materials from ancient myths and historic stories, greatly broadening the subject matter of Lu Xun’s fiction, and is cherished by many scholars and folklorists. Lu Xun’s fiction embodies a spirit of sober realism.

By learning from the concise, flexible and varied structure of foreign fiction, Lu Xun broke away from the exclusive form of traditional Chinese fiction, which had been written only in chapters, to create a new form for modern Chinese fiction. Therefore, Lu Xun is looked upon as the father of the modem Chinese fiction.