Reading Lu Xun Through Carl Jung By Carolyn Brown

powerful military establishment.³ Hard evidence of Japan’s successful modernization presented itself when Japan bested China in the Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) and gained victory over a Western power in 1905 in the Russo-Japanese War. For progressive Chinese intellectuals, Japan offered a compelling model of Asian success.

It was becoming clear to the elite of Lu Xun’s generation that China would have to follow suit if it hoped to avoid total defeat and possible dismemberment. Lu Xun became part of a cohort that went to Japan in order to deepen their understanding of the Western ways that had resulted in the rapid, successful modernization of this close Asian cousin. He arrived in 1902, holding a strong interest in scientific and technical subjects. By the time he returned to China in 1909, he had changed his focus to literature and passionately embraced an interest in the moral and spiritual issues that would occupy him for the rest of his life. An unusually serious young man, he refused to indulge in the frivolous activities that occupied many of his Chinese compatriots abroad. He learned Japanese, attended medical school in Sendai, a small city in northern Japan, but left within two years for Tokyo, having concluded that spiritual transformation was more important for China’s future than technical or medical knowledge.

In Japan he initiated his authorial career by writing early essays on Western science and by loosely translating two of Jules Verne’s novels. At that time, he believed that science fiction might offer a way to spark Chinese interest in science. After leaving medical school, his essays migrated towards moral reflections on Western history and meditations on great Western writers who had defied conventional limitations to assume the role of spiritual warriors. He considered the nature of the ideal human person and worried over the deficiencies he perceived in the Chinese national character. He came to believe that literature could serve an important role in the transformation of China into a vigorous modern state and imagined that translating important Western literary works was a productive step in that direction. His dedication to translating