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ROPS Week 16- ‘Cannibalistic’ Culture: Tradition and Persecution in the…
ROPS Week 16- ‘Cannibalistic’ Culture: Tradition and Persecution in the Works of Lu Xun
Literary Significance- 'Father' of modern Chinese literature
Political Significance
Communist acclamation- never denounced
Elevated to the status of ‘national hero’
Grandfather detained in Beijing in 1901- family sent money to Ministry of Punishment
Father critically ill with dropsy/oedema- family pawned belongings to buy medicine
Study in Japan, 1902-9
1904- enrolled at Sendai Medical Academy
Russo-Japanese War (1904-5)
1902- studying western medicine
Lecturers showed images of the conflict
Teacher and Intellectual
1912- position at National Ministry of Education
1917- invited by friend to contribute to radical literary magazine New Youth
1909- teaching at various colleges in China
Confucianism- ideology of imperial China
New Culture Movement, 1915-21- disillusionment and rejection of Confucian tradition
Disillusionment
- failure of Chinese Republic (1911)- Yuan Shikai- imperial restoration (1915-16)
Rejection of Confucian tradition
- vernacular literature- science, freedom, democracy- egalitarianism, emancipation of women
Diary of a Madman (1918)
- a ‘madman’ discovers that Chinese society promotes ‘cannibalism’
Cannibalism as a metaphor for Confucianism
Sustains ‘backward’ customs by encouraging passivity/inaction
Ultimately locked up as a madman
Traditional society destroys the brave- 'eats' those who dare to challenge tradition- recognises superior character of people who kill
Discovers that Confucian books promote cannibalism
Most people uncritically accept tradition out of respect for past
Few who recognise its ‘immoral’ nature remain silent out of fear
Records of the Past
Reports of cannibalism
Crowd mentality- ‘eaters of human flesh’
‘Persecution complex’- believes local people (including children) are against him
Kong Yiji
(1919)- a destitute, but extremely proud and pretentious, Confucian ‘scholar’
The True Story of Ah Q
(1921)- a peasant who overcomes oppression by telling himself he is spiritually superior
Lu Xun’s radicalism classified as ‘liberal’ or ‘Marxist’- less optimistic about darker shades of human psyche- made it more difficult for him to reconcile himself with the masses as well as himself- (
Lung-Kee Sun, ‘To Be or Not to Be “Eaten”: Lu Xun’s Dilemma of Political Engagement’, Modern China, Vol. 12, No. 4 (1986), pp. 459-485
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