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Maria Isabel Ocampo
Sir Max Pulan
LIT 127.2 – A
29 February 2016
The National Allegory of Lu Xun
Frederic Jameson's "Third-World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capitalism" posits a controversial theory concerning third world literature. He states that "all third-world texts are necessarily, I want to argue, allegorical, and in a very specific way: they are to be read as what I will call national allegories" (69). According to Jameson, while Western texts subscribe to capitalist culture, which is characterized by a split between the public and the private, the political and the libidinal (69). On the other hand, writers from a post-colonial nation produces third-world texts, and these texts, even those that seem to concern only private and psychological matters, have a political dimension to them, creating a national allegory. Jameson discusses a number of examples of national allegories, including Lu Xun's The Real Story of Ah Q and "The Diary of a Madman." While Jameson is able to argue for this theory on third-world literature, and while perhaps his arguments may be sound (at least to Western critics, of whom the essay was written for), his ideas on third-world literature and the national allegory have been contested, especially by Aijaz Ahmad, a fellow Marxist literary critic from India.
In his text "Jameson's Rhetoric of Otherness and the 'National Allegory,'" Ahmad first contests the notion "third-world literature"; to him, the term "third-world" is reductionist as it fails to make a distinction between nationalisms and culture within the third world, and it assumes the role of binary opposite to first-world literature, primarily Western texts (Ahmad 5). The concept of the national allegory then is founded upon a shaky basis. The first world and second world are characterized by their modes of production, namely capitalist and socialist, respectively. On the other hand, the third world is characterized by its experience of imperialism and colonialism (Ahmad 6). This suggests that the third world cannot be located in any mode of production, despite different third world countries utilizing the capitalist and socialist modes of production. If we are to follow Jameson's logic on the generality of the third-world text, the national allegory then, as narrated by the third world, is the same one repeated over and over again.
As mentioned earlier, Jameson utilized Lu Xun's texts in order to demonstrate the national allegory at work, despite the flaws in his theory. Using Ahmad's criticisms against Jameson's text, this paper will reexamine Lu Xun's The Real Story of Ah Q and "The Diary of a Madman." Jameson first presents a psychological analysis of "The Diary of a Madman," but he is able to tie the diarist's neurosis with the social conditions of traditional China: the diarist is a madman for seeing the traditional Chinese people for what they are: cannibals who desperately and ruthlessly devour each other in order to survive (71). He also points to the satirical elements of The Real Story of Ah Q, where Ah Q represents traditional China, and those against him also represent China. Jameson is successful in these analyses, but it is important to take into account Ahmad's criticisms for deepening the reading of these two texts. The paper then will examine both stories within their historical context, and will juxtapose them to Lu Xun's experience in China. By doing this, the paper will back up Jameson's concept of the national allegory only for these texts. To say that all third-world texts are national allegories would be to homogenize third-world literature and culture.
First, it is important to understand the cultural movement surrounding and permeating "The Diary of a Madman" and The Real Story of Ah Q. During the 1910s, China was in decline because of its adherence to tradition and feudal society. European powers began to takeover China through spheres of influence, and the Chinese began to detest this and the Manchu dynasty, whose position remained unaffected (China in 1900). Lu Xun himself was particularly opposed to the traditional Chinese teachings and traditions, especially when his grandfather died of asthma despite being treated with the most expensive of Chinese traditional medicine. Lu Xun became a part of the New Culture Movement, which formed around the May Fourth Movement. The Chinese people protested the ceding of Shangdong Province to Japan, and the European powers found Chinese nationalism to be too heavy a pressure. Because of this, Japan lost support in the conference and Shangdong was returned to China (The New Culture Movement (1910s-20s)). Despite this, the Chinese people began to realize that China remained weak despite its political changes from empire to republic. People who subscribed to the New Culture Movement looked inward for an explanation for China's weakness, and through this reflection, they realized that aspects of Confucian culture were to blame (The New Culture Movement (1910s-20s)). They turned to Western ideas and thought in order to heal the nation.
