Faith and Suspect: A Comparative Analysis of Lu Xun's A Madman's Diary and Cervantes' Don Quixote from the perspective of madness

Abstract

Don Quixote and A Madman's Diary are two significant works in the history of world literature, both from literary giants and composed at a similar historical stage, i.e., the period when modernity took place. However, there are not many comparisons between the two books because of their geographical, temporal and linguistic gaps. Don Quixote, Cervantes' work of realism during the Renaissance, has stood the test of time since its appearance and has been very popular in different countries and times; with its powerful interpretability, its images have been given different specific meanings in different times. Lu Xun's A Madman's Diary was the first modern novel in vernacular Chinese, and its publication had a specific political and cultural background. Madness, as a unique page in the development of human civilization, is a protective mask used by both authors to reflect and rebel against the natural world, a more innovative and necessary comparison of the two texts from this perspective. Both Cervantes and Lu Xun, who came from different times and different countries, pioneered modern literature in different senses, and their masterpieces, Don Quixote and A Madman's Diary, both present the specific cultural context and criticize some specific cultural phenomena of the time with the image and perspective of a madman. Don Quixote and the Madman have the mental illness of perverse thinking, and both carry the universal human intellectual isolation. This paper tries to present their interpretation of madness and the humanistic enlightenment ideas behind their contribution to the world by comparing the two texts. Then, starting from the two texts, the comparison of the particular image of madness and the symptoms of madness in both figures is analyzed, and the different historical and cultural traditions behind it create the psychological forms of different peoples.