English 32 world literature - Essay Example

The diary is in fact a criticism of the traditional authoritarian ways of society. First of all, the narrator repeatedly mentions that parents pass on their tradition to their children and that this tradition is evil. In Part II, he notices that the children are looking at him with a certain kind of hatred. Now, since these children were not there twenty years ago when he committed a mistake with “Mr. Ku Chiu’s account sheets” (Lu Xun II), he concluded that “they must have learned this [mistake] from their parents!

” (Lu Xun II). That is why they seem to look at him with contempt and hatred. It seems then that the parents of these children must have taught them how to hate and insult others. Through this particular line, the narrator also implies that, in the place where he lives, parents teach the wrong values and practices to their children, like how to insult and criticize other people. He also mentions the same thing in Part VIII when he argues with a twenty-year-old man about the rightness of eating human flesh.

Towards the end of their conversation, he says perhaps with disappointment and fear, “[The young man] must have been taught by his parents [and] I am afraid he has already taught his son” (Lu Xun VIII). Through this line, he implies once more that the people in his place always pass on the wrong values and practices to their children, such as the idea that cannibalism is right. Finally, he also uses this line to affirm the reason he has stated earlier on why the children look at him: “That is why even the children [in Part II] look at me so fiercely” (Lu Xun VIII).

From this line he implies that perhaps all the children in his village have the same fate as the young man’s son – the fate that they are destined to follow the evil of their parents. Another proof that the diary is about a condemnation