Characters in two novels: "The True Story of Ah Q" and "Diary of a Deputy in the countryside" A Comparative Study

Abstract

The countryside has always been an important subject of literary writing and novel creation. Set in historical contexts around certain themes, rural novels depict multitudes of cultures in a plain yet authentic way, making them a significant part of modern and contemporary literature in both China and Egypt. Giants of modern literature, Lu Xun and Tawfiq al-Hakim both have made great contributions to the development of rural literature. This thesis will use parallel research, social and historical criticism and other methods to compare the characters in their classic novels — “The True Story of Ah Q” and " Diary of a deputy in the countryside". This thesis gives an introduction of the two writers and their novels, lays out the backgrounds for their writing and analyzes the thinking contained. By a detailed comparative study of the characters in these two novels, this thesis aims to explain the similarities in the characters at the beginning of the last century and it goes on to elucidate how rural life and the destiny of a nation are closely intertwined in the process of a social transformation.