The document summarizes Lu Xun's criticism of early 20th century Chinese society and analyzes whether modern China still faces the same issues. Lu Xun depicted Chinese society as living in an "Iron House" with a weak national character and oppressive government that suppressed reform. While China has developed economically, its central government remains authoritarian and corruption is widespread. Modern China also still struggles with issues of national ethics and character that value wealth over empathy seen in Lu Xun's works.

1. Modern China – Its Roots and Faith
Yash Balasaria
Department of History
HIEA 2031
December 10, 2016

2. As the year 1919 approached, China faced an internal crisis as it navigated through the
1912 election, fiscal insolvency, and Japanese foreign pressure amidst World War I. This crisis
prompted Chinese youth and pre-reform intellectuals to levy harsh opinions – lobbying for
radical change to save the Chinese people and nation. Lu Xun, considered as one of China’s
greatest modern writers, demonstrated his pessimistic outlook on Chinese society through his
Iron House analogy. This analogy described a windowless house that housed Chinese individuals
on the brink of eventual suffocation. However, there remained “hope that the iron house may one
day be destroyed.” Through this analogy, Lu Xun critiques the Chinese population in the early1
twentieth century which failed to display a consciousness to wrestle outmoded traditions and an
incoherent, oppressive government. Since Lu Xun’s May Fourth era, China has advanced
economically and politically. Despite this growth, the Iron House analogy continues to accurately
depict modern-day China – seen through journalist Evan Osnos’s reportage. Although China
underwent revolutionary movements between the 1949 Revolution and post-Mao Reform era, the
movements failed to resolve issues that Lu Xun faced such as an oppressive political climate and
weak national character. Instead, modern-day China has replaced these issues with an
increasingly abusive central government and weaker national character due to ineffective
political leadership.
Intellectuals during the May Fourth Movement, such as Lu Xun, believed that China’s
survival in the modern world remained contingent on successfully replacing outmoded
Confucian traditions with modern Western culture. As a result, the ideas of individualism and a
nation began to emerge among the Chinese populace. In particular, Lu Xun became disturbed
Lu Xun, The True Story of Ah Q, 18.1

3. with the Chinese population’s consciousness as he watched a newsreel in which Japanese forces
executed a proposed China spy. During the execution, the surrounding Chinese crowd remained
passive as bystanders. Consequently, Lu Xun began to chastise the May Fourth Era’s Chinese
society’s oppressive socio-political systems and a weak-willed Chinese population.
One of Lu Xun’s most notable works, Dairy of a Madman, describes a paranoid Chinese
man who imagines widespread cannibalism among every individual in his village – including his
family. This story represents a political allegory which critiques the hierarchal, traditional
elements of Confucian China. Throughout the story, the surrounding Chinese village members
consistently ridiculed the madman. This symbolizes a conformist society that treats reform-
oriented individuals and revolutionaries as outcasts – hence drowning individualism out of the
madman. Additionally, the madman’s village represents Chinese society full of gender, socio-
economic, and age hierarchies. For example, Lu Xun describes a scene in which a woman hit her
son and exclaimed, “I’m so hungry, I could eat you!” This anger symbolizes that the Chinese2
elite perceives the Chinese youth as a threat. The elderly dominate the traditional Chinese
hierarchy and abuse their power to continually suppress the youth. Throughout this story,
cannibalism represents a highly hierarchal society where the strong, government officials and the
elderly, consume the weak and youth. The strong continue to reinforce and bolster the iron
house.
Lu Xun’s depiction of the madman’s village as an oppressive, hierarchal political system
is coupled with his critique of the meek Chinese character in his The Real Story of Ah-Q. In The
Real Story of Ah-Q, Lu Xun recounts the story of a Ah-Q, a rural peasant, who remains
Lu Xun, The True Story of Ah Q, 23.2

