Analysis of the Characters Ah Q and Xu Fugui - Essay Example

• Analysis of the Characters Ah Q and Xu Fugui

“The True Story of Ah Q” is one of the most popular episodic novellas that were written by Lu Xun during the year 1922. The book is considered to be a masterpiece of the modern Chinese literature, as it was the first piece of work where the Vernacular Chinese was used in the year 1919 (Guang, "Ah Q-uestion of character"). The main theme of the story was focused on Ah Q, who was a man belonging from a rural peasant family possessing less education and does not have any specific occupation. Ah Q was generally renowned for the spiritual victories and he highly feared the people who are above him in context to power, strength and rank. He perceived himself to be superior in terms of spirituality to the oppressors even though he gave away to their suppression and tyranny (Doll 2-4). The author also exposed the extreme faults of Ah Q as a symptomatic of the national character in China during his time. The ending of the story was with the execution of Ah Q, because of a minor crime that was heart touching.

Similarly, ‘To Live’ is also a popular novel that was written by Yu Hua during the year 1993 (AEMS, 1). The author described in his book regarding the struggle tolerated by the son of a rich landowner after the Chinese Communist Revolution that affected severely on the Chinese society. The author showed a clear contrast between the selfish natures of Xu Fugui before the pre-revolutionary period and his status as a mistreated peasant during the post-revolutionary period (Lovell, "China's conscience"). The overall theme of the story was focused on the struggle born by Xu Fugui in his entire life and possessing the mentality of not giving up at any circumstances, believing that it would become better. Thus, the study concentrates on evaluating the survival value of Chinese poor people and ascertains how they suffer from poverty and misery (AEMS 4).

• Thesis statement. In this study, comparison will be made between the characters of Ah Q and Xu Fugui along with analyzing their living background, personalities, sufferings and their faiths in living standard.
• ANALYSIS OF THE TWO CHARACTERS
• The Character of Ah Q. The prime character of the novel, “The True Story of Ah Q” is Ah Q, who was an odd jobber and a village idler in a village of China named Weichuang. The narrator provided a first person perspective on the limitations of national characters of China as mirrored in the villagers along with Ah Q (Guang, "Ah Q-uestion of character"). The author has also tried to emphasize on the state of revolution that took place in the year 1911, and thereby overcome the feudal elements prevailing in the society. The name Ah Q is a fictional character that has been created by the author Lu Xun in the year 1921 for representing the negative role of the Chinese national character, Guomin Xing. The archaeology of Ah Q is a great attempt to interlink the historical analysis and literary study for exploring the rise of nationalism in China (Doll 2-4). By analyzing the character of Ah Q, it is found that he was highly optimistic and he indulged himself in believing that he got a victory even if he has lost the fight (He 20-25). One of the scenarios in Chapter 2 depicted that Ah Q was beaten for stealing the silver stones when he was gambling (Guang, "Ah Q-uestion of character"). For committing the offence, Ah Q slapped himself in his face and since he was the only individual who was committing the act of slapping, he considered himself as the winner. Moreover, when the proprietor of the village hit Ah Q in a fight, he considered himself important for possessing little association with such renowned person (Guang, "Ah Q-uestion of character"). Although there were certain villagers who suspected that there were no true association between the proprietor and Ah Q, they did not involved in the matters deeply rather provided more respect to Ah Q (Guang, "Ah Q-uestion of character").

By analyzing the background, personal sufferings and personalities of Ah Q, it can be ascertained that he was often close-minded regarding petty aspects. At times when he visited a new town, he heard that the people call a ‘long bench’ as a straight bench, he perceived it to be totally wrong and inferior (Guang, "Ah Q-uestion of character"). There is also a scene provided in the story, which reflected that Ah Q was harassing a nun for making him feel good. He pinched the nun and started blaming all his problems on her. The nearby crowd laughs at the incident of bullying the nun instead of crying out at Ah Q. This showed that the people in the neighborhood were highly influenced by his personality and they knew that Ah Q was not harassing the nun in reality (Doll 2-4). Another major incident descried in the story also depicted the persona sufferings, personality and background of AhQ. With the rise of Xinhai revolution in the town, the people started to rob the houses of rich men and proprietors seeing which Ah Q also wanted to join such people and become revolutionist. On the particular day, he woke up late in the morning and thus lost the opportunity to rob the house of the property owners. However, the police arrested him as scapegoat for committing the offence of looting and thereby sentenced to death (Guang, "Ah Q-uestion of character"). However, being asked to write the confession, Ah Q was unable to write his name and he was provided an option to sign a circle but he was highly worried and confused regarding whether a perfect circle could be drawn. Until his death, Ah Q tried his level best to entertain the nearby crowds through his execution and finally he died after singing a song of one line. Thus, it can be stated that Ah Q highly believed in spiritual victories and he was spiritually superior over the oppressors (Doll 2-4).

