M. Butterfly

M. Butterfly

David Henry Hwang's play 'M. Butterfly' is about a French diplomat Rene Gallimard who is in love with Chinese opera star, Song Liling; who deceives him by hiding the fact that she is a man and also a spy of Chinese government. One of the main characters of the play is Song and she is the material for desire for Gallimard. This desire of Gallimard to possess Song is a great example of materialism. The play also explains the concepts of feminism, cultural context, metaphor, dramatic structure and verbal irony.

Song is described as a young, beautiful and delicate Asian woman. Several times in the play, she has been described as 'A perfect women.' In the play, she is described more as an object to be possessed. Song is referred as a 'Butterfly' and also as a 'Little flower' by Gallimard. Butterfly and flower are delicate and beautiful, so is Song. This physical quality of butterfly and flower are associated with Song by Gallimard. Thus, Hwang has used metaphor to describe the physical beauty of Song. Associating physical quality and also the character of a woman with flowers, birds and food objects is not new.

The metaphors commonly used for women in Italy and France is one of such example. Simone de Beauoir, a French feminist writer, published in one of her work, Le Deuxieme that a picture of woman starts to flash in the mind of a man on hearing the word 'female.' He imagines her to be a mantis, spider, a bird and also as a flavored food items. The associations are also made of females with small delicate animals like chick, kitten, and sparrow and with desserts like cheesecake, tart, sweetie pie, honey. This reflects the male oriented ideology for women in English society as well. The ideology for comparing females with animals which are small and delicate might have arisen because females are small, delicate, they can be controlled and also because man are superior to animals. Whereas, women are compared to food items like desserts and fruits because they are sweet, juicy and food can be consumed when desired or hungry. Females are also given names on their characters. A polite and gentle women are preferred as rabbits, sparrow whereas prostitutes are termed as monkey and heron.

Gallimard is a western man from France in China. He is a French diplomat who is blindly in love with Song. Gallimard is married and also has an extramarital affair with more than one woman. He is a typical man who wants to dominate his wife and also his other mistresses. In reality, in the play; Song is a male and also a spy. This is disclosed by Song to Gallimard after twenty years of long affairs. His belief for eastern women and sexism makes it easy for Song to deceive him. It is believed by the oriental Asian women that the western man catches a butterfly meaning a woman, pierce its heart with a needle and leave it to survive. But, in the play, Gallimard has to pay the price for his desire of possessing Song and instead, he is pierced by Song.

Though, Gallimard is the protagonist of the play, he is the one who suffers the maximum consequences of keeping a relation with Song. Some of the reason of these mishap faced by Gallimard are that he ignored to find the fact whether Song is a male or a female. He did that to live with the image of his perfect woman. Not only this, he is egoistic and he loves the feeling of enjoying power. This is reflected in many area of the play. One of the good example to explain this is when he stops going to the theater to meet Song for five weeks while she has been waiting to hear from him; and at that time he says "I felt for the first time that rush of power - the absolute power of a man."

Women were always confined to satisfying the social fulfillment of the family and the society as a whole. They did not enjoy the upper social status in the society as the man from the ancient time until late 1980's. Women were often illiterate. They were not allowed to enjoy the right to receive education as the male child. Women's were always looked down in the society as foolish, illiterate and also as an object of possession and desire. Society had a pre-assumed picture of women specially, the oriental Chinese women. Chinese women were considered delicate, illiterate, polite, family oriented and inferior to westerners. They were taught right from their childhood to take care of their family, children and husband and also how to please a man. This pre-assumed picture of a female dwelled in Gallimard's mind too. These believe of the stereotype Chinese women lead Gallimard to suffer the outcome of trusting Song.

Women were considered to be a beautiful bird but were not given any freedom to study or to work. So, it was righteously said for females - 'Bird in the gilded cage.' They were given all the facility at home but were not allowed to establish their own identity in the society. Fr woman, gilded cage is the house of her father or husband. Their house is said to be gilded in gold because women are protected by their father or husband from the outside world but they do not have the liberty to live their life according to their own way. This is a very famous saying of that time when females did not enjoy any social rights in the society. This phrase was used as a title for many movies like 'The bird cage.' Not only this, there was one federal investigation to arrest people involved in illegal business of alleged sex trafficking and conspiracy of transporting Korean female across state line with the intention of prostitution and also transporting them wide across the oceans to Canada and other countries. This mission was named as operation gilded cage. The mission is named gilded cage because the female are traded that is human smuggling to make business and money. The females who were transported might have made money but were exploited by the males.

Hwang has interestingly described the cultural differences between Song and Gallimard and also how does it affect their social image as a whole. Song has an image of Gallimard when she first notices him amongst the audience in her play. She can easily differentiate him from the crowd because of his physical appearance that is very different from the Chinese. Song also mentions about western European women's who are usually beautiful and attractive. This states that Chinese have an impression about westerners to be good in looks and also to be superior to the Chinese. This impression is because of the cultural, social and political difference in between these two nations - China and Europe in the 1980's.

In the ancient China until the Cultural Revolution in 1960's, Chinese girls from the early childhood were taught to be submissive and to please the men, specially their husbands. They were considered