The True Story of Ah Q

For the film adaptation, see The True Story of Ah Q (film).

"A Q" redirects here. For other uses, see AQ (disambiguation).

The True Story of Ah Q

One of the reprints after 1923 with the author and English title on the cover
Author	Lu Xun
Original title	阿Q正傳
Language	Vernacular Chinese
Publication date	1921
Publication place	China

Lu Xun
Traditional Chinese	阿Q正傳
Simplified Chinese	阿Q正传
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Ā Q Zhèngzhuàn Wade–Giles A Q Cheng-chuan

The True Story of Ah Q is an episodic novella written by Lu Xun, first published as a serial between December 4, 1921 and February 12, 1922. It was later placed in his first short story collection "Call to Arms" (吶喊, Nàhǎn) in 1923 and is the longest story in the collection. The piece is generally held to be a masterpiece of modern Chinese literature, since it is considered the first piece of work to fully utilize Vernacular Chinese after the 1919 May 4th Movement in China.

It was first published in the Beijing Morning News supplement as a serial. Originally Lu Xun wrote the story under the name "Ba Ren" ("crude fellow"), and so originally few people knew who wrote the novella. The first installment was published on December 4, 1921, and additional installments appeared weekly and/or fortnightly. The final installment was published on February 12, 1922. The story had nine chapters.

Synopsis

The story traces the "adventures" of Ah Q, a man from the rural peasant class with little education and no definite occupation. Ah Q is famous for "spiritual victories", Lu Xun's euphemism for self-talk and self-deception even when faced with extreme defeat or humiliation. Ah Q is a bully to the less fortunate but fearful of those who are above him in rank, strength, or power. He persuades himself mentally that he is spiritually "superior" to his oppressors even as he succumbs to their tyranny and suppression. Lu Xun exposes Ah Q's extreme faults as symptomatic of the Chinese national character of his time. The ending of the piece – when Ah Q is carted off to execution for a minor crime – is equally poignant and satirical.

Novella form

Both the novella form and the low social station of the protagonist were new in the ancient Chinese literature. But the story consisted of nine serial episodic chapters (an old Chinese method for long folklore 章回體形式, which can consist of hundreds of chapters). This is the only novella published by Lu Xun.

Metaphor

Lu Xun believed that the purpose of literature was to transform the minds of and enlighten fellow Chinese. He followed the concept of "wén yǐ zài dào" (文以载道, "literature as a vehicle for moral message").

In Chapter One, the author ironically claims that he could not recall nor verify Ah Q's correct name, thus giving the character symbolic anonymity. "Ah" (阿) in Chinese is a diminutive prefix for names. "Q" is short for "Quei", which would today be romanized in Hanyu Pinyin as "Guì." However, as there are many Chinese characters that are pronounced "quei", the narrator claims he does not know which character he should use, and therefore shortens it to "Q". The deliberate use of a Western letter instead of a Chinese character is a reference to the concepts of the May Fourth movement, which advocated adoption of Western ideas.

Mao Dun believed that Ah Q represented a "crystallization of Chinese qualities" and that it was not necessarily a satirical work. Zhou Zuoren, the author's brother, in the article "[On] The True Story of Ah Q" (阿Q正传; "Ā Q Zhèngzhuàn") said that the work was, as paraphrased by Paul B. Foster, author of Ah Q Archaeology: Lu Xun, Ah Q, Ah Q Progeny, and the National Character Discourse in Twentieth Century China, "unequivocally satirical" and argued against Mao Dun's point of view.

Plot

Ah Q is known for deluding himself into believing he is the victor every time he loses a fight. In one scene in Chapter 2, Ah Q is beaten and had his silver stolen while he was gambling beside the theater. He slaps himself on the face, and because he is the person doing the slapping, he sees himself as the victor.

When Mr. Zhao, an honored landlord of the village, beats Ah Q in a fight, Ah Q considers himself important for having even a tiny association with such a person. Though some villagers suspect Ah Q may have no true association with Mr. Zhao, they do not question the matter closely, and instead give Ah Q more respect for a time.

