Looking back, Lu Xun harnessed that spark to craft a new language for social critique. Diary of a Madman (1918) uses the metaphor of cannibalism to expose feudal cruelty, while The True Story of Ah Q (1921) skewers self-delusion and submission. Aligned with the May Fourth and New Culture movements, he helped popularize vernacular prose, insisting that form must serve emancipation. His collection A Call to Arms (1922) models the progression he advocates: honest outrage at dehumanization, followed by literary invention to awaken readers. In this way, Lu Xun’s art does more than protest; it prototypes new consciousness, suggesting that the first invention after anger is a way of seeing that makes alternative futures imaginable. [...]
