Lu Xun (born Zhou Shuren, 25 September 1881 – 19 October 1936) was a major Chinese writer of the 20th century and is often considered to be the founder of modern Chinese literature. His works are known for their politically-rooted angst and bleak depictions of post-Xinhai-Revolution China.
Lu Xun was born in Shaoxing to a wealthy literati family, although their fortunes took a sharp downwards turn after his grandfather was arrested for bribery. In his childhood, he was taught classical Chinese literature, after which he studied in more modern government-funded schools, leaving for further education in Japan in 1902. While there, he published his first writings as well as translations into Chinese, including one of Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon.
Lu Xun's big leap into fame came when he published the short story "Diary of a Madman" in the radical journal New Youth in May 1918. Written in vernacular language instead of Classical Chinese and offering a strong condemnation of traditional Confucianism, the story was a big hit among intellectuals seeking to modernize China.
"Diary of a Madman" was followed by other works of short fiction (such as the novella "The True Story of Ah Q") and various poems, but the majority of Lu Xun's writing consists of often satirical essays on various topics, from politics to literature to reminiscences of his childhood.
Although he never joined the Chinese Communist Party, Lu Xun was a key member of the CCP-affiliated League of Left-Wing Writers. After his death, Mao Zedong called him "the saint of modern China" and in the People's Republic of China, he was elevated into the highest position in the modern Chinese literary canon.
This author's works provide examples of:
- Apocalyptic Log: The trope is Played With in "Diary of a Madman": the prologue claims that the central character recovered from his illness and is alive and well, but the diary itself is written from the perspective of a man who believes he will soon be killed and eaten.
- Can't Get Away with Nuthin': Ah Q gets caught virtually every time he commits a crime, whether it's pretending to be related to a prominent family, stealing, fighting, or participating in a riot.
- Crapsack World: Almost all of his stories take place in settings filled with poverty, injustice, characters who are Too Dumb to Live, opportunists, criminals, vagrants, and other scumbags.
- Dirty Coward: Ah-Q, a vagabond who Lu intended to serve as a representation of China at the time.
- Downer Ending: Occurs frequently, notably in stories like "The True Story of Ah Q", "Diary of a Madman", and "Kong Yiji".
- Failure Is the Only Option: The titular protagonist of the short story "Kong Yiji" is always trying to pass the government exams to become a scholar, but never succeeds.
- Humans Are Bastards: Characters in his stories are frequently heartless and greedy. Even protagonists are not very likable.
- I'm a Humanitarian: The protagonist of "Diary of a Madman" believes that he is surrounded by cannibals.
- Insane Troll Logic: Ah Q manufactures all sorts of crazy excuses to make himself feel better and win "spiritual victories". In one instance, when he gets robbed of his silver, he slaps himself on the face and declares that if he's doing the slapping, he must be winning.
- Interclass Friendship: Explored in "My Old Home": the upper-class protagonist is childhood friends with Runtu, the son of one of his family's tenants, but as they meet each other again as adults the class difference between them makes it impossible for them to continue their friendship.
- Mockumentary: "The True Story of Ah Q" is framed as a biography, starting with an introduction where the narrator recounts his difficulties in deciding what to call the story and the lack of actual info on Ah Q, including what his surname is.
- "Ray of Hope" Ending: While the protagonist and his old pal Runtu are unable to resume their Interclass Friendship in "My Old Home", the end of the story sees Runtu's son and the protagonist's nephew becoming friends, giving the protagonist hope that the rigid class system of Republican China might eventually be dismantled.
- Riddle for the Ages: The exact species of the melon-eating animal called cha in "My Old Home" is left uncertain, since the narrator never sees one and the Chinese character for the creature was made up by the author. (Lu Xun would later claim he learned the word from country folks in Shaoxing and that the animal "might have been a badger".)invoked
- Take That!: Many of Lu Xun's essays contain pointed shots at people he disagreed with. A classic example is when he called his friend Lin Yutang's writings "bric-à-brac for the bourgeoisie" — in a piece for the magazine that Lin was publishing!
- Through the Eyes of Madness: The central conceit of "Diary of a Madman". Either the diarist is suffering from paranoid delusions that make him see evidence of cannibalism everywhere, or he is actually surrounded by people that want to eat him. (Some of the dialogue points towards the first option, but a standard reading is that the latter is metaphorically true: because of his madness, the diarist is able to see the predatory social reality underlying the traditional Confucian rhetoric of benevolence and virtue.)
- Unreliable Narrator: The central character of "Diary of a Madman", due to his insanity. If you interpret his account as true, however, the writer of the story's prologue is one instead for claiming that the diarist recovered from his illness.