A review of the treatment of female characters in Chinese fiction reveals that Chinese social attitudes have undergone dramatic changes. Prior to twentieth century, women in novels were stereotyped lacking any features that made them unique individuals and were also subject to numerous restrictions imposed by the male-dominated culture. While authors of these novels often sympathetically portrayed heroines who experienced social depression. They never questioned the position of women in Chinese culture. Not until the early twentieth century did Chinese fiction focus on women's emancipation, and then the subject became the backdrop of most novels that addressed the issue. After the Communist party established the People's Republic in the late 1940's, attitudes changed again: the gaining of women's rights was treated as one of many ongoing social revolutions, although from the beginning Communist Party policy subordinated the women's struggle to the class Struggle.
In spite of the fact that the authors who dealt with women's issues prior to 1949 agreed in principle that reforms had to be instituted, the outlook they depicted for reform. was bleak. In their novels a pattern recurs: after an initial break with social conversations, women falter in their goals or tragically end their lives, defeated by the overwhelming pressures of those conventions. If some writers viewed the emancipation of women as an achievable end, most tended to regard it as related to other seemingly unattainable social changes. Individualism alone would not lead to emancipation. Taking his cue from Ibsen's play A Doll's House, in which the heroine, Nora, leaves home because she resents her husband's treating her like a child. The writer Lu Xun warned that Nora would need money to support herself; she must have economic rights in order to survive.
In contrast to this view of women in fiction in the early part of the century, fiction after the late 1940's is not so pessimistic. The deeper problems of socially prescribed roles for wife and daughter, for example, are not explored, but greater freedom for women is presented as the product of collective action. Novels of this period focus primarily on the specific issues: voluntary marriage and equal participation in work. After Mao Zedong's announcement of guidelines for a literature of social realism, this emphasis on women's rights became more pronounced. Most women in fiction after 1949 conform. to the goals set for them by Communist party policy but still experience conflicts within family and group relationships as a result of the double burden placed on them by their domestic and job roles. Fiction of this period also depicts the problems of compensating women adequately for their work and of giving them access to jobs previously performed by men. Although these novels forcefully suggest that such reforms face much resistance, all clearly conclude that eventually this resistance can be overcome. And, in fact, the past two decades have seen the beginning of some of these reforms in the lives of women in the People's Republic of China.
The passage is primarily concerned with discussing which of the following subjects？

A. The impact of Ibsen's plays on themes in twentieth century Chinese literature.
B. Stylistic differences between pre-1990 and post-1990 Chinese fiction.
Changes in the role of women in Chinese society brought about by Communist party policy.
D. The characterization of women in twentieth century Chinese literature.