Through his stories, Lu Xun heavily criticized the Chinese culture. His story "The Diary of a Madman" was published in the New Youth magazine in 1918. As Jameson mentioned in his text, the story is allegorical because on while it appears to present the diary of a man suffering from neurosis, it also speaks volumes about the Chinese people who stick to traditional Chinese values and Confucianism. They become cannibals who feed off of each other in desperation. While the diary ends with the protagonist's message to "save the children," the commentary right before the diary proper lets the reader know that the diarist was healed of his affliction in the mind and took up an official post. The diarist succumbed to the pressures of traditional China, and gave in to society's culture in order to survive. While Jameson explores the allegory, his argument for it being a third-world text is weak. As Ahmad pointed out, the third world according to Jameson is characterized by the experience of imperialism. As Lennin said, "imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism." It would be a mistake to think that the diarist only succumbed to the traditional culture of China because he also succumbed to capitalism in the nation. Perhaps the "national" in "national allegory" means to supplement a text concerning the class struggles of the third world with history and ideals concerning resistance. While this counters the homogeneity of the national allegory in Jameson's text, it still essentializes the third world and third-world literature. This point would perhaps be made clearer with an analysis of The Real Story of Ah Q.
Written after the May Fourth Movement of 1919, The Real Story of Ah Q is a satirical novella aimed at all of Chinese society. Ah Q represents China, particularly Manchu China, with his resiliency and ability to overcome humiliation (Jameson 74). His prosecutors too represent Chinese society; despite its powerlessness, it finds affirmation in bullying others that are weaker. The story also pokes fun at Confucian ideals and Chinese contempt towards the West. Ah Q is characterized by his need to fill social roles, from the very Confucian ideal of having an heir, which led him to attacking Amah Wu, to appearing to be a revolutionary. Eventually, Ah Q was persecuted for a crime he did not commit, and was sentenced to death. Despite this, he still wanted to fill the social role of a convicted man, but he was unable to do so when he failed to pick a song to sing before he died. Indeed, not only him, but also other characters in the story frequently switch social roles in order to survive in Chinese traditional culture. The Real Story of Ah Q comments on the fruitlessness of revolution because of opportunists who have power in society. From this analysis, it is easy to say that the ideas concerning culture and nationalism in China are similar to the ones presented in "The Diary of a Madman." The two stories were about people's private business, but these become politicized when one supplements these texts with Chinese history.
It is easy to argue for the third-world texts to be national allegories when only these two stories are examined. Indeed, Lu Xun paints a picture of China that makes it appear selfish and individualistic, concerned only with fulfilling the roles of traditional Chinese culture. Jameson is not wrong in his analyses of these works, but it is important to note that while the national allegory does exist, these exist within a case-to-case basis. Ahmad points out that "literary texts are produced in highly differentiated, usually very over-determined, contexts of competing ideological and cultural clusters" (23). Ideology is useful for pointing out differences of third world texts, and while some texts can be considered national allegories, they are still not essentially the same. The Buru Quartet could be considered a national allegory because the characters fail to win against the colonial system, so they turn to resistance. On the other hand, Lu Xun's stories satirize the cultural traditions of China, but offer not solution or resistance against these ideals. The national allegory does exist, but it is in no way homogenous, or a qualifier of what can be considered third-world literature.


Works Cited
Ahmad, Aijaz. "Jameson's Rhetoric of Otherness and the 'National Allegory." Social Text 17
(1987): 3-25. Jstor. Web. 26 Feb 2016.
Jameson, Frederic. "Third-World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capitalism." Social
Text 15 (1986): 65-88. Jstor. Web. 26 Feb 2016.
"The New Culture Movement (1910s-20s)." Indiana University Northwest. The Trustees of
Indiana University, 2014. Web. 26 Feb 2016.
Trueman, C.N. "China in 1900." The History Learning Site. The History Learning Site, 26
May 2015. Web. 26 Feb 2016.



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