This paper is concerned with examining Republican Chinese woman writer Lu Yin's (庐隐 1898-1934) several fictional works and concentrated on the expression of feminine consciousness. The awakening of feminine consciousness expressed in her fiction is comprised of two aspects. The first section of this paper focuses on the first aspect that reflects feminine consciousness-the subversion of traditional familial narratives-in which four short stories were analysed. Two fiction pieces, "A Scene" and "A Victims of the Times", in which Ling Fen's shimu and Xiuzhen were used as examples of typical victims in traditional families during the early 20th-century transitional period, revealed Lu Yin's compassion for women's sufferings. In "Father" and in "The Failure of Professor Qin", several male characters played dominant roles; however, in fact, Lu Yin's purpose was to deconstruct phallocentrism through debasing the image of an authoritative father as the prelude to awakening female self-consciousness. Thereafter, the paper explored the second aspect in terms of the awakening of feminine consciousness-that is, the freedom of marriage and love. Focusing on two respective heroines Lan Tian and Supu in "The Confession of Lan Tian" and in The Heart of Women, this section explores the issue of marriage issues and love affairs from different perspectives. Lu Yin expressed her objections to feudal arranged marriages and her advocacy of pursuing true love, but at the same time she also emphasised the antinomy of romantic love. Overall, women's subjects that Lu Yin created in her works represent her affirmation of self-perception in terms of gender issues. With her particular feminine consciousness, Lu Yin broke through powerful mainstream ideological discourse.

In Republican women writers' works, the diary and epistolary modes are two common styles to reveal characters' interior monologue (IM) and the flow of consciousness in fiction. The women writers often attempt to convey the self-introspection with female awareness through both narrative forms; in particular, women writers use it to express the narrator/characters' IM in a private enclosed situation. Through the specific textual analysis, it can be seen that the authors attempted to imply something through both of these narrative forms; in particular, women writers used this as a way to express the characters' IM in private situations; for another thing, the usage of epistolary or diary forms could enable women writers to avoid possible criticism or blame when they tried to express their feminist feelings or thoughts. To some extent, this private narrative form provided an existential space for their discourse. No matter for the diary or the letter, seemingly it is merely a personal expression of thoughts and emotion, however in fact this was women writers' intentional choice. They clearly knew that female writing was not yet the established norm, so most of women writers showed cautiousness in their creative writing. It achieves a more effective negotiation with a patriarchal society.

Lu Yin 庐隐 (1898-1934) was a leading "new woman", and she had scaled the heights of her writing profession in mid-Republican China. In her short 36-year life, she published over 200 works in all, including novels, essays, proses and travelogues. As the first May Fourth female writer who touched upon the theme of homosexuality and depicted a lesbian story without reservation, Lu Yin created a short story "The Diary of Lishi" in which she narrated the love between Lishi and her same-sex partner Yuanqing; but this finally ended in tragedy, which implied Lu Yin's deconstruction of binary gender order. Meanwhile, this paper distinguishes "Old Friends on the Seashore" from lesbian or quasi-lesbian stories and argued that this fiction was more in terms of female same-sex camaraderie instead of lesbian love.

In the West, montage was originally practiced in avant-garde movements. Although montage was widely discussed in the Western context since its origin, this concept is also connected to the literature and culture of modern China in a certain way. Among the Republican Chinese writers, many women writers attempted to employ montage narrative in their creative writing. These writers transformed the montage narrative into a gendered one and used it to also secretly realise their attack on male neotraditional ideology. As a narrative strategy, montage provides a narrative possibility for women writers to deconstruct the prevalent discourse on gender roles, and to construct their identity, meanwhile conveying their innovative and unique understanding regarding feminism and modernity in modern China.