In this blog post, we will examine the anguish of intellectuals and the reality of the common people living through turbulent times through the lens of Lu Xun, a master of modern Chinese literature, and his short story collection ‘Wandering’. We will also reflect on the significance for us today of Lu Xun’s critical perspective—as someone who abandoned medicine to pursue literature—and his passionate cry against the era.
Lu Xun (魯迅) was born on September 25, 1881, in Shaoxing Prefecture, Zhejiang Province, as the eldest son of his father, Zhou Fengyi (周鳳儀), and his mother, Ms. Lu (魯). His given name was Zhou Shuren (周樹人), and his courtesy name was Yucai (豫才). When he was five years old, his younger brother, Zhou Zuoren (周作人), was born, and from the age of seven, he attended private tutoring schools and study halls to study traditional scholarship. Although his family was relatively well-off—owning over 10,000 pyeong of rice paddies—their fortunes began to decline in 1896, when his father passed away as he turned fifteen.
In May 1898, he set aside his traditional studies and went to Nanjing to enroll in the Jiangnan Naval Academy (江南水師學堂). The following year, he transferred to its affiliated school, the Guangwu Mining and Railway Academy (礦務鐵路學堂), and after graduating in January 1902, he traveled to Japan as a government-sponsored student. Believing that medicine had been the driving force behind the Meiji Restoration, he resolved to study medicine. After graduating from the Kōbun Gakuin in April 1904, he left Tokyo in September of the same year to enroll in the Sendai Medical School. Around this time, he joined the revolutionary faction ideologically and was also active in the Guangfu Society (光復會), an anti-Qing revolutionary organization.
In 1906, he was deeply shocked after watching a newsreel during a lecture that depicted the execution of a fellow Korean in China. This experience led him to conclude that awakening the spirit of the people was more urgent than treating physical illness; consequently, he dropped out of Sendai Medical College and turned his attention to literary pursuits. In July of that same year, he briefly returned to Korea to marry Ms. Ju, after which he traveled back to Japan with his younger brother, Zhu Ren, and began his literary career in earnest.
In 1909, he and his younger brother co-translated and published ‘Collection of Overseas Short Stories’ (‘Yuewai Xiaoshuo Ji’), an anthology of short stories from various Eastern European countries. He returned to China in August of that year and taught physiology and chemistry at the Two-Level Normal School in Jiaxing, but resigned shortly thereafter. In November 1911, he was appointed principal of the Shaoxing Normal School, and in December of the same year, he published his early short story ‘Nostalgia’ (‘Huai Jiu’). When the revolutionary government was established in Nanjing in January 1912, he became an official in the Ministry of Education at the request of then-Minister of Education Cai Yuanpei and worked in Beijing; he later served as a deputy magistrate (‘qianshi’).
In 1918, at the age of thirty-eight, he published his first novel, ‘The Diary of a Madman’, in ‘New Youth’, marking the beginning of his full-fledged literary career. The following year, he published ‘Kong Yiji’ and ‘Medicine’, and in 1921, he published ‘Hometown’ and ‘The True Story of Ah Q’, among others. In particular, ‘The Diary of a Madman’ and ‘The True Story of Ah Q’ are regarded as works that sharply depict the realities of Chinese society and the common people, marking a new starting point for modern Chinese literature.
Furthermore, his lecture series ‘A Brief History of Chinese Fiction’, delivered at Peking University during this period, is recognized as a landmark achievement that opened new horizons in the study of Chinese fiction history and continues to be acknowledged for its classic value to this day. Alongside these efforts, he spearheaded literary movements centered on literary groups such as the “Weiming Society” and the “Yusi Society,” and devoted himself to mentoring and nurturing young literary figures.
In 1923, he published his first collection of short stories, ‘The Cry’. However, two years later, when the Beijing Women’s Normal University, where he was employed, was forcibly dissolved, he was dismissed from his position as an assistant professor at the Ministry of Education on the grounds that he had participated in anti-government activities. During this same period, he continued his active creative work, publishing the novels ‘The Loner’ and ‘The Sorrow of Parting’, as well as the collection of literary criticism ‘Hot Wind’.
