Save The Children Lu Xun Diary Of A Madman Summary
“Save the Children”: Societal Sickness in Lu Xun’s Diary of a Madman
The New Culture movement was a revolutionary movement in China during the 1920s where many young Chinese intellectuals wanted the government, based on Confucian classics, to be exchanged for a more modern one. Lu Xun being one of these scholars was a major participant in the May the Fourth Movement, “led by a group of young intellectuals who advocated the use of vernacular Chinese in all writing and the repudiation of classical Chinese literature.” (243). The May the Fourth Movement protested China signing the Versailles Treaty in April of 1919. The members of this protest did not just protest the treaty, but they called for the creation of a westernized Chinese culture …show more content…
Cannibalism being the primary symbolic theme in the diary, has some grounding in historical practices. In the famines of the early 1900s the Chinese had become so desperate for food that it is believed that it led to actual cannibalism. This historical context allows for some truth to be seen in the madman’s rantings allowing for the understanding of his paranoia and anxiety. The madman trembles in fear as he comes to the realization that “If they’re capable of eating people, then who’s to say they won’t eat me”( ). This paranoia and madness makes the madman an outcast of society. Throughout the diary he claims to receive stare from strangers around him, and felt as if they “had their heads together whispering about” him. He feared that the members of society who looked down upon him were conspiring his demise. Just as someone who is high up in the hierarchal society may “feed” on the members of society below them. The exclusion of the madman from society allows for the social norms of society to be commented on from the outside looking in. Before the madman had gone insane, being a functional member of society, may have eaten “flesh without knowing it” (252). With this thought, the madman, towards the end of the diary, has an epiphany that perhaps it is not himself he should be worried about. He realizes that his fear for his own well being
The New Culture movement was a revolutionary movement in China during the 1920s where many young Chinese intellectuals wanted the government, based on Confucian classics, to be exchanged for a more modern one. Lu Xun being one of these scholars was a major participant in the May the Fourth Movement, “led by a group of young intellectuals who advocated the use of vernacular Chinese in all writing and the repudiation of classical Chinese literature.” (243). The May the Fourth Movement protested China signing the Versailles Treaty in April of 1919. The members of this protest did not just protest the treaty, but they called for the creation of a westernized Chinese culture …show more content…
Cannibalism being the primary symbolic theme in the diary, has some grounding in historical practices. In the famines of the early 1900s the Chinese had become so desperate for food that it is believed that it led to actual cannibalism. This historical context allows for some truth to be seen in the madman’s rantings allowing for the understanding of his paranoia and anxiety. The madman trembles in fear as he comes to the realization that “If they’re capable of eating people, then who’s to say they won’t eat me”( ). This paranoia and madness makes the madman an outcast of society. Throughout the diary he claims to receive stare from strangers around him, and felt as if they “had their heads together whispering about” him. He feared that the members of society who looked down upon him were conspiring his demise. Just as someone who is high up in the hierarchal society may “feed” on the members of society below them. The exclusion of the madman from society allows for the social norms of society to be commented on from the outside looking in. Before the madman had gone insane, being a functional member of society, may have eaten “flesh without knowing it” (252). With this thought, the madman, towards the end of the diary, has an epiphany that perhaps it is not himself he should be worried about. He realizes that his fear for his own well being