A Modest Proposal

p Cannibalism

A Look at the Work of Xun and Swift Your NAME

12 /7 /2007

When Lu Xun and Jonathan Swift wrote about cannibalism in their respective cultures , both did it for political reasons . Xun was expressing his view that the old ways were eating away at the modern man and at a friend 's suggestion , altered the final line of the story to support the Fourth of May Movement and the effort to bring about Chinese Communism even though he himself never joined the Communist Party . Xun was

writing within the context of Chinese culture as cannibalism was practiced in parts of China until the 1800s (Yu 1995 . There is also some evidence that the practice may be continuing in limited forms in some parts of the country , with a 1995 news article in Hong Kong reporting that the practice continued . Swift , on the other hand , was writing the most atrocious thing that he could imagine , completely ironically . It is then easy to point to motivation as the one unifying theme behind Xun 's and Swift 's works and any number of contradictions in the writing , including historical background and style

Xun 's deliberate effort to tie his first published short story , A Madman 's Diary ' to the May Fourth Movement may have been suggested by another supporter of the new China , but even without the final line the story is a tribute to his belief that a modern China , stepping away from feudalism and the previous era was a better thing (Craig 1990 Luxun saw China 's old society as rotten and corrupt . Only after a radical reform , he felt , would the Chinese be able to realize their human potential (Craig 1990 . This theory of Xun 's writing is evident from the beginning in A Madman 's Diary ' In the opening to the story Xun (or the narrator ) claims that the diary is excerpts from the actual diary of a rural friend who had recently suffered an illness . The man is the younger of two brothers whom the narrator had known for 20 years and attended school with (Xun 1918 . Intriguingly , after this initial introduction we do not hear from the narrator again and the remainder of the story is in the narrator 's claim , exactly excerpted from the diary (1918 . Xun himself was 26 when the story was written

Indeed , it seems likely the Xun may then have taken over the role of the madman himself , referring to his teachings by his older brother about the ways of country , including a propensity for cannibalism . He writes of those who oppress the madman , one whom he even identifies by a name which literally translated means Ancient Ways ' in Chinese . As we will discuss later , this is typical of the metaphoric language that Xun uses throughout the work . Whether we identify the madman as Xun himself or not , it is clear that the brother teaching him the traditional ways of China . Xun specifically mentions that the madman 's brother...