Great Works of Literature II

While I was reading “Diary of a Madman” I got the feeling that it had an underlying tone to it. I remember reading in the information about Lu Xun that he was the pioneer for modern Chinese fiction and writing about the traditions set by the Chinese. It tells of Lu Xun seeing a slide depicting a execution and people standing around watching. He was surprised at how apathetic they were. He realizes that “it was their dulled spirits rather than their bodies that were in need of healing.” After reading the story I came to the conclusion that it was a metaphor for the Chinese following traditions without knowing anything other than following tradition. The Narrator of this diary writes about finding evidence of cannibalism throughout history and its acceptance. It occurred to me that even though the narrator was suffering from a mental illness he might be the only person who could see the truth. Tradition was ruining the people because of their unwillingness to change, in this case integrating western traditions with Chinese traditions. Cannibalism in this short story could represent the people’s unwillingness to change with the times and the stubbornness to follow tradition is eating them up keeping them from accepting these changes. The narrator sums it up with, “You can change, You can change from the bottom of your hearts!…You ought to know that in future they’re not goin to allow cannibalism in the world anymore. If you don’t change, you’re going to devour each other anyway…”

This is the slide that mad Lu Xun realize it was the dulled spirits rather than the bodies of the people that needed healing