Table of contentsIntroductionDiary of a Madman by Lu Xun: summary and analysisConclusionWork cited:IntroductionLu modern literature, had a great impact on the new culture movement between the 1910s and 1920s. He published numerous works such as short stories, essays and poems. His essays often contain socialist ideas in order to persuade and encourage the audience, and his depictions of characters in short stories reflect the reality of society, showing its criticism and sympathy towards the state. For example, “The Diary of a Madman” revealed the fact that the ideology of family system ethics in traditional Chinese society should be abandoned. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayLu Xun's Diary of a Madman: Summary and Analysis“Diary of a Madman” is the story of a madman who writes in a journal over a period of time; explaining the people of his town and how obscure they were. When you start diving into the story, people believe he's crazy because he won't admit to the hellish idea of ​​eating the people around him and being a cannibal. As he struggles to explain to his family that cannibalism is something that can be stopped. Which, in turn, would allow the city's residents to not feel like they're always someone else's meal. At the end of the story, the narrator tells the reader that the madman is now waiting for a government position. In this story, the reader is able to engage in all the emotions and feel disoriented by the madman's diary through the tone and format of the story. , and dramatic irony giving sympathy to the madman. The author Lu Xun wrote this story in diary form and changed the normal story format, affecting the way the reader normally reads a story. Being able to hear the madman's thoughts through writing really shows how he feels and his emotions about certain things. The advantage of having it in journal form is being able to write in the first person. When the author is able to write in the first person, it allows the reader to feel more connected with the character. Additionally, the reader may get the impression that the story is not fiction. What this story is not; it is clearly fiction. This is due to the use of its writing format. When you have journal entries from the madman, the reader feels like he actually exists. The purpose of this is to make the reader imagine what is happening around the madman. The reader can feel what it is like to be in the madman's body and see what he sees throughout his journey. A key example of why writing the madman's stories in a journal is the way it makes you feel like you are inside the madman's head. You are able to think like a madman and understand what his thought process is through his experiences. This helps the reader develop a connection with the madman and not see him as a madman like everyone else. The author does a good job of not really revealing why the fool is disliked and why everyone is looking at him. This allows the reader to form their own opinion about the madman before finding out everything else about him. When the author first talks about the madman describing why everyone thinks he is crazy, it allows the reader to become emotionally attached to the madman before knowing what everyone thought of him. This allowed the reader to feel sad or angry when someone else spoke ill of the madman. Several times the reader was able to deduce how crazy the madman wasbecause we got to see his erratic thought process. As the madman tells his story through his journals, he conveys a very serious tone to the audience. As the madman makes these entries, his interaction with these people are very serious with him. The fool even writes about the way the dog looked at him. The fool points out how much the dog must hate him at the end of each journal for about two journal entries. The fool focuses so much on how much the dog doesn't like him. The madman even goes so far as to say that since his master is a cannibal, the dog is also a cannibal. The Fool tends to focus more on the little things that don't matter to anyone, but he is very affected by the little things. The madman has a long conversation with his brother and the people of the house about how they can stop being cannibals. The fool goes on to say that everyone can be different with different beliefs. He also says that the townspeople can eat something else instead of eating people. This would cause the townspeople to stop thinking of others as food and treat them as friends. The madman is also very worried about saving the children. The last sentence of the story says “Save the children” (Puncher 1246). The madman was so worried about saving the children because of his dead little sister and all the other little children who will grow up like their parents. The use of descriptive diction affects the tone of the madman depicted throughout the story, making the reader understand how crazy the madman truly is. The way the madman describes these people makes you feel like these people are like animals. For example, he writes: “The one who looked the meanest of all parted his lips wide and actually smiled at me. A shiver ran through me from the top of my head to the tips of my toes, as I realized that this meant they already had a well-deployed henchman there and were ready to strike. » The madman was afraid of people because they smiled at him. . The fool took this as a threat rather than a kind gesture. The way the fool described this person's smile in such a descriptive way makes it easier to imagine the person in the reader's head. The way he describes the people makes the reader feel like they are in the story and witnessing the people alongside the madman. This makes the reader feel more involved in the story. This helps them understand the story as if it was really happening. This allows them to not have to imagine the chapters, but gives them a very descriptive behavior so that every reader imagines the same thing. However, the dramatic irony shows how irrational the madman is and how far-fetched his beliefs and plots actually were. . The madman said that his brother had most likely eaten his little sister. When these diaries were written in the early 1900s, many children had low life expectancies. The reader can conclude that the sister died because of her health and small size. It is very likely that the little sister was not killed by her brother, but by the poor health of that century. In the 1900s, health was very poor and many people were uneducated in health matters. Doctors didn't know how to treat illnesses. Germ theory was just beginning to emerge and doctors and physicians were just beginning to understand this idea. Many women would have children who died at a young age, forcing them to give birth several times during their lives. Dramatic irony is a literary device that allows the reader to develop a completely different meaning of a concept rather than.