Wandering and Vacillating ─The Religious Dimension of Lu Xun's Works─
| Autor: | Ching-Hsin Yang, 楊靜欣 |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2004 |
| Druh dokumentu: | 學位論文 ; thesis |
| Popis: | 92 The thesis is devoted to analyzing and interpreting Lu Xun’s texts. Based on a close examination of Lu Xun’s ideas on human beings and deity in his works, a further exploration of the religious dimension of the corpus is conducted. Seldom do Lu Xun’s writing directly touch central religious issues, however, the religious implications displayed in the works themselves, that is, the divine-human relationship implicitly expressed therein, are worth consideration. In Lu Xun’s works we are allowed to have a glimpse of the dark side of humanity. They are filled with the judgment that suffering resulted from human folly, which is premised upon a pessimistic attitude to humanity. Even the Creator, out of his own cowardice and impotence, hides himself too facing this reality. This idea then is carried further into metaphysical investigations in Lu’s writings, most evidently in “In the Pale Traces of Blood” in the book Wild Grass. As it is widely-known, Lu Xun devotes his whole life to searching for a “way out”, which either ends in his hope for his progeny, or in despair about himself. In a grand scale, this “way out” refers to a way for the whole nation/race; in the personal dimension, the “way out” means the spiritual liberation of the individual. In his works, scapegoat or warrior figures often emerge, and a faint hope is always rested upon children; darkness, suffering, and mournful dejection constitute the inevitable mood of the works. The texts not only fully exhibit human limitation and self-contradiction, in which humans “strive anyway with the knowledge of futility,” and even the existence of hope is viewed as a question without answer. Thus we can understand the human struggle presented in the works. Moreover, the general atmosphere therein is a sense of an inescapable, huge bondage, as a representation of the extreme predicament of life, which is expressed most fully in the short story “Blessing.” This predicament is usually viewed as a decisive moment, a pre-stage to the understanding of religion and entering faith, as suggested by the saying “The end of human is the beginning of God.” However, the most fascinating characteristic of Lu’s works lies in that while human hopelessness has been fully uttered, there is still no walking toward the divine. Therefore, the religious thinking presented in the texts is not rigid and dogmatic, but ever-changing. Lu Xun does not desire a superstitious faith: he intends to overthrow false gods and break superstition. Therefore, ever in the most impoverished and melancholic period of his life, he still does not comfort himself through any religion, but endlessly search for a way out in a critical and questioning spirit. And this quest never ceases until death. Therefore, the author discovers that there are two situations presented in Lu Xun’s works: one is vacillating between hope and despair, the other is wandering between theistic and atheistic beliefs. Vacillating, a state of hesitating, is a description of the struggle between hope and despair. Wandering is a description of walking to and fro between theism and atheism. This is the main conclusion of the thesis. |
| Databáze: | Networked Digital Library of Theses & Dissertations |
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