Diary Of A Drunk Woman

Diary of a Madman, published in 1918, was written by Lu Xun, pen name of Zhou Shuren, who was considered the most important Chinese Modernist writer. The Daydreams of a Drunk Woman, was published in 1960 with a collection of other short stories called Family Ties, written by Clarice Lispector, who went to law-school, and worked as a journalist before becoming a full-time writer. Both of these writers portray a rather dark story, one that focuses on a central character who’s view on the society around them is one where they seem to be the victim, and everyone seems to be out to get them. While Lispector uses heterodiegetic and Xun use autodiegetic narration as the base for their stories, they both share a focus on an individual character, but
Xun’s focus on the individual character, and only the perspective of that character, provides a better interpretation to the reader as to how that character views the outside world.
Diary of a Madman starts out with an introduction that is heterodiegetic, where the narrator explains how he received this diary of a friend who had been diagnosed with some disease, and the only thing that he had changed in the diary were the original names.
This instance of setting up the story as heterodiegetic, rather than autodiegetic, sets a different tone for the reader. Since the readers are given an explanation as to what has happened to this ‘madman’ they have an explanation as to why the diary was written the way it was, rather than being in the unknowing. With this information provided for them, the story takes on a more believable aspect rather than just random ramblings of someone who has gone insane. “Pitch black out. Can’t tell if it’s day or night. The Zhao family’s dog has started barking again/Savage as a lion, timid as a rabbit, crafty as a fox…” (Xun 6), these two lines are dedicated to an entire ‘chapter’ in Diary of a Madman and with the knowledge stated above, the reader can focus on unpacking whatever it is the ‘madman’ is trying to say. Maybe he is referring to the way the people around him are acting, maybe he’s referring to the Zhao family’s dog? Rather than sum this up to a crazy man writing unfollowable thoughts, a reader can try to figure this
out.
Daydreams of a Drunk Woman takes a completely different approach, but sharing the same narration that the introduction of Diary of a Madman uses: heterodiegetic and on some occasions the diary itself: autodiegetic. Rather than set the story up before providing it, Lispector goes right into the story of this woman who seemed to live a world of boredom, and who seemed to be rather grouchy about everything. This story provides a tone that has no concrete explanation, but rather gives the reader a distaste for the main character since her best qualities are complaining about everything, “She suddenly lost her temper. ‘Go to hell … prowling round me like some old tomcat.’” (Lispector 2), excessively drinking “And the green wine from her native Portugal slowly being drained from her glass.”, or just judging other people “Bet you anything she isn’t even married for all the pious look on her face…” (Lispector 4), all of these things make the reader spend less time looking at the minute things in the story but focusing on the bigger picture and how awful this woman is. With this metaphorical wall in place, readers will skip critical reading and go straight to hoping that the end of this book is the characters, much wished for, demise.