Ah Q is often close-minded about petty things. When he ventures into a new town and sees that a "long bench" is called a "straight bench," he believes their way to be instantly inferior and totally wrong.

There is a scene in which Ah Q harasses a nun to make himself feel better. He pinches her and blames his problems on her. Instead of crying out at the injustice of Ah Q's bullying, the crowd nearby laughs.

One day, news of the Xinhai Revolution comes into town. Both landlord families, the Zhao and the Qian families, become revolutionaries to keep their power. Other people, calling themselves a "revolutionary army", rob the houses of the landlords and rich men. Ah Q also wants to join them and also call himself a revolutionary. But when the time comes, he misses the opportunity to act, because he slept in one morning and no one woke him up. Finally, Ah Q is arrested as a scapegoat for the looting and sentenced to death by the new governor.

When Ah Q is asked to sign a confession, he worries that he cannot write his name. The officers tell him to sign a circle instead. Ah Q is so worried about drawing a perfect circle to save face that he is unaware he would be executed until it is too late. Before his death he tries to entertain the crowds watching his execution, but cannot decide on suitable lines from any Chinese opera. So he decides to sing on his own, but he sang for only one line.

Characters

Ah Q (阿Q)

Gloria Davies, the author of an entry in Chinese Literature, Essays, Articles, Reviews, Volumes 13–15, said "[t]he protagonist Ah Q became a symbol of all that was backward, despicable and tragic in Chinese society and often served Chinese intellectuals of the 1920s as a kind of negative criterion against which they could measure China's and their own advance into modernity."

In 1934 Lu Xun wrote to a periodical stating that, in regards to Ah Q, "My method is to make the reader unable to tell who this character can be apart from himself, so that he cannot back away to become a bystander but rather suspects that this is a portrait of himself as well as everyone [in China]. A road to self-examination may therefore be opened to him." Mao Dun saw Ah Q as a representative of China like Oblomov, the main character of Oblomov, represents Russia.

Ah Q is shaped as an image of part-time worker from the poor pleasant caste affected by the religions and superstition in feudal society. Living in a half feudal half colonial society before the Xinhai Revolution, “Ah-Q’s Victories” is the psychological practise of how Ah-Q satisfies himself from real life failures and losses. He escapes from the reality, and he bully those weak-kneel and is afraid of the strong ones. He is unconfident, forgetful and changeable.

There is a claim that, in Ah-Q's name, 'Ah' represents prefix for friendly calling someone in Chinese, and 'Q' represents the imagery symbol of the people with pigtail in Ching dynasty. In other words, Ah-Q represents everyone who lived in the time of Xinhai revolution in China.

Blinded by self-interests

In the story, there are many scenes that reveal Ah Q’s personality. One of the Ah Q’s personality traits is that, no matter what happens, Ah Q always makes an excuse to get out of a tight spot. For instance, in Chapter 3 of the book, the author says that after the fight Ah Q uses his “precious “ability to forget””, which shows that he does not have enough courage to deal with his emotion and, instead, uses this “ability” just to satisfy himself.

Self Absorption

A strong character trait of Ah Q is his limited cognitive focus on himself and his own outlook. Ah Q shows little ability to beyond his perspective and see how others view him; this is demonstrated in chapter 4 during the incident with the young mistress, Amah Wu, when he abruptly asks her to sleep with him. In result, Ah Q's actions are strange and at times offend others. However, this does not bother Ah Q because he neither notices nor cares because he is strictly focused on his own needs and desires.

Chapter Summaries

Chapter 1: Introduction

The protagonist shows four difficulties of why writing about Ah Q is not easy: the title of this book, the surname of Ah Q, the personal name of Ah Q and the native of him. The story of him being beaten by Mr. Zhao, a famous senior villager, because he claimed that he was named Zhao.

Chapter 2: A Brief Account of Ah Q’s Victories

In Chapter 2 the author elaborates further on Ah Q’s character, place in society and his daily routine. Ah Q’s peers view him in a very low regard, despite his background. With no family, no regular employment and eccentric character, Ah Q was often the laughing stock of the town. Ah Q had a high opinion of himself and looked down on others regardless of their income or status.

