Lu Xun the Founding of the Chinese Essay

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Lu Xun

The founding of the Chinese Communist Party was preceded by an influential intellectual movement called the New Culture Movement. Usually dated between 1915 and 1919, the New Culture Movement was headed by Chen Duxiu of Beijing University, as well as Cai Yuanpei, Li Dazhao, Lu Xun, and Hu Shi (Ebrey; "New Culture Movement"). The New Culture Movement provided the theoretical, scholastic, and ideological underpinnings of the subsequent political movements that would come to define 20th century Chinese culture. Writers like Lu Xun captured the prevailing social unrest in his unconventional novel A Madman's Diary. A Madman's Diary uses a grotesque metaphor to capture the self-destructive, primitive, outmoded, and senseless oppression of the Chinese model of feudalism. Written during the warlord period, A Madman's Diary exposes the futility of social conformity to the Confucian value system while suggesting that the only way to evoke change is to appear as the narrator does: like a madman.

Lu Xun's work, as with those of his contemporary scholars, shows how important academic and intellectual input was towards the formation of a uniquely Chinese system of Communism. These were scholars who "had classical educations but began to lead a revolt against Confucian culture," ("New Culture Movement"). Moreover, the intellectuals involved in the New Culture Movement embraced openness, advocating "a new Chinese culture based on global and western standards, especially democracy and science," ("New Culture Movement").

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Ebrey notes that part of the New Culture Movement was the transformation of Chinese discourse and language. A new vernacular language was used in literature like Lu Xun's work. Moreover, Hu Shi, one of Chen Duxiu's followers, felt that the new vernacular language "would unify China," (Ebrey). The new vernacular language represented a new conception of Chinese intellectualism and culture. These were scholars who were steeped in Chinese history and tradition, but who had come to resent their formal training. A "re-examination of Confucian texts and ancient classics using modern textual and critical methods" went hand-in-hand with the new vernacular ("New Culture Movement"). Known as the Doubting Antiquity School, the paradigm shift entailed a vision of China as being part of a global society rather than as the isolated and superior entity that the warlords envisioned.

Literature was a crucial cornerstone of the New Culture Movement. Through the modern vernacular Chinese, it was believed that "the new format allowed people with little education to read texts, articles and books," ("New Culture Movement"). Whereas peasants would have not had access to the means by which to become literate, the new vernacular was intended to create a fully modern, egalitarian Chinese society. The New Culture Movement was idealistic; many of the words included in the new vernacular and in texts….....

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