TITLE:
Homesickness Metaphor under Family-Nation Isomorphism: A Literary Analysis of Lu Xun’s My Old Home
AUTHORS:
Chengjie Wang
KEYWORDS:
My Old Home, Family-Nation Isomorphism, Critique of National Character, Metaphor
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Access Library Journal,
Vol.12 No.3,
March
19,
2025
ABSTRACT: “Family-nation isomorphism”, as a fundamental governance paradigm in traditional Chinese society, profoundly influences spatial narrative strategies in literary creation [1]. Taking the metaphorical system in Lu Xun’s My Old Home as the research object, this paper discovers through close textual reading that the novel constructs a “town-countryside-exile” tripartite spatial structure, projecting the decline of individual families onto the modern predicament of the nation-state. The study reveals that Lu Xun accomplishes a dual deconstruction through the “homecoming” perspective: first, dismantling the idealized rural utopia through the protagonist’s disillusioning homecoming; second, exposing contradictions within enlightenment modernity through failed interclass communication. This narrative strategy, with “family-nation isomorphism” as its surface and “critique of national character” as its core, marks the groundbreaking reconstruction of traditional family-nation narrative paradigms in May Fourth New Literature.