The chapter also gives the readers more in-depth imagery on Ah Q’s (unfortunate) physical appearance. Specifically, the ringworm scar on his scalp that turns red when he is angry. This scar is a factor in him being ridiculed by this enemies. Ah Q’s fighting tactics differed based on his opponents, from physical, angry glares and self-belittlement.

Chapter 3: A Further Account of Ah Q’s Victories

Ah Q is slapped in the face by Mr. Chao making him famous for he has prospered for a long time. One day, Ah Q finds Whiskers Wang, sits down next to him with no fear. Due to the lack of to Whiskers, they start to fight. Whiskers leave with satisfaction after giving him a shove to him. Later he meets Mr.Chien’s eldest son, whom Ah Q hates a lot. He says “Baldhead” to the son, and the son hits him. However, he forgets everything that has just happened and goes to the wine shop door. Soon after, when he sees a small nun there, he starts to claim all the bad lacks that has just happened is because of her, and she leaves with complaints, but other people in the shop just laugh at her.

Chapter 4: The Tragedies of Love

After picking on a nun, Ah Q is victorious and feel as though he is flying right into the Tutelary God's Temple. The words from the nun weigh on his mind: "Ah Q, may you die sonless!" He realizes her insult has some merit and decides that he should take a wife. Ah Q rushes towards Mr. Chao’s maidservant, Amah wu, and shouts "Sleep with me!” The bailiff finds out about his attack on Mr. Chao's maidservant and makes Ah Q agree to five terms.

Chapter 5: The Problem of Livelihood

After the Chao family fiasco, Ah Q notices unusualness when walking through the streets of Weichuang. Women became shy and took refuge indoors while wine shops refused service to him. What worried him was the fact that no households wanted to hire him, cutting Ah Q off from a source of income to support his livelihood. Shunned from regular employer’s houses, Ah Q find Young D, a weak beggar of lower status than Ah Q, to have taken Ah Q’s odd jobs. To the delight of onlookers, the enraged Ah Q rushes to fight Young D which ended a tie.

Starving, Ah Q returns to the streets and comes across the Convent of Quiet Self-improvement, finding a field containing a patch of turnips. Ah Q decides to steal the turnips until a nun notices him and lets loose her black dog on him. Ah Q runs and escapes with turnips.

Chapter 6: From Restoration to Decline

Ah Q does not come back to Weichuang until after the Moon Festival.The custom in Weichuang is "that when there seem[s] to be something unusual about anyone, he should be treated with respect rather than insolence." According to him, he had been a servant for a successful provincial candidate. Later on, everyone wants to get their hands on Ah Q's silk shirts only to find out that he has run out of them and had been a petty thief.

Chapter 7 The Revolution & Chapter 8 Barred From the Revolution

One day, the news of the Xinhai Revolution comes. The landlord families become the revolutionaries to maintain their power. When Ah Q realizes that everyone fears the revolutionaries, he decides to be one of them and imagines exploiting rich families in town and ruling over the locals. A group of self-claimed revolutionaries rob the houses of the locals and rich families, and Ah Q is never called to join them. When Ah Q approaches the landlord rebels to express that he wants to join the rebels, he is refused from joining the rebellion. Ah Q becomes bitter that he cannot share the robbed goods and the prestige they enjoy.

Chapter 9: The Grand Finale

After the Chao family is robbed, Ah Q is dragged into town in the middle of the night, being carried to a yamen where he is pushed into a room. Keeping with his happy-go-lucky nature, the narrator says “although Ah Q was feeling rather uneasy, he was by no means too depressed.” In the end, Ah Q is executed with his cries of “Help, help!” never actually being said which is ironic since this is the moment when he begins to understand himself and the world as he dies.

