BOOK REVIEW OF THE TRUE STORY OF AH-Q Xiaoqi Ma History 1601E, 2015- 2016, Western University February, 23, 2016 Word Count: 1438 TA: Claire As we known, China is the only country with uninterrupted human civilization in the world and it was seen as the centre of civilization of Asia in history. However, Chinese people experienced a long gloomy and dismal period, which started from the late of Qing Dynasty to the establishment of the People’s Republic of China. Lu Xun who is the author of The True Story of Ah-Q described the whole life of Ah-Q against the background of late Qing Dynasty and the Revolution of 1911 which “was a momentous event in bringing down the monarchical institution with a history of 2,000 years”. …show more content…
Firstly, the Revolution of 1911 leaded by Sun Zhongshan who was a representative of bourgeoisie and leader of Kuo Min Dang blocked the peasants who also wanted to attend revolution out. For example, Ah-Q wanted to become a revolutionary and visited a high-ranking official of the revolutionary army named Mr. Foreingner, but Mr Foreingner yelled “clear out!” to Ah-Q and Ah-Q was refused rudely. In addition, Lu Xun exposed another weakness of the Revolution of 1911. Although the revolution finished the imperial system successfully, it had not changed the situation that peasants were oppressed and exploited by the remnants of feudal forces. In chapter 1, Ah-Q said he has the same clan as Mr. Chao who was on behalf of the old feudalism in this story, and Mr. Chao abused Ah-Q by calling him “miserable wretch” and giving a slap on Ah-Q’s face after hearing about that. In general, The True Story of Ah-Q shows the shortcomings of the Revolution of 1911 and lead to the revolutionaries to rethink themselves. Besides, this literature is useful to study the Chinese political struggle because these shortcomings could be the weakness of Kuo Min Dang, and they might make a reasonable explanation for the failure of Kuo Min Dang and success of the Communist Party in