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Two Tropes in Lu Xun's Fiction

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Two Tropes in Lu Xun's Fiction TWO TROPES IN LU XUN’S FICTION: THE SICK MAN AND THE CROWD A Thesis submitted to the faculty of San Francisco State University A 5 In partial fulfillment of the requirements for io!(, the Degree ,1 Master of Arts In Humanities by Brian Johnson San Francisco, California May 2016 Copyright by Brian Johnson 2016 CERTIFICATION OF APPROVAL I certify that I have read Two Tropes in Lu Xun ’s Fiction: the Sick Man and the Crowd by Brian Johnson, and that in my opinion this work meets the criteria for approving a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree Master of Art in Humanities at San Francisco State University. Professor of Humanities Laura Garcia-Moreno Ph.D. Associate Professor of Humanities TWO TROPES IN LU XUN’S FICTION: THE SICK MAN AND THE CROWD Brian Johnson San Francisco, California 2016 Lu Xun is considered the most influential modern Chinese writer, likened by many scholars to Tolstoy, Shakespeare and Goethe in both scope and cultural impact. The richness of Lu Xun's writing is predicated upon conflict, symbology and ambivalence. By incorporating both Chinese and European literature, as well as historical and biographical components of Lu Xun's life, this paper discusses two significant themes and characters in Lu Xun's early fiction: the sick man and the crowd. These two tropes figure prominently into his first four stories, all published between 1918 and 1920: "Diary of a Madman," "Medicine," "Tomorrow," and "Kong Yiji." These stories describe Lu Xun's struggle with modern manifestations of Neo-Confucian family and class morality, as well as the aspects of twentieth century modern China that are replacing these mores. I certify that the Abstract is a correct representation of the content of this thesis. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my family and all those who aided in the writing of this thesis. 2 Lu Xun is considered the most influential modern Chinese writer, likened by many scholars to Tolstoy, Shakespeare and Goethe in both scope and cultural impact. The richness of Lu Xun's writing is predicated upon conflict, symbology and ambivalence. To aid in my discussion of Lu Xun’s early fiction, I will incorporate both Chinese and European literature, as well as historical and biographical components of Lu Xun's life. In this paper, I discuss two significant themes and characters in Lu Xun's early fiction: the sick man and the crowd. These two tropes figure prominently into his first four stories, all published between 1918 and 1920: "Diary of a Madman," "Medicine," "Tomorrow," and "Kong Yiji." These stories describe Lu Xun's struggle with modern manifestations of Neo-Confucian family and class morality, as well as the aspects of twentieth century modem China that are replacing these mores. Lu Xun's symbology is a product of the interplay between the character's relationships, their names, vocations, lives and locations, and oftentimes, their deaths. To dissect this at times abstruse symbology, and the conflicts that arise from these symbols, I will use not only texts and ideas that directly influenced Lu Xun, but will also discuss texts outside of Lu Xun's assumed scope of reading that explicate themes in his stories: alienation, isolation, revolution, and death. The texts that have directly influenced Lu Xun are Frederich Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883), Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto (1848) and Leonid Andreev's "Silence" (1900). The texts that deal with similar themes, and which may or may not have had a direct influence on Lu Xun, include Tolstoy's Death o f Ivan Ilych (1886) and Chan and Taoist literature. 3 Sickness in Lu Xun is a dynamic trope. My first attempt to discuss sickness is in Lu Xun's story "Diary of a Madman," in which the sickness results from excessive insight. Classical Chinese essays and travel accounts, as well as Nikolai Gogol's short story "Diary of a Madman,” influenced the form of "Diary of a Madman," a depiction of a man's descent into a madness precipitated by his dawning understanding of the violence inherent in the Neo-Confucian family system. In content, Frederich Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra, a series of parables describing Zarathustra's spiritual ascent, influenced “Diary of a Madman." Both works discuss spiritual evolution by drawing comparisons between humans and animals, as well as children and adults. "Diary of a Madman" compares Neo-Confucian family and class systems to cannibalism, and expostulates against what Lu Xun saw as the negative aspects of Neo-Confucian society, such as subjugation, servility, superstition, and pedantry. In "Diary of a Madman," Lu Xun invests hope in the younger generation because they are not contaminated by these authoritarian collective values that detract from individualism. The May 4th generation's fight against tradition, and belief in the power of the younger generation, was grounded in