| This comparative literary study of Lu Xun, from China, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, from America, spotlights and intensifies the cultural diversity of the East and the West. It thus provides a mutual and reciprocal ground where differences and similarities can be comprehended and accepted. This study explores cultural influences on the two writers' lives as well as their works.;Ah Q, from Lu Xun's "The True Story of Ah Q," and Gatsby, from Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, dramatize the primal forces of human desire in two distinctive cultures: the Chinese outcry in a culture which constrains personal desires; the American dream in a culture which liberates the widest possibilities. However, from Ah Q's defeatism and Gatsby's dream issues a basic human desire for honor, happiness, and a better life.;Ah Q's Wei Village and Gatsby's West Egg are microcosms of Chinese and American societies in the early 20th century. China has suffered from a long history of feudal oppression and foreign aggression, which have distorted the Chinese soul, paralyzed cultural consciousness, and dampened the national spirit. America has celebrated the democratic ideal in the new land, where the American dream based on limitless promises of material and capital development renders a destructive potential.;Both Lu Xun and Fitzgerald are realistic writers. The literary characteristics of realism have not only varied in historical periods as many Western critics have realized, but also in different cultures as in Lu Xun's China and Fitzgerald's America.;By comparing the East and West, one can gain insight into the foundation on which today's multi-cultural world has been built. The Eastern dragon and the Western eagle each displays its uniqueness, but finds some common ground of enduring values and aesthetic truth that can nurture mankind as a whole. |