• Character of Xu Fugui. The main character of the novel, ‘To Live’ was Xu Fugui, who was a son of an affluent landowner. The author described the struggles, suffering, personalities and faiths of living of Xu Fugui after the Chinese revolution (Lovell, "China's conscience"). He was a hard-core gambler who gave away his family property during gambling. This behavior of Xu Fugui created a long-term suffering to his family members because of which his father died in misery and his wife along with his daughter left him. In the meantime, Chinese civil war was in progress and Fugui was being forced to join the Chinese army. After two years when he returned back home, he found that his mother lost her life due to stroke (Hua 283). Some years later, his son died due to negligence in medical facilities at the time of blood donation. Gradually, his daughter started growing up and married with a man with whom he was happy. However, after a year, she died of dystocia, and Fugui’s wife died of osteomalacia. His son in law lost his life in a construction accident. Moreover, his last grandson lost his life by choking of beans while eating. Ultimately, he purchased an old ox for accompanying him. By analyzing the situation, it can be ascertained that Fugui lost his nearest and dearest ones and there was nothing left for him in the whole world (Lovell, "China's conscience"). However, Fugu never gave up whatever may be the situation arises and he believed in the fact that the situation would get better and he would be able to lead a normal life. Thus, it is evident that throughout the life of Fugu, he was suffering from various uncertain situations and many sufferings, but he was mentally strong enough to tackle the adverse situations (Hsun 7). Moreover, he had an optimistic outlook as he always expected of getting better outcomes irrespective of the situations. By undergoing such hardship and pain, Xu Fugui could not recover himself from the sufferings. For this reason, the word resistance did not existed in Fugui’s mind (AEMS, 5).

COMPARISON OF THE TWO CHARACTERS

Since the inception of the Chinese novels or other literatures, it has purely concentrated on portraying the art, which further expressed the international culture and the Chinese perception towards revolutionary changes as well. In addition, the Chinese literatures since 1930 were concerned on determining the domestic identity and the role of the nation in the world (Wong 2-4). Concentrating on "The True Story of Ah Q", the character Ah Q can be easily compared with the character Xu Fugui of the "To Live", as both have included on the similar concern of the pre-revolutionary society in the particular period. Furthermore, the theme of the novels is revolving around struggling of different classes (He 95-96).

The character of Ah Q in "The True Story of Ah Q" has been portrayed as suffering for poverty and frequently humiliated by other people (Guang, "Ah Q-uestion of character"). The character was described in a sarcastic tone, as he always managed to convert the humiliation into a successful incident. Elaborately, in case people in the village beat him, he assuages pain by reshaping his own thoughts. Ah Q is one of the most celebrated novels of Lu Xun, which represented a neglected farm laborer. Throughout the novel, Ah Q has faced several phases of the society such as humiliations by villagers, executed during the Republican Revolution since the year 1911, and death through decapitation (Guang, "Ah Q-uestion of character"). Through the character, the author tried to represent the negative characteristics of the national character of China. Correspondingly, in the "To Live" Yu Hua has portrayed the scenario of prior to the civil war, when the Chinese was considered as rich. Similarly, the major character of the novel, Xu Fugui was a rich gambler, who failed number of times, and thereby lost his whole property. Consequently, he was forced to live a common live although they are not habituated with this living standard. Yu Hua represented the scenario of Xu Fugui's family due to his irresponsibility and incessant gambling. With the gradual changes in the society, it consistently became more difficult for Fugui and his family to survive in such community. At the beginning, the parents of Fugui died probably due to his irresponsible behavior and afterward he dragged into army during the Civil War of China. With the course of time, Fugui steadily lost all his family members, due to several accidents however; Fugui survived with his grandson and raised him through backbreaking labor (He 20-25).

