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Diary of a Madman by Lu Xun chronicles a man's descent to insanity or madness, as claimed by both the Madman himself and the society he lived in. As contextualized in the story, the Madman has already recovered from this 'illness' that befell him, and has since moved on and became a functional member of the society again, even taking up an "official post" or new function in the government.
The main focus or 'preoccupation' of the Madman in the story was his realization that in his society, 'people are being eaten.' There was no significant event that could have triggered the onset of the Madman's downward spiral to insanity; but he suddenly realized that in the thirty (30) years that he has lived, he had been "in the dark." 'Being in the dark in the story' literally meant that he suddenly observed his community as having fearful looks at him, which confirmed his initial suspicions that his fellowmen are capable...
First, the Madman shared that his community, specifically neighbors, are not entirely foreign to the idea of social injustice. He mentioned that people he talked to and dealt with in the past 30 years "have been pilloried by the magistrate, slapped in the face by the local gentry, had their wives taken away by bailiffs… or their parents driven to suicide" (Chapter 3, par. 2). It also contextualized and gave the readers an idea about the social climate the Madman lived in at the time of his 'unusual affliction.' It highlighted the social unrest of the community in general, but this unrest has been an alien concept to the Madman until he had the realization of that humans are capable of eating other people…
Reference
Lu Xun. Diary of a Madman. (1997). In The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces: Expanded Edition in One Volume. Mack, M. (Ed.). NY: WW Norton Company.
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