Lu Xun's Kong Yiji

Background and Context

Kong Yiji 孔乙己 is a short-story by Lu Xun, originally published in the journal New Youth (新青年) in April 1919 and was later included in Lu Xun's first collection of short stories, Call to Arms (吶喊) published in 1923.

The story portrays the social decay of pre-revolutionary China two decades earlier before the fall of the Qing.

The main figure, Kong Yiji, ca…