An Incident: Lu Xun

AN INCIDENT
LU XUN
Lu Xun
An Incident
Six years have slipped by since I came from the country to the capital. During that time I have seen and heard quite
enough of so-called affairs of state; but none of them made much impression on me. If asked to define their influence, I
can only say they aggravated my ill temper and made me, frankly speaking, more and more misanthropic.
One incident, however, struck me as significant, and aroused me from my ill temper, so that even now I cannot forget
it.
It happened during the winter of 1917. A bitter north wind was blowing, but, to make a living, I had to be up and out
early. I met scarcely a soul on the road, and had great difficulty in hiring a rickshaw to take me to S—— Gate.
Presently the wind dropped a little. By now the loose dust had all been blown away, leaving the roadway clean, and the
rickshaw man quickened his pace. We were just approaching S—— Gate when someone crossing the road was
entangled in our rickshaw and slowly fell.
It was a woman, with streaks of white in her hair, wearing ragged clothes. She had left the pavement without warning
to cut across in front of us, and although the rickshaw man had made way, her tattered jacket, unbuttoned and fluttering
in the wind, had caught on the shaft. Luckily the rickshaw man pulled up quickly, otherwise she would certainly have
had a bad fall and been seriously injured.
She lay there on the ground, and the rickshaw man stopped. I did not think the old woman was hurt, and there had been
no witnesses to what had happened, so I resented this off iciousness which might land him in trouble and hold me up.
"It's all right," I said. "Go on."
He paid no attention, however—perhaps he had not heard—for he set down the shafts, and gently helped the old
woman to get up. Supporting her by one arm, he asked:
"Are you all right?"
"I'm hurt."
I had seen how slowly she fell, and was sure she could not be hurt. She must be pretending, which was disgusting. The
rickshaw man had asked for trouble, and now he had it. He would have to find his own way out.
But the rickshaw man did not hesitate for a minute after the old woman said she was injured. Still holding her arm, he helped
her slowly forward. I was surprised. When I looked ahead, I saw a police station. Because of the high wind, there was no one
outside, so the rickshaw man helped the old woman towards the gate.
Suddenly I had a strange feeling. His dusty, retreating figure seemed larger at that instant. Indeed, the further he walked the
larger he loomed, until I had to look up to him. Ar the same time he seemed gradually to be exerting a pressure on me, which
threatened to overpower the small self under my fur-lined gown.
My vitality seemed sapped as I sat there motionless, my mind a blank, until a policeman came out. Then I got down from the
rickshaw.
The policeman came up to me, and said, "Get another rickshaw. He can't pull you any more."
Without thinking, I pulled a handful of coppers from my coat pocket and handed them to the policeman. "Please give him
these," I said.
The wind had dropped completely, but the road was still quiet. I walked along thinking, but I was almost afraid to turn my
thoughts on myself. Setting aside what had happened earlier, what had I meant by that handful of coppers? Was it a reward?
Who was I to judge the rickshaw man? I could not answer myself.
Even now, this remains fresh in my memory. It often causes me distress, and makes me try to think about myself. The military
and political affairs of those years I have forgotten as completely as the classics I read in my childhood. 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.
Lu Xun
An Incident
•One of the most catchy stories that had a great impact on us
was "A Little Incident" by Lu Xun.
•It is something that made Lu Xun a classic author.
•The characters include the "I" (the one who narrated the story),
the rickshaw puller, the old woman and the police officer.
•Lu Xun's masterpiece was of depressing general mood.

VALUE:
Man is good in nature, it is just a matter

of waking it up.
Literary criticism approach we will use for a lesson
using this text.
Marxist Theory
• economic power
• materialism versus spirituality
• class conflict
• art, literature, and ideologies
The questions below were inspired from the story.
1. What moral values have you learned from the story?
If you have done something wrong, you should be responsible to face the consequences and you should find a
way to at least settle the problem without getting out of the mess.
2. If you were the author, what ending would you like to happen?
If I were the author I would like the ending to be more clear because the story was open-ended that we don't
know what happened next to the characters.
3. What do you think was the reason why the narrator gave coppers to the rickshaw puller?
The narrator gave coppers to the rickshaw puller as payment for the service given to him by the rickshaw
puller.
4. What do you think happened to the rickshaw puller why he can’t pull the rickshaw anymore?
He can't pull the rickshaw anymore because he still has to settle the problem he caused.
5. What attitude did the narrator showed in the story? Site a situation.
Arrogant, because he's convincing the rickshaw puller to leave the old woman without even settling the
problem.

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AN INCIDENT

•It is something that made Lu Xun a classic author.

•Lu Xun's masterpiece was of depressing general mood.

Man is good in nature, it is just a matter

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