An Overview of the Narrative Fiction of the Period of the "Republic"("Minguo") at the Turn of the 20th Century

At the turn of the 20th century, Chinese novelists, abandoning the staid model representing social manners and styles and historical schemata, have concerned themselves with the circumstances of individual existence, namely, the fact that man is nothing but a powerless creature in the manipulation of history. Thus, with the sense of history as mere means of rhetoric, they have integrated it into the framework of their artistic works and brought about an esthetic issue of the representation of the period of the Republic (Minguo) in their fiction. However, this has, at the same time, caused the social form and spirit of that period disappear from their texts.