[1] This book was republished in 2007 by the Foreign Languages Press with the updated title of Lu Xun Selected Works.
One major theme in the stories in this collection is that habits of mind (psychology or "spirit") need to be examined; improvements in material conditions and institutions, while important, are not sufficient by themselves to renew China.
An important thread to this preface is his encounters with traditional Chinese medicine and the problems of health care, which bears directly on several stories in the collection.
Lu Xun also describes one of his overarching objectives as a writer and social critic: he sees society as "an iron house without windows, absolutely indestructible, with many people fast asleep inside who will soon die of suffocation.
(狂人日記, (CTA), dated April 1918) This story ostensibly reveals the delusions of a man who has passed through a period of madness, and has now returned to sanity and participation in "normal" society.
A major theme in this story is the way in which traditional Chinese society's system of advancement for intellectuals left many discarded and useless.
[1]: 23 (藥, (CTA), dated April 1919) This story focuses on a sick boy and a traditional Chinese folk medicine practice.
Scholars have suggested that Lu Xun's family experience with traditional Chinese medicine was crucial in forming his psychology and personality.
The story opens with Old Zhuan leaving their shop and going to the home of the person selling the cure, a "roll of steamed bread, from which crimson drops were dripping to the ground."
The crimson drops, we soon learn, are blood from a young man, Xia Yu (夏瑜), who was recently executed apparently for revolutionary activities.
Xia Yu's name, his surname the name of a season and his given name a character with the jade radical, is often seen as an allusion to the name of Qiu Jin (秋瑾), a friend of Lu Xun who was beheaded for revolutionary activity.
(明天, (CTA), dated June 1920) This story also concerns a sick child and traditional Chinese folk medicine.
"[1]: 39–40 (一件小事, (CTA), dated July 1920) More a meditation than a story, in An Incident a man's rickshaw puller collides with a pedestrian, and the passenger must confront the question: when do other people begin to matter?
Yet this incident keeps coming back to me, often more vivid than in actual life, teaching me shame, urging me to reform, and giving me fresh courage and hope.
The "teacup" is a village in which some residents are preparing to turn the tables on the revolutionaries from some years before, while others face a simple, practical concern: will certain people's lack of a queue be noticed (and be punished)?
Themes in the story include: artificial divisions among people due to class differences, the persistence of memory, the way people as well as places constitute the sense of a place, the painfulness of disconnection from the past, and the dilemma of intellectuals who must turn their attention away from the past and face present reality.
(阿Q正傳, (CTA), dated December 1921) The story involves an ordinary village dweller of few means, and describes the habits of mind that he employs in navigating the course of his days.
"[1]: 13 Even more broadly, the story raises the question of what society should do to address the plight of those who are traumatized, severely depressed, or otherwise psychologically, emotionally, or spiritually broken.
Finally, Lu Xun considers universal themes, showing how people's "religious" questions ("What happens when you die?
Lu Xun raises the question of who has the real power to deal with and bring about change: the stumbling man or his subtle wife?
(離婚, dated November 1925) A young woman holds out hope that her marital dispute will be resolved in her favor.
Lu Xun suggests that "getting a hearing" is like a dream; the reality is that the powers-that-be settle things in the usual manner.
"[1]: 223 (孤獨者, dated October 1925) The story's protagonist is a "misanthrope" because he rejects the bond of people to each other ("it is hard to live so that no one will mourn for your death"[1]: 187 ) and because he experiences emotion in situations differently than conventional society expects.
"[1]: 196 (傷逝, dated October 1925) The "true story" of what really happens when modern romance (a "love match") is pursued.
(奔月, (OTR), dated December 1926) In this story based on traditional myths and themes, Lu Xun shows that the heroic figure (the intellectual?)
The story of Feng Meng shooting Hou Yi in "The Flight to the Moon" suggests Kao's attack on Lu Xun.
[11] (鑄劍 (OTR), dated October 1926) In another story based on traditional myths and themes, Lu Xun weighs the cost of seeking justice (and, by extension, of wielding the sword of truth), and suggests that great sacrifices are most certainly required in this particular pursuit.