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In 1919, the famous May Fourth movement began with a student protest in Beijing and sparked many national protests, marking the rise of Chinese nationalism and a shift in politics away from cultural activities. This started the move towards a populist base rather than with the intellectual elite. Decades of political unrest and bloodshed on a mass scale came after this before eventually the Communist revolution set China on a different path. It was during the confusing republican period that Li Xun was writing the tale of "Ah Q". It was a time when many Chinese looked to Western ways to overthrow ancient Chinese traditions rooted in their culture.
The characters in the story each have meanings and functions to represent elements of the revolution and changing culture. One character in the story is referred to as the "Imitation Foreign Devil", an affluent Chinese person who adopts the ideas of the West. This character represents the changing of the times and Ah Q's beliefs, thoughts, and actions towards him show the jealousy sometimes associated with those more fortunate. He thinks the Imitation Foreign Devil is disgracing the traditional culture of the Weichuang village, even saying that his wife is a bad woman for staying with when she knows how big of a disgrace he is. From a regular villagers perspective someone in this category was looked at as embarrassing, stuck-up, and self-centered. .
The Imitation Foreign Devil symbolizes the slow, yet forceful changes going on in the affluent class during the time period of the revolution. The "revolutionaries" in the story are not as consistent as the goal driven revolutionaries who came later. In the story they represent the literal revolution going on in China at the time. China was facing a significant conflict between traditional culture and modern capitalist/industrial ideas defined by Western nations. The story shows the thought of the author that the ignorance of the masses in China could not be saved by a simple change of government.
