The article deals with the motif of “madness” and “death” in the works by a Russian symbolist F. Sologub and a Chinese writer Lu Xun. In such works as “The Little Demon” and “Diary of a Madman” this motif appears most clearly, especially as the main characters and the world around them, which is hostile to man. “The persecution mania”, bestial-like people, painful weight of being, madness as the death of the reasonable and the good are the main images of the local world, in which there is only one form of life-existence - “madness”, the only means, according to A. Schopenhauer, “to save lives”.