In “Diary of a Madman”, Lu Xun began with an introduction from someone. The introduction gave the readers contents that those were journals about mental illness man. Though the journals, Lu Xun described the madman who suffered from paranoia thought people around him would “eat” him. Lu Xun used metaphor to connect cannibalism to explain a critical issue in society. By using the words “eating” people, the author exposed the nature of Chinese feudal ethical was ignorant.

In the first diary, the madman expressed, he “haven’t [hadn’t] seen it [moonlight] over thirty yeas” (244). It sounded that he talked in nonsense. That was because that it was impossible that human beings had never seen moonlight for three decades years. However, it was a symbol of spiritual awakening for madman. It made readers pay more attention on reading journals in order to know whether the man was actually mad or not. On the other hand, as a human being, the madman was afraid of Zhao family’s dog only when the dog stared at him. This demonstrated that he lived in panic.

Lu Xun used first point of view to describe how panic the madman was when people looked at him because he thought they would “eat” him.  Of course, the fact was that the people did not want to eat him; instead, all of images were his illusions. It expressed the madman’s spirit was destructed. Moreover, madmen described how people “ate” people from Wolf Cub Village by using verbs “beaten”, “gouged” and “fried” (246). It helped the madman infer that those people were cannibals.

As a result, madman stated leafing through history books to find why people “ate” people. He realized that every page educated people should “benevolence, righteousness and morality” (246). However, he began to make out eating people was filled in every simple lines. in addition, madman thought it was a very common thing to “eat” people in the period time. Shizhen Li stated that “fresh can [could] be eaten” and his older brother also explained “exchange [exchanged] children and eat [ate] them”(248). He was not sympathy when “a son, in order to count as a really good person, should slice off a piece of his own flesh, boil it and let them [ill parent] eat it”(252). Instead, he satirized the Chinese people were ignorant. They only followed statements form last generation or history books in order to expose the nature of Chinese feudal ethic was ignorant.

The diaries referred to corrupt Chinese government. Actually, the madman was distinct form others by opposing to “eat” people;  He was a symbol of courage to challenge the traditional secular society and anti- feudal democrat. In third diary, madman described that  “some have worn he cangue on the district magistrate’s order……by creditors” (245). For those people, they did not rise up against people who bullied them, instead they decided to imitate them and bully other people. the madman felt confuse and angry. He cursed cannibals and started with his brother (249). At the end of diaries, the author deeply hoped that there were some children who still had not eaten human flesh and appealed “save the children …”(253).

There was a fact that Chinese people did not have freedom of speech in the period time. However, the author used metaphor to connect cannibalism to explained that human’s spirits were destructed by last generation or history books without an obvious assault on the government.

If you were Lu Xun, how did you express the human’s spirits were destructed by Chinese feudal ethical without an obvious assault on the government?

In “Kabuliwala”, Rahamat treats Mini as his daughter. He makes friend with Mini and gives Mini gifts. At the beginning the narrator does not trust him, and he thinks Rahamat is a traveling seller and he wants to give money to Rahamat, but Rahamat rejects it. After Rahamat goes to prison the narrator and Mini forget hi m quickly. The turn point that changes the narrator’s perspective of Rahamat is that Rahamat visits his home and show him Rahamat’s daughter’s handprint on a paper. The narrator is shocked about this and he suddenly realizes why Rahamat treats Mini so nice and kindly. He finds out that though they come from different social class, they actually are same and equal as a father.

The narrator is not friendly to Rahamat until he sees Rahamat’s daughter’s handprint paper. The family of the narrator is not friendly to Rahamat from beginning to end. Why they don’t feel Rahamat’s love to Mini before he goes in prison? The narrator is a well-born Bengali gentleman, then why he says such ungracious words to Rahamat like “I told you there’s a ceremony in the house… You can’t see anyone else today.” I think it might because that as a well-born man, he actually looks down on a criminal. But after he realizes Rahamat’s sincere emotion, he does not think Rahamat is a criminal or a dry-fruit vendor from Kabul, he just thinks Rahamat is a lovely father. The nice affection of a father can weighs more than the social role.

I think that in this novel Tagore writes two symbolic father figures: the narrator and Rahamat. The narrator is not Mini’s biology father, but he loves Mini so deeply as his own daughter. When Mini asks him different strange questions, he is very patient and tries to give Mini answers, even when he is working on his novel. Rahamat is not Mini’s father, too, he is just a traveling seller, but he always talks with Mini in smile, and he gives Mini gifts and warm regard. After he comes out from the prison, the first thing he does is visit Mini. Rahamat has biology daughter, but he cannot come back to his hometown maybe because of some reasons. Therefore to some extent he treats Mini just as his biology daughter. Though these two fathers come from different class, they pay equal affection to Mini as surrogate father, and they are on the same level as a symbolic father. Tagore may indicate that a lower-class person also has sincere love, and he can be a great father, not only a great biology father but also a great surrogate father. There is always nice emotion in the world, and it is independent of money or social status.