This blog post examines Lu Xun’s melancholy and enlightenment consciousness revealed through ‘A Madman’s Diary’, revisiting its meaning from today’s perspective.
Melancholy is the product of knowledge. The more we know, the more we suffer. For we come to know the good, the bad, and even the wrong. For those who seek to change what they know for the better, that suffering only deepens. People dismiss the act of overturning the existing order as ‘madness’. It’s like telling someone who cries out that what is currently taken for granted is not right and must be changed, ‘Are you out of your mind?’ The madman in ‘A Madman’s Diary’ occupies a similar position. He is not a ‘madman’ but a melancholic individual who has come to recognize the corruption of contemporary Chinese society. This melancholy also embodies Lu Xun’s own state, caught between the modern and the contemporary.
Lu Xun’s melancholy leads to enlightenment. Published in May 1918 in the fifth issue of the fourth volume of New Youth, the short story ‘A Madman’s Diary’ is a representative work showing that if society and people do not change, even correct thoughts will be buried as madness. “A Madman’s Diary” is China’s first modern novel to vehemently denounce feudal ethics. It proceeds not in the traditional Chinese literary “third-person narrator format,” but from the “first-person protagonist’s perspective.” This reveals Lu Xun’s intent to transform society and minds through literary creation. The novel employs a prologue with the translator’s preface and the voice of the narrator and diary-keeping protagonist, the ‘Madman’ (hereafter referred to as the protagonist). The protagonist, embodying Lu Xun’s perspective, perceives feudal society as a ‘cannibalistic society’. It is an abnormal society where, within the parent-child relationship, one must prove filial piety by cutting flesh from one’s own thigh; where people fawn over the emperor and even boil their own children to offer them; and where such acts are praised as filial piety and loyalty. In such a society, the protagonist’s diagnosis of ‘paranoia’ and his reality of being treated as a ‘madman’ inevitably carry profound meaning.
The protagonist stands as the sole human being. He is the only one who understands how profoundly the things taken for granted until now have violated humanity and morality. While he acknowledges that kicking Master Gujū’s old sales ledger 2) might have been wrong, he persistently argues that the 4,000-year history of cannibalism, tolerated simply because it has always been done, is far more abnormal and must be changed. He lashes out at his brother, demanding why such inhumane actions are treated so casually. Yet, the sole human is branded mad by a society resistant to change, confined to a study, and slowly isolated. Isolated, the human naturally descends into madness, surrounded by those who offer no understanding. When his final, desperate cry is cruelly ignored and he realizes he too was part of 4,000 years of abnormal feudal society, the protagonist inevitably descends further into madness. This narrative flow strongly conveys Lu Xun’s intent to advocate for change and transform people.
Yet the ending of ‘A Madman’s Diary’ is decidedly ambiguous. Lu Xun, as a thinker and writer, boldly abandoned the modern era and embraced a new age. Yet the protagonist, sharing a similar melancholy, remains entangled in the modern era, exiting with his final cry to save the children. His future in the novel ends simply as the ‘candidate awaiting an official post’ mentioned by the translator in the prologue. But this ending, seemingly open yet closed, instead compels readers to imagine the protagonist’s aftermath. The braille visible beside the final line, “Let’s save the children,” further amplifies this ambiguity. Was the protagonist, frustrated at failing to meet a true person and utterly exhausted, merely dragging his feet when he said “Let’s save the children”? Or did he return to reality with the nuance of resolve, realizing the difficulty and deciding to save the children at least? Or perhaps it’s an ending where he gave up everything and is simply waiting for an official post.
In this way, Lu Xun clearly pinpoints the flaws of traditional feudal society while also giving readers, like the protagonist, the opportunity to reach their own realizations. It is enlightenment through genuine literature, not through manifestos. So, as readers, why not embrace Lu Xun’s melancholy and his enlightened consciousness, add our own interpretations, and try to anticipate the ending? Depending on the ending we envision, we can trace our own thoughts and values. Through this process, we can achieve our own enlightenment.
