Lu Xun uses the theme of Cannibalism to elude the problems and corruption of China’s society without the obvious assault on it. In his piece Diary of A Madman, the main character believes that people are trying to eat him and that the world around him is overall being eaten. This notion symbolizes the historical context of China throughout the time. Many people were being oppressed and freedom of speech was limited, thus eating away at peoples rights. Through realism and metaphors, Lu Xun effectively illustrates how Chinese government is oppressing people and with the power of courage, he manages to confront these happenings in his story.

The idea of courage stands as a focal point in The Diary of a Madman. Upon first glance, the narrator is seen as a ‘madman’ and is depicted as someone who lost sight of the real world, claiming that people are going to eat him. However, when closely analyzing the text, we can see that the narrator in fact displayed courage regarding the circumstances. The presence of courage implies that he is the only person that was able to see what is closely happening in the world around him. His courage leads him to be seen as crazy, when in reality, courage exemplifies the problem the people of China lacked around the time. If people were seen as courageous, they were referred to as ‘mad’, which is depicted in this story. Throughout the story, Xun uses the idea of symbolic realism to convey his point. He makes encounters and occurrences seem normal, while denoting an important subject matter that can be seen in everyday middle class lives . On page 250, when Xun begins to yell at the people around him, he is figuratively calling for change within society and begging for the fuedalism in China to stop. In the last line of the story “Save the children..”, Xun is hoping that the children and people of the future will have the courage and learn to stand up against the opression that China was going through at that time. Xun repeatedly mentions “children” in the story signifying his concern for the future generations and what will happen to China.

Similar to Kafka’s The Judgement, Lu Xun is using realism to flesh out the problems within life around that time. Kafka used his story to illustrate the problem within his self and his writer self, while Xun used his story to relate a problem within his slef and the world around him.  Both stories use writing and books as a sense of  a savior. In The Judgment , Kafka uses the letter writing as a catalyst to spur change and confrontation. Similarly, in The Diary of a Madman, Xun uses the Chinese history books to spur the realization and problem the text is trying to elicit. Both authors use literature and writing as a gateway to talk about the main ideas at hand. Furthermore, texts relate to each other in the sense that they use characterization to further their points as well.