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?
I agree with you that Lu Xun criticizes the feudal code of ethics in “Diary of a Madman”. The Madman thinks that people around him and even his family will eat him, finally he even thinks that he himself eats his younger sister. But I think actually Lu Xun exposes that Chinese feudal family destruct people’s will, not just Chinese government. The madman’s brother , as the head of the family, does not really want to eat the madman. But he has to constraint the rebellious consciousness of the madman according to traditional family ethics. Under the feudal family ethics people have no free will at all, thus the madman reads the history and makes out”the whole volume was filled with a single phrase: EAT PEOPLE!”(246) Overall, you point out the fact that the feudal system constraint people’s freedom and you come up with a good question:)
Refer to your second paragraph, he follows it up by saying “Seeing it today, I feel like a new man.” My interpretation for these lines is that he was been blind for the last three decades because he was also part of Cannibalism and probably has eaten his little sister as well without notice. Now he is no longer blind, he is able to see the truth and the harms of eating people, this awareness causes him to be metal illness and always afraid of other that will eat him as well.
Lu Xun uses the power of literature to illustrate the character(madman) who got harm by cannibal, and exposes the unethical feudal system as a mean to send out the message of rebellion against traditional ethics. Thus, I believe he is a great writer and also a great revolutionist.
I strongly agree that you mentioned Fedulism in your blog post of Diary of Madman. Lu,xun tried to used this Madman to stand a morden views and illustrate a anti-fedulisim.You also mentioned that“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).
I agree with you that Lu, xun used Cannibalism in literary techiniques(metaphor) to shows that people on that society is ignorant. Also, I think Lu,xun’s Diary of Madman is a enlighetenment which tells people that “Just because it’s always been that way, does that it right?”(249) Soceity in China during that time is autocratic. People get use to Fedulism, because they behave in that way in many years. Lu,xun tried to use his pen to wake people up to get out of Fedulism and make a revolution.