A Close Reading of “Diary of A Madman” by Fei Wang

The “Diary of a Madman” was written by Lu Xun in 20^th century. Lu Xun is the pen name. His real name is Zhou Shuren. This short story was the first writing in vernacular Chinese and inspired the later culture movements. Lu Xun was the most important person in the history of modern Chinese literature. When he was young, he changed majors for many times. His father died from cancer. It influenced that he chose to be a doctor to save more people like his father. However, later he changed to be a writer. He realized that Chinese are lack of national spirit. So he started to use his literature to wake up the apathetic Chinese people. As the metaphor of “an iron room” in the preface, Lu Xun indicated the importance of “hope” for the people (Lu Xun, 27).

I read the “Diary of a Madman” when I was middle school.  After 10 years, I read the short story again. I discovered a lot of new things. This may because I learned more history knowledge to understand the story. The “Diary of a Madman” has two first person narrators. The beginning of the story was narrated by the author’s friend. The main story was narrated by the author. The short story narrates a madman sees people eat people in his village. He gets fears from these people. He is afraid that he would be eaten by these people. At the same time, every one seems afraid of him, but everyone still has cannibalistic idea on him, including his brother. In the whole story, the madman shows his madness, fears and hope to the society.

Who is the “Madman” in the story? I think  the madman is Lu Xun. He uses metaphor style writing the story. He criticizes the feudal traditional Chinese culture through the character of Madman. There are several interesting parts in the article. In the beginning, the madman said he hasn’t seen the nice moonlight “in over thirty years”(Lu Xun, 29). However, in the second chapter, he wrote, “No moonlight at all tonight-something’s not quite right”(Lu Xun, 30). In my opinion, moonlight here is not the natural moon. The Moonlight represents the people’s eye expression. Besides, in this story, the madman may be paranoid. There is an example could explain that he is paranoid in “Diary of A Madman”, “The meanest looking one of all spread his lips out wide and actually smiled at me! A shiver ran from the top to the tips of my toes, for I realized that meant they already had their henchmen well deployed, and were ready to strike” (Lu Xun, 30).  He fantasies others will eat him any time.

In the story, Madman found the sentence, “ There are no dates in this history, but scrawled this way that across every page were the words BENEVOLENCE, RIGHTEOUSNESS, and MORALITY” on the book. However, he also found s “EAT PEOPLE” between the lines. (Lu Xun, 32) In the chapter, the author also wrote other examples about eating people. This means that long-term feudal ethics and rites destroyed people’s thoughts.

I am impressive of the end.  “Maybe there are some children around who still haven’t eaten human flesh. Save the children…”(Lu Xun 41). Lu Xun wants these children to be madmen, the people who “speak when you have something to say; speak what you want to say and say in the way you want to say it; speak what is your own and not that of someone else; speak in the language of the time in which you live” (Hu Shi, 362).

Lu Xun criticizes the feudal traditional Chinese culture through the cannibalism story. More of his literatures criticized the reality. Why Lu Xun is so important? Firstly, his literatures affect Chinese people in spiritual aspects. Secondly, Lu Xun was the only person who said the truth at that time.  His literatures still influence people today.

After I read “ Diary of A Madman”, I was thinking about two questions. Firstly, do people still eat people today? In China, people always say this is a people-eaten society. Do you think the “people-eaten” here is the same as the “people-eaten” in the story? In my opinion, I think they are same. No matter in the 20^th century or 2th century, the class system issues still exist.  The higher-class people oppress the lower-class people. Similarly, the lower-class people are jealous to the higher-class people. As Lu Xun wrote in “The True Story of Ah Q”, “be sympathetic with his sufferings, be infuriated at his indifference”(Lu Xun). Besides, increasingly competitions make people aloof.

Secondly, should we be madmen? After I read the story, I define madmen are the people who see the truth; the people who have own thoughts; the people who are open-mind. We need “madman” today. Even though young people are more open-mind than elders today, the young people are not madmen. The young people are open mind because they highly praise the western culture. However, they forget own culture quintessence. I am thinking how to be a madman. I think we should do what we should do. We should know who we are, what we can do. Also, we should love our country and make contributions.

Reference lists:

Wm.Theodore de Bary, Richard Lufrano. Sources of Chinese Tradition second edition.

Volume 2. Form 1600 Through the Twentieth Century.

Lu Xun, 1918. Diary of A Madman. Print