Cultural Significance

Ah Q as a negative symbol of Chineseness

Ah Q has a literary metaphor of national character. Ah Q became considered a recognizable symbol that expanded the intellectual discourse of national character into the popular consciousness . Originally, the name Ah Q represented a negative Chinese national character (guomin xing), which was not commonly used in a racist context. A negative example, it served as a warning to urge Chinese to change for the “better”. After the publication of The True Story of Ah Q, the " Chinese themselves used the term to label those who are complacently ignorant, indolent, unhygienic, backward, slavish, and parochial" . However, because this term is used to describe "negative human characteristics as "natural" components of the Chinese national character, they are ironically accepting and reinforcing certain stereotypical images of the Chinese"

References in modern culture

The story of Ah Q weaves together nationalism, modern Chinese literature and modern Chinese history.

In modern Chinese language, the term the "Ah Q mentality" (阿Q精神, "Ā Q jīngshén") is used commonly as a term of mockery to describe someone who chooses not to face up to reality and deceives himself into believing he is successful, or has unjustified beliefs of superiority over others. It describes a narcissistic individual who rationalizes every single actual failure he faces as a psychological triumph ("spiritual victory"). A phrase meaning "relax for a bit" or "take it easy" (阿Q一下, Ā Q yí xià) has also surfaced in modern Chinese language due to the character's nonchalant nature.

In Taiwan, 阿Q appears in the name of a flavour of cup ramen noodles made by Uni-President Enterprises Corporation (Uni-President Ah Q Kimchi Flavor Instant Noodles, 阿Q桶麵韓式泡菜風味).

Reception

When "Ah Q" was first published, the story became very popular. Many Chinese people wondered if Ah Q was based on a real person, partly because at the time few people knew the true identity of the book's author. Gao Yihan said that some individuals believed that Ah Q was based on their own lives. In the 1920s the most common critical sentiment argued that "Ah Q" was a masterpiece.

In 1926 Zheng Zhenduo stated his belief that Lu Xun had finished the story too quickly. In literary terms questioned why Ah Q would die in such a casual manner after the story had already determined that being a revolutionary was already not satisfactory. In response to Zheng, Lu Xun said "So week after week passed, and inevitably the problem arose whether Ah Q would become a revolutionary or not. To my mind, as long as there was no revolution in China, Ah Q would not turn revolutionary; but once there was one, he would. This was the only fate possible for my Ah Q, and I would not say that he has a dual personality. The first year of the Republic has gone, never to return; but the next time there are reforms, I believe there will be revolutionaries like Ah Q. I only wish that, as people say, I had written about a period in the past, but I fear what I saw was not the past but the future — even as much as from twenty to thirty years from now."

Gloria Davies, the author of "The Problematic Modernity of Ah Q," said that many Marxist critics criticized "Ah Q" because the betrayal of the Communists after the 1927 Northern Expedition "bore a dangerous resemblance to Ah Q's fate in front of the firing squad." Davies further explained that "[i]t is perhaps also not too far-fetched to suggest that the Marxist dogmatists perceived in "The True Story of Ah Q" a realism with sufficient power to undermine even their own adamant and much-vaunted belief in the imminent arrival of a Communist utopia; for not even the most foolhardy dogmatist could ignore the countless acts of political violence and betrayal taking place around him, borne variously of the ruthlessness, ambition, cynicism, fear and ignorance, in all, the darker side of the human condition that Lu Xun had portrayed so vividly in "The True Story of Ah Q"." Lu Xun's last response regarding "Ah Q" itself was his reply to Zheng. During the debates on revolutionary literature in 1928 and 1929, Lu Xun decided not to comment on the criticisms of the story.

A leftist critic, Qian Xingcun , wrote an essay "The Dead Era Of Ah Q" (死去了的阿Q时代, "Sǐqùle de Ā Q Shídài"), published in the March 1, 1928 issue of "Sun Monthly" (太阳月刊, Tàiyáng Yuèkān), No. 3. It as reprinted in "Gémìng Wénxué Lùnzhēng Zīliào Xuǎnbiān" (革命文学论争资料选编). In it he argued that Lu Xun had belonged to a preceding historical era, the story was not a masterpiece and did not represent the current era. Davies argued that Qian knew he was unable to challenge Lu Xun on literary merits. Furthermore, Davies argues that "it was all the more important to recognize Lu Xun's works as bearing no relevance to the contemporary situation because they were capable of influencing the reader into misrecognizing social reality."

