{"id":21,"date":"2022-03-31T18:12:55","date_gmt":"2022-03-31T18:12:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/lotus\/?p=21"},"modified":"2025-11-16T01:30:28","modified_gmt":"2025-11-16T01:30:28","slug":"lu-xuns-critics-of-chinese-feudal-ethics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/lotus\/2022\/03\/31\/lu-xuns-critics-of-chinese-feudal-ethics\/","title":{"rendered":"Lu Xun\u2019s Critics of Chinese Feudal Ethics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Image: Wikipedia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A leading figure of modern Chinese literature, Lu Xun was a Chinese writer, essayist, poet, and literary critic. He was highly acclaimed by the Chinese government after 1949, when the People\u2019s Republic of China was founded, and Mao Zedong was a lifelong admirer of Lu Xun\u2019s writing. According to Lu Xun\u2019s preface to Outcry<\/em>, \u201cImagine an iron house: without windows or doors, utterly indestructible, and full of sound sleepers \u2014 all about to suffocate to death. Let them die in their sleep, and they will feel nothing. Is it right to cry out, to rouse the light sleepers among them, causing them inconsolable agony before they die?\u201d (Lu, 2009, 19). Lu Xun named the book Outcry<\/em> and utilized literature as a means of awakening sleeping Chinese. He argues in My Views of Chastity<\/em> that the soul of Chinese people is degenerate by feudal moral standards, including chastity, (Lu, 1918, 115). Lu Xun\u2019s literary mission as awakening Chinese people manifests itself in the portrayal of tragic character Xianglin\u2019s wife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lu Xun reveals the male superiority concept by disclosing people\u2019s disdain for Xianglin\u2019s wife in Luzhen. The family first accepts Xianglin\u2019s wife as a maid due to her prodigious capacity for work and everyone said that \u201cshe worked better than a man,\u201d (Lu, 2009, 167). However, after knowing that Xianglin\u2019s wife ran away from home, the uncle showed his dislike and the family judged her, without caring about Xianglin\u2019s wife\u2019s worries. The family only cared about other people\u2019s opinions of them in Luzhen, because two other men and a woman forcibly took her away and they did not help. Due to the traditional Chinese feudal mindset, the people in Luzhen did not consider the mother-in-law\u2019s kidnap of Xianglin\u2019s wife as strange, as if the wife is her husband\u2019s personal property and should be inferior. When Xianglin\u2019s wife came back to the family after her second husband and little son were dead, the uncle warned the aunt that Xianglin\u2019s wife could bring her bad luck and \u201cshe must not touch anything to do with the sacrifices, because the ancestors would not touch the food, if it was not ritually clean,\u201d (Lu,172). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Related to Lu Xun\u2019s \u201cMy View on Chastity\u201d, jie<\/em> means that a woman does not remarry or run off with a lover after her husband dies according to moralists, (Lu, 1918, 114). In this case, the traditional moral codes play a large role in people\u2019s disdain for Xianglin\u2019s wife in Luzhen, as she ran off and finally remarried. Lu Xun argued that chastity is not moral because morality should be something required of everyone and be within the reach of everyone, (Lu, 116). Lu Xun\u2019s \u201cNew Year\u2019s sacrifice\u201d addresses the ridiculousness of lowering women\u2019s status in family and society by disclosing Chinese feudal traditions in Luzhen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Furtheremore, Lu Xun uncovers the fatality of traditional feudal mindset to Xianglin\u2019s wife. The conversation between Mrs Liu and Xianglin\u2019s wife signifies the discrimination between a woman to another woman, after Xianglin\u2019s wife was sold to a man: \u201cI don\u2019t believe you\u2026. You must have wanted it in the end,\u201d said Mrs. Liu, (Lu, 175). Although women tend to be more sympathetic to women and stand together in modern perspective, Mrs. Lius\u2019s prejudice and indifference to Xianglin\u2019s wife\u2019s suffering further underscores feudal ethics\u2019 impacts on Chinese people. Mrs. Liu then suggested that Xianglin\u2019s wife pay her dues, go to a temple and buy a threshold to stand in for her body, and then numerous people will stamp over it to punish her for the crime in this life in order to avoid suffering in the after life, (Lu, 175). Her metaphor of Xianglin\u2019s wife\u2019s remarriage as dues and her suggestions of avoiding suffering underline the superstition and rooted beliefs in \u200b\u200bthe masses\u2019 minds, which could hardly be aware of the structure of power. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similar to Lu\u2019s perceptions in \u201cWhat Happens after Nora Leaves Home?<\/em>\u201d, the fact that people in Luzhen were irritated by Xianglin\u2019s wife\u2019s repetitive grievances of losing her son exemplifies how the masses are spectators at a drama. As people in Luzhen remain the same to celebrate the New Year after the tragedy of Xianglin\u2019s wife\u2019s sudden death, these spectators immediately forget the enjoyment of the scene after walking away. Similar to Nora, Xianglin\u2019s wife is simply a puppet of her husband, the mother-in-law, and the family. At the same time, her son is her puppet and the people in Luzhen and Xianglin\u2019s wife are all the puppets of the traditional moral standards. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lu Xun\u2019s sharp and sarcastic words in \u201cNew Year\u2019s sacrifice\u201d aim to disclose the ridiculousness of traditional moral standards in China and then awaken sleeping Chinese. He calls for women as well as the broader masses\u2019 emancipation from feudal ethics. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Author: Iris Guo<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

References:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Lu_Xun <\/a><\/li>
  2. Chen, Janet, Peikai Cheng and Michael Lestz, editors. 2013. The Search for Modern China: A Documentary Collection. New York: W.W. Norton, 2013.<\/li>
  3. Lu Xun. 2017. Jottings under Lamplight. Translated and edited by Eileen Cheng and Kirk Denton. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.<\/li>
  4. Lu Xun. 2009. The Real Story of Ah-Q and Other Tales of China. Translated by Julia Lovell. New York: Penguin.<\/li><\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    A leading figure of modern Chinese literature, Lu Xun was a Chinese writer, essayist, poet, and literary critic. He was highly acclaimed by the Chinese government after 1949, when the People\u2019s Republic of China was founded, and Mao Zedong was a lifelong admirer of Lu Xun\u2019s writing. According to Lu Xun\u2019s preface to Outcry, \u201cImagine an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1825,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2021-2022"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/lotus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/lotus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/lotus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/lotus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1825"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/lotus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/lotus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/lotus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21\/revisions\/22"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/lotus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/lotus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/lotus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}