ABSTRACT
Ah Q is the hero of The True Story of Ah Q, the longest and most famous of the stories by Lu Xun and one of the first literary texts written in modern Chinese after the triumph of the political, ideological, literary and linguistic revolution of 1919. The True Story of Ah Q was written during the aftermath of the May Fourth Movement, whose instigators and supporters had launched a violent attack on the beliefs of Confucianism. Lu Xun is particularly vehement in denouncing two aspects of Ah Q's almost unlimited ability to rationalize even the crudest of defeats and humiliations as spiritual victories. Though Lu Xun pities Ah Q and feels indignation towards his executioners, his assessment of him is extremely critical. The True Story of Ah Q is also very obviously a political tract, so much so, that certain readers of the serial saw it as employing the open aggression of a roman a clef.