See also

• New Youth
• Fuyuhiko Kitagawa

Bibliography

• Davies, Gloria. "The Problematic Modernity of Ah Q." In: Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews (CLEAR). Volume 13, December 1991. p. 57–76. ISSN 0161-9705. Also available at Jstor. Also published in: Chinese Literature, Essays, Articles, Reviews, Volumes 13–15. Coda Press, 1991. p. 57–76.
• Foster, Paul B. Ah Q Archaeology: Lu Xun, Ah Q, Ah Q Progeny, And the National Character Discourse in Twentieth Century China. Lexington Books, 2006. ISBN 073911168X, 9780739111680.
• Foster, Paul B. (2010) Ah Q genealogy: Ah Q, Miss Ah Q, national character and the construction of the Ah Q discourse, Asian Studies Review, 28:3, 243-266, DOI: 10.1080/103782042000291088
• Huang, Martin Weizhong. "The Inescapable Predicament: The Narrator and His Discourse in "The True Story of Ah Q"." Modern China, 1990. Volume 16, Issue 4. p. 430-449. Available at Jstor.
• Huters, Theodore E. "Hu Feng and the Critical Legacy of Lu Xun." (Chapter 6). In: Lee, Leo Ou-Fan (editor and author of introduction). Lu Xun & His Legacy. University of California Press, 1985. p. 129–152. ISBN 0520051580, 9780520051584.
• Tambling, Jeremy. Madmen and Other Survivors: Reading Lu Xun's Fiction. Hong Kong University Press, August 30, 2007. ISBN 9622098258, 9789622098251.
• Xing, Xue Yan. "Lu-Xun's“AQ”and Ibuse Masuji's“Ei” ;“AQ（qiu）Zheng Zhuen” and“Mr.Tange's Mansion”." Accessed February 28, 2018. http://www.bunkyo.ac.jp/faculty/kyouken/old_web/bull/Bull11/yan.pdf.
• The Real Story of Ah-Q and Other Tales of China: The Complete Fiction of Lu Xun, trans. Julia Lovell, London: Penguin, 2009.
• Chinese Literature, Foreign Languages Press, 1981.
• Selected Stories of Lu Hsun, Published by Foreign Languages Press, Peking, 1960, 1972; Images for chapters 1 and 4 from Chinese Literature Volume 5-6, 1977.
• "The True Story of Ah Q (Ah Q Zhengzhuan) by Lu Xun, 1923." Reference Guide to Short Fiction. . Retrieved February 28, 2018 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/true-story-ah-q-ah-q-zhengzhuan-lu-xun-1923

Further reading

• Larson, Wendy. From Ah Q to Lei Feng: Freud and Revolutionary Spirit in 20th Century China. Stanford University Press, 2009. ISBN 0804769826, 9780804769822.
• Stebbins, Hallie (Bucknell University). "A Translation of Lu Xun’s “阿Q正传”." Comparative Humanities Review. Vol. 3, Article 4. 2009.

External links

• The True Story of Ah Q (English)
• 阿Q正傳 / The True Story of Ah Q (simplified characters)
• The Historical Background of The True Story of Ah Q: Lu Xun and Japan
• Selected Stories, Lu Hsun (1918–1926) at www.coldbacon.com
• Capturing Chinese The Real Story of Ah Q Edited by Kevin Nadolny (Capturing Chinese Publications, 2010) – includes short summaries to Lu Xun's stories, the Chinese text in simplified characters, pinyin, and definitions for difficult vocabulary.
• Qian, Xingcun. "Siqule de A Q shidai" Template:Zh-cn icon
• Naver Encyclopedia of Current Affairs and Common Sense (in Korean) http://terms.naver.com/entry.nhn?docId=70044&cid=43667&categoryId=43667
• Zhang, Lixin. “Discuss the Image of Ah-Q in ’The True Story of Ah Q’”. (in simplified Chinese) http://www.jyqkw.com/show-208-222588-1.html