4. entrenched in a Chinese society that lacks character or morality. Throughout the story, Ah-Q
bullied individuals whom he considered his inferiors. Additionally, Ah-Q consistently
rationalized his humiliations to convince himself that his wealthier counterparts remained
beneath him. Lu Xun attacks these rationalizations as they symbolize China’s attitude of pride
and self-deception as China consistently accepted defeat by foreign nations in the nineteenth and
twentieth century. Additionally, the story contains scenes that display the lack of morality and
national character in Chinese society. One example lies in a scene when Ah-Q harassed a nun as
he blamed her for his misfortunes. He consistently spat at the nun, mocked her proclaimed affairs
with her “lover monk,” and physically harassed her bald head. Ah-Q’s surrounding audience
received his unjust behavior and “roared in laughter.” This Chinese community lacked the3
integrity to confront Ah-Q’s xenophobia and injustice – representing a Chinese society engulfed
in gender hierarchies. In Lu Xun’s views, early twentieth-century Chinese society remained
consumed within traditions, a lack of morality, and a life under an oppressive political system
that suppressed the pro-reform youth and intellectuals.
As China progressed to its present-day form, many revolutionary movements occurred
including the 1949 revolution. In September 1949, Mao Zedong’s Chinese Communist Party
found the People’s Republic of China. Mao’s vision of China revolved around authoritarian
socialism – accomplished through land reform and collectivization. This movement led to the
assembly of collectivized population units to increase agricultural and industrial production. In
1958, Mao initiated the Great Leap Forward to exponentially increase China’s economic and
political growth. However, this failed miserably as it “resulted in the world’s worst famine which
Lu Xun, The True Story of Ah Q, 92.3

5. killed between thirty and forty-five million people” This irresponsible failure led to increased4
insecurity within Mao – simultaneously increasing bureaucratic control and authoritarianism.
Mao “created an ongoing situation that saw honest questioning and disagreements as evidence”
that those “who disagreed were the enemy.” Hence, Mao bolstered and made iron house5
increasingly hostile as the individuals inside withered and continued to remain voiceless in fear.
Mao’s final attempt at political authority, his Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-1969),
aspired to cleanse China of the Four Olds – old ideas, habits, customs, and culture. This radical
revolution directly attacked Western and Confucian ideologies. Throughout the revolution, Mao
proclaimed a direct democracy. However, Mao’s Chinese Revolution resulted in the
subordination of the Chinese population to his overarching ideology. Hence, Mao failed to solve
the Lu Xun’s issues that concerned an oppressive central authority and society. Instead, Mao
denied any possibility of political dissent, a plurality of ideas, or transparency of government –
similarly seen in Mao’s successors’ policies.
Mao’s death in 1976 led to the eventual succession of Deng Xiaoping (in 1978) whom
strengthened the nation through Four Modernizations – emphasizing agriculture, industry,
national defense, and science and technology. Deng Xiaoping intended to catalyze Chinese
market capitalism backed by an authoritarian, socialist state as he firmly believed that China’s
success hinged on “limits on emancipating the [public] mind.” This remained a China, under6
Deng’s leadership, that looked continuously strengthen the barricades around the iron house. As
political oppression continued, China’s economic reforms generated immediate success. Under’s
Osnos, Age of Ambition, 12.4
Schoppa, Revolution and Its Past, 334.5
Osnos, Age of Ambition, 146

6. Deng’s Household Responsibility System, “per capita income in rural areas doubled” from 1978
to 1984. Deng’s motto, “to get rich is glorious” molded Chinese society as it aspired towards7
financial advancement. China continued economic reform with the privatization of state owned8
businesses and creation of special economic zones. China’s advancement led to the increased
flow of Western ideologies. However, China’s central government remained skeptical of Western
thinking and was ready to “let in some mosquitoes and flies… [that] could be easily swatted
down and killed” Hence, Premier Deng’s China continued to exercise control over the presence9
over cultural ideologies – similar to Lu Xun’s China. This post-Mao era China remained one
fueled by the central states’ economic and political interests.
Modern China’s rapid economic advancement and political authoritarianism generated an
environment which cultivated corruption. For example, local governments received increasing
autonomy as the central Chinese state expanded. However, these licenses of power remained
contingent upon strict loyalty to Beijing. For example, the government announced that “local
cadres were duty-bound to ‘remain in unison with central authorities… as their core’ and that
they ‘must… suppress opinions that are opposed to the party’s basic lines.” Hence, the central10
Chinese state implemented insider biases and selections within its political system. The most
notorious example of political corruption occurred in Beijing as the municipal government issued
construction permits in return for bribes. This pity bribery increasingly became a normal trend as
Chinese politicians sought out their own benefit and abandoned common welfare. This example
Schoppa, Revolution and Its Past, 367.7
Schoppa, Revolution and Its Past, 374.8
Schopa, Revolution and Its Past, 373.9
Schoppa, Revolution and Its Past, 381.10