the major theories of the early twentieth century, primarily the biological ideas of Charles Darwin and the social theories of Karl Marx. By virtue of Lu Xun's irony and habitual ambivalence, "Diary of a Madman" and "Medicine" offer both positive and negative appraisals of modem and Qing dynasty China. In Lu Xun's "Medicine," the motif of sickness shifts to a polemic exposition of both Qing dynasty China and the social reform of the early twentieth century. In 4 "Medicine," a father tries to cure his young son's illness by purchasing a mantou saturated in the blood of a recently-executed revolutionary. The intended prophylaxis fails, however, and in the final scene, the son's mothers visit the graves, which are unexpectedly adorned by flowers. However, where the psychological sickness of "Diary of a Madman" is the result of critiquing Neo-Confucian mores, the physical illness of "Medicine" examines the critique itself, questioning the value and lasting impact of literature and social revolution. The exposition of China in "Medicine" is rooted in a biographical event: Lu Xun watched his father suffer and die as a result of misdiagnosis and mistreatment by traditional doctors. The exposition of social reform manifests in "Medicine" through the symbol of the crow, which I will discuss in terms of Jungian and Taoist literature. The trope of the crowd is the antithesis to the trope of the sick man. Though the sicknesses in "Diary of a Madman" and "Medicine" represent different social ills, the two stories are joined by their discussion of the crowd. Lu Xun's discussion of the crowd in "Diary of a Madman" and "Medicine" is similar to Marx's sociological representations of the crowd: a social group that that is preventing others from achieving a healthy mode of living. In "Diary of a Madman," the main narrator identifies and attempts to spread his awareness of the crowd's sickness, while in "Medicine," the life (and death) of the sick man is inextricably related to the life of a revolutionary. The sick man's struggle in both stories also mirrors the injunctions made by the eponymous character in Thus Spoke Zarathustra: The crowd and its internalized values must be overcome. The spiritual and 5 sociological distinctions between the sick man and the crowd correspond to the differences between Marxism and Nietzschean philosophy. The trope of the crowd returns in the stories "Tomorrow" and "Kong Yiji," in which the most prominent manifestations of the crowd are the patrons of the Universal Prosperity tavern, a common symbolic locale in Lu Xun's early fiction. In "Tomorrow" the crowd is characterized by its nonchalant approach to the sick man's suffering, a dichotomy mirrored and extrapolated upon in The Death o f Ivan Ilych, as we will see in Section 4. In "Kong Yiji," the titular sick man is a unique confluence of characteristics, for he also bears an uncanny resemblance to the crowd that ridicules him. As such, Kong Yiji provides a valuable insight into Lu Xun's perspectives on the crowd and their values. Leo Lee, author of Voices from the Iron House (1987), argues that Lu Xun's multifaceted use of narrative voice and his distinctive use of both third and first person narration qualifies him as a major innovator in modern Chinese literature. Lu Xun's narration styles create links between stories, which in turn allows the reader to see a dialogue between the conflicts in each story. Both "Diary of a Madman" and "Kong Yiji" are primarily written in the first person, and each contains a physically and psychologically tortured sick man, who then dies. Each sick man is at odds with the crowd, but the sick men exist at two ends of a spectrum. In "Diary of a Madman," the sick man is a harbinger of modernity, as evidenced by his insights into the morals of his family and his examination of the past. In "Kong Yiji," the sick man is a product of the past, unable to reconcile his education and his upbringing with the mores of the 6 succeeding generation. The sick man in each story, one representing the past and the other the future, leads a tortured life that culminates in a miserable death, causing the reader to question the value of modernity. "Medicine" and "Tomorrow" are written in the third person, and both concern a son's illness, and the type of help he receives. Where "Diary of a Madman" and "Kong Yiji" examine the sick man, "Medicine" and "Tomorrow" question the values of the crowd. All four stories ask the questions: What are the virtues of conforming to the crowd? What are the virtues of fighting the crowd? Is it possible to create a society founded upon empathetic and genuine relationships? What are the virtues of modernity, and can these virtues be fully realized? What in the past is worth salvaging, and if there is nothing, how can the prior traditions be fully destroyed? Lu Xun's ambivalence, exacerbated by the similarities in narration styles, offers neither answers nor explications - Lu Xun only evokes discomfort and provides possibilities, demanding that the reader interrogate his own values.
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