From the character of Xu Fugui it is apparent that the quality of living standard developed with the advancement of technology as mentioned in the conversion of Fugui and Mantou of having a better and developed society with several new technologies. Based on the scenarios of the novel where Fugui managed to survive with his family happily, however due to the changes during the Civil War he lost his members, it can be affirmed that the happiness of the families disrupted by the communism and erroneous government policies. On the other hand, by concentrating on the character of Ah Q, it can be stated that although the author represented negative characteristic of the Chinese characters, Ah Q was not totally portrayed as a negative character (Guang, "Ah Q-uestion of character"). Furthermore, the character indicated simplicity of the peasants and further the author showed sympathy towards the character as well. Therefore, while Ah Q imaginary victory represented a negative characteristic, Xu Fugui indicated rich person (Lovell, "China's conscience"). However, Ah Q and Xu Fugui both portrayed the negative characteristics of the Chinese Culture as a whole. Together the characters highlighted the common limitations of humanity and issues that can be faced due to communism (Guang, "Ah Q-uestion of character"). Based on analysis of these two characters, it has been revealed that both were dragged into the erroneous government policies or activities. Elaborately, Ah Q was neglected by the people of his village and moved to the city for earning, however to earn more money he represented revolution in front of the village (Guang, "Ah Q-uestion of character"). However, this ended with his life loss. On the other hand, Fugui although lost all his property due to his initial behavior, he managed to live happily with his family when he was dragged into the army during the Civil War. Thus, it can be affirmed that the characters both resemblance to each other in several ways based on which both characters can be easily compared (Doll 2-4).

From different perspective, Ah Q spent most of the time by roaming around the village however; Fugui has his own family and resident (Guang, "Ah Q-uestion of character"). Fugui and his wife consistently concentrated to develop their living standard and enriching the future of their children, whereas Ah Q was not concern of such factors rather he concentrated to earn money and on his spiritual victory (Doll 5; He 15-18). Additionally, "The True Story of Ah Q" portrayed that Ah Q was less concerned about the consequences of his actions as he asked Wu-Ma to sleep with him and as a result he started of being neglected by the village and was forced to move to the city. Correspondingly, "To Live" has further included the similar facts, where Xu Fugui in the initial stage has not concerned about the consequences of his gambling and as a result, his family suffered for the rest of their life by losing all their family property in gambling (Guang, "Ah Q-uestion of character"; He 20-21).

Another common factor that was highlighted in both the novels is the "lack of principle" in the characters, which has revealed in the Chinese culture during the period of Civil War (Guang, "Ah Q-uestion of character"). Neither Ah Q nor Xu Fugui was able to evaluate the moral values and implement decisions accordingly to develop their living standard. Ah Q continued assembling different excuses to avoid the actual fact of humiliation. One of his positive skills was that he could easily adjust in any critical situation therefore instead of protesting on such action he also victimize own self. The author represented the character as double-sidedness of the Chinese culture being tortured and tormented (Guang, "Ah Q-uestion of character"). On the other hand, Xu Fugui faced death of his son and daughter due to which he lost the faith on the communism and expressed optimism for future growth of their grandson by stating that "and life will get better and better" (Hua, 243). Ah Q and Xu Fugui both have been represented as less concerned for future as both the novels started with a careless behavior of individuals and high involvement of communism in the Chinese culture. Ah Q further continuously lied to others to get respect in which the biggest lie was getting involved in the revolutionary army. Furthermore, concentrating on Fugui's life, he lied himself about not believing in the communism due to the suffer he faced by the society and communism (Guang, "Ah Q-uestion of character").

Thus, both the characters included different background, personalities and suffering experiences; however, they have significantly reassembled the characters in different situations. For instance, Ah Q lied to the village that he joined the revolutionary army, which resulted to his death. On the other hand, Fugui concentrated on his family however; he had to move with the army in the Civil War (Hua 240; He 96).

CONCLUSION

It is visible that people often face several survival issues due to the erroneous changes within the culture and society, which led an individual towards an indefinite future. However, individuals’ behavior is also responsible for such changes within the societal context, as Ah Q has no residence whereas Fugui lost his residence or property due to his behavior. Thus, based on the above discussion and comparison of both the characters, it has been apparent that the novels have highlighted the severe condition of the Chinese culture during the year of 1911. Furthermore, absurd and inferior both terms indicated the situation of the main characters Ah Q and Xu Fugui, as they have gained sympathy of the audiences and the author as well. Although "The True Story of Ah Q" has purely concentrated to portray the negative characteristic of the Chinese culture, however "To Live" has included both dimensions such as severe and developed condition of the society with the advancement of technologies. Throughout the history of Chinese literature, the major theme has been highlighted is the change of the Chinese society over time and issues that were faced by people due to such changes during the beginning of the 20th century.