7. displays a China lost in a quest to achieve financial success at the expense of national ethics. As
China continued to grow, it replaced its oppressive government with a new political system
ravaged by severe corruption and abuse of power.
China continued to face rampant corruption, political suppression, and a struggling
national character as it ventured into the twenty-first century – seen through Evan Osnos’ Age of
Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith. Osnos’s narrative outlines that China’s rapid
growth propagated its quest for individualism and materialism. Osnos compares present-day
China to the United States from the Gilded Age. To Osnos, China immersed itself in “corruption,
lack of rule of law, and weakness in the face of corporate monopolies.” This comparison asserts11
that China achieved economic growth, but failed to address political integrity. An example of
Chinese political corruption can be seen in Macau – China’s take on Las Vegas which attracts
business tycoons and Chinese politicians alike. Chinese political officials gambled in Macau
“with public funds and returned empty handed.” This corruption case only describes one of12
many cases widespread in present-day China. It had been estimated that corruption “was costing
China three percent of its gross domestic product – more than the national budget for
education.” This level of corruption is an injustice as Chinese politicians expend public13
resources. Additionally, these offenders seldom received harsh punishments. This lack of
punishment displays a strangling and hypocritical hierarchy which also suppressed characters in
Lu Xun’s stories. While individualism gains traction in present-day China, Osnos continues to
show the Chinese central government’s corrupt and oppressive nature.
Osnos, Age of Ambition, 83.11
Osnos, Age of Ambition,87.12
Osnos, Age of Ambition,87.13

8. The oppressive central authority, present during Lu Xun’s May Fourth era, continues to
permeate Chinese society. The central political authority and Chinese society continue to deviate
in separate paths. Chinese society craves individualism while the central state plunges towards
increasing conservatism. For example, Chinese children recite lines such as “my brain and my
soul, all are exceptional. Nobody speaks or behaves like me, no one before me and no one will
after me. I am the biggest miracle of nature.” This recitation seems ironic as it advocates14
individualism in a socio-political climate that limits freedom of press and speech. For example,
Facebook remains banned in China while Renren, a similar Chinese platform, exists. This
remains the irony that Chinese individuals hold “unprecedented access to technology and
information, but also limited with the Great Firewall, the vast infrastructure… that blocked
politically objectionable content from reaching computers in China.” This political system, that15
censors virtually everything, continues to strengthen an iron house that remains indestructible.
While China restricted its population to absolute social and political freedom, its
population continued to display a lack of national character present in Lu Xun’s The Real Story
of Ah-Q. China’s craze to amass wealth continues to dominate Chinese society. For example, the
expression of “sha ci (‘kill the closest’),” originated in Beijing, means to “take advantage of
those close at hand… to get a foot in the door of the marketplace and steal and march on the
competition.” This saying represents that Chinese society continues to reward those who16
ascend the social hierarchy regardless of the cost – similar to the woman willing to eat her son in
The Real Story of Ah-Q. Another example of China’s national character can be seen in Osnos’
Osnos, Age of Ambition, 41.14
Osnos, Age of Ambition, 109.15
Schoppa, Revolution and Its Past, 376.16

9. story of Hardware City. On October 13, 2011, a van hit a young girl which left the girl severely
injured. The surrounding crowd remained quiet as the girl lied motionless – similar to the
reaction seen on news by Lu Xun. An individual eventually helped the injured girl, but the slow
response displays the weak national character. Zhou Runan, an anthropologist, questioned the
Chinese national character, “in America, an individual is the basis of civil society, but in China,
the collective is breaking down.” Evidently, this present-day China represents a society in17
which a madman or Ah-Q would face little support and empathy. Osnos’s reportage of modern-
China displays success in addressing economic problems, but failure in improving the nation’s
political and social culture.
During the early twentieth century, Lu Xun critiqued the Chinese population through his
Iron House Analogy which encapsulated the Chinese society’s lack of national character and an
oppressive government. As China progressed to its present-day state, many pro-reform
intellectuals and members of the youth continued to hope for the destruction of this Iron House.
While present-day China has achieved tremendous economic advancement, it remains
entrenched within an oppressive government that prevents its citizens from absolute freedoms of
press, speech, and culture. Additionally, the quest for economic success has catalyzed China’s
corruption and the nation’s sense of integrity and ethics. It remains to be seen if China can
overturn its social and political shortcomings to rival its present-day economic prowess.
Osnos, Age of Ambition, 299.17