Lu Xun and His Cultural
Legacy
May Fourth Movement
A Madman’s Diary (1918)
May 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.”
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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”.
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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.
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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 Movement
May Fourth Movement
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The debunking of Chinese (Confucian) tradition entailed an
unambiguous construction of Chinese tradition and Western
modernity as oppositional dichotomies in cultural terms.
■ China
old, past
traditional
passive
spiritual
feudal, agricultural
family based
intuitive
pessimistic, fatalistic
dependent
■ West
new, present
modern
active
material
democratic, industrial
individualistic
rational
optimistic, progressive
independent
Lu Xun and His Writing
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Lu Xun 魯迅 (1881-1936)
 Pen name of Zhou Shuren
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A leading figure in the May Fourth
Movement
A founding member of several leftist
organizations, including League of LeftWing 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.
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?
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“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)
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
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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
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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”
May 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
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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
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“A vertiginous interplay between madness & rationality”
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The higher fidelity is to madness, the more susceptible the story
to self-deconstruction
Kuangren:
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First-person narrative suggests an individual power in collective
(cannibalistic) society;
a positive & romantic self- address for many subsequent
revolutionists.
Individualistic “I” vs. totalization “we”
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C. R.: a counteraction or a logical culmination of May 4th?