Lu Xun Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Lu Xun (1881–1936) is generally acknowledged as China’s greatest twentieth-century author. His sardonic humor, literary skill, and sense of the absurd made him an effective advocate of Chinese nationalism, the rejection of a self-satisfied traditionalism, and the need to embrace a pragmatic program of modernization. Communist leader Mao Zedong was an admirer of Lu Xun, and after Mao’s victory in the Chinese Civil War (1945–1949), Lu Xun became “the chief commander of China’s cultural revolution.” This embrace by political power made him an ambiguous icon of the spirit of political and social criticism.

Born and raised in Shaoxing, Jiangan, as Zhou Zhangshou, Lu Xun belonged to a prominent family in financial decline. This made the less-expensive Westernized educational opportunities afforded by the Jiangan Naval Academy and, later, the School of Mines and Railways attractive educational opportunities for the young man.

During his scientific education from 1898 to 1904, Lu Xun mastered a technical curriculum and became familiar with various Western writers such as John Stuart Mill, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Sir Walter Scott, and evolutionary theorist Thomas Huxley. A hybrid of Darwinism and romantic idealism played a major role in Lu Xun’s concept of nationalism.

Lu Xun studied in Japan from 1902 to 1909, which was important in reinforcing his commitment to nationalism. He initially studied medicine but became disillusioned with that career as he became more and more aware of the spiritual illness he perceived to plague the Chinese nation. Lu Xun prescribed art and literature as the medicine most likely to cure such an ailment of the spirit, and he abandoned medicine for a literary career. During this time, German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra inspired him, which led to Lu Xun penning “On the Power of Mara Poetry” (1908), a creative piece about the power of demonic writers to transform society.

When Lu Xun returned to China, his vision of the transformative artist set the tone for how he would confront the failings of the revolution of 1911 to remedy China’s weakness. Some of his most appreciated short stories, including “A Mad Man’s Diary,” “Medicine,” and “The True Story of Ah-Q,” were written during this turbulent period. His criticism of Chinese tradition as being cannibalistic and his endorsement of pragmatic action made Lu Xun an icon of the sociopolitical May Fourth Movement that began in 1919. He also supported patriotic movements throughout the 1920s, including the May 30 (1925) and March 18 (1927) movements.

Through observing the dynamics of these movements, Lu Xun began to perceive the insufficiency of the creative superman and the forces of evolution to lead to progress in China’s political situation, and he began to explore the usefulness of class struggle as a path to national survival. He engaged in various literary battles that forced him to forge a more solidly Marxist-Leninist identity and developed the political essay as his primary literary art form. The political positions he took during this period, particularly his support of Mao Zedong, would determine his legacy. Lu Xun died in 1936 of tuberculosis.

Despite the fact that he never joined the Chinese Communist Party, Lu Xun became a communist “saint” after his death. His spirit of attack and reform was invoked by Chairman Mao and found similar polemical use by a variety of future political reformers. Recent scholarship has focused on situating Lu Xun in the Confucian tradition of remonstrance, understanding the relation of evolution to his thinking, discerning the meaning of individualism in his thought, and clarifying his relationship with Marxism-Leninism.

Bibliography:

Cheung, Chiu Yee, and Zhao Zhiyang. Lu Xun:The Chinese “Gentle” Nietzsche. Frankfurt, Germany: Peter Lang, 2001.
Mitter, Rana. A Bitter Revolution: China’s Struggle with the Modern World. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Pollard, David. The True Story of Lu Xun. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2003.
Pusey, James Reeve. Lu Xun and Evolution. New York: State University Press of New York, 1998.
Sudduth,Virginia. “Ought We Throw the Confucian Baby out with the Authoritarian Bath Water: A Critical Inquiry into Lu Xun’s Anti Confucian Identity.” In Confucian Cultures of Authority. Edited by Peter D. Hershock and Roger T. Ames, 215–245. New York: State University of New York Press, 2006.

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