In 1926, following the warlord government’s bloody suppression of student and civilian protests, he moved to Guangdong via Xiamen.
In 1927, he began teaching at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangdong and published the collection of literary criticism ‘The Grave’ (‘Fen’), but later left the university in protest against the arrest of anti-government students. He subsequently moved to Shanghai, where he lived with Xu Guangping and devoted himself to his literary work. During his time in Shanghai, although he was criticized by the Revolutionary Literature School as a “petty-bourgeois writer,” he in turn sharply criticized their dogmatic attitudes. His ideas and literature were shaped by a sober understanding of reality and a deep concern for the common people. He distanced himself from modernism, which blindly followed the West while turning a blind eye to anti-feudal and anti-colonial realities; at the same time, he devoted considerable attention to deeply understanding and introducing foreign ideas and cultures.
In 1929, at the age of forty-nine, Lu Xun founded the “Zhaohua Society” to introduce modern art forms such as woodcut prints. Alongside his creative work, he devoted himself to introducing foreign literature, putting considerable effort into translating and introducing the works of Plekhanov, Chekhov, Gogol, and others.
In 1936, he published the collection of historical short stories ‘New Tales of Old’. However, beginning in March of that same year, his chronic tuberculosis began to worsen, and he ultimately passed away on October 19 at the age of 56. His remains were interred at Shanghai’s International Cemetery.
Through his tireless writing throughout his life, Lu Xun left behind a vast body of original works and translations. Having achieved literary excellence in both quantity and quality, he is recognized today as the founder of modern Chinese literature. However, what makes him even more remarkable is not only his literary achievements but also his profound ideas and his fierce spirit of social criticism.
He did not turn a blind eye to China’s painful history, the dark inner world of the Chinese people, or the state of modern Chinese society amid upheaval and chaos. Rather, by confronting these realities head-on and incorporating them into his works, he laid bare the Chinese psyche without embellishment or omission. Furthermore, through his writings, he sought to critique the feudal mindset deeply entrenched in Chinese society, reflect the lives and struggles of the people, and chart a course for China’s modernization. In this regard, he was a courageous reformer and thinker ahead of his time.
Consequently, his works are highly regarded not only in China but also worldwide, and even today, they resonate deeply with countless readers and young people.
His literature and thought, which rejected all pretense and were firmly rooted in reality, are preserved and passed down in ‘The Complete Works of Lu Xun’ (1938) and ‘Lu Xun’s Thirty-Year Collection’ (1941).
Lu Xun’s second collection of short stories, ‘Wandering’, was published in 1926 and contains a total of 11 short stories. These works were written between 1924 and 1925 and emerged against the backdrop of a period when the May Fourth Movement was waning. The works realistically reflect the realities of Chinese society in upheaval during the process of modernization and the consciousness of the common people, and are deeply imbued with the author’s critical perspective on Enlightenment thought.
Lu Xun exposed the grim realities of rural society at the time and the feudal order that oppressed women. In ‘Blessing’ and ‘Divorce’, which depict the tragic lives of women, he expressed skepticism and criticism toward feudal society; in ‘In a Tavern’, ‘The Lonely Man’, and ‘Mourning Death’, which portray intellectuals who once harbored ideals but were marginalized by society and fell into ruin, he illustrates the conflict between the era and the individual. Furthermore, through works such as ‘A Happy Family’, ‘Soap’, and ‘Mr. Gao’—which satirize philistine intellectuals who struggle between ideals and reality only to ultimately compromise with reality—and ‘The Spectator’, which criticizes the mentality of onlookers, he did not stop at merely criticizing traditional society; rather, he deeply reflected on the meaning of modernity that the Chinese people sought to attain and urged the awakening of the intellectuals.
Lu Xun was a towering writer who defined an era. Born at a time when China was on the path to decline, he experienced the tumultuous era of the Xinhai Revolution and sharply criticized the ailing society.
To root out the ills of feudal society and save the suffering people, he chose literature over medicine. This was because he believed that spiritual illness was more serious than physical illness. He took up his pen without hesitation to awaken the decaying spirit, and his writings became an intense cry directed at an era that had fallen into silence. It was both the desperate plea of an intellectual who sought to revive a collapsing China and his mission for the times.
