M. Butterfly

The play M. Butterfly, was written by David Henry Hwang. To help the actors gain a complete understanding of the play, a resource packet with references to the people and events that the play is based on, information on the role of women in 1960s China, and information on the opera Madama Butterfly would be provided to them. The characters Rene Gallimard (Hwang, pg. 1672 line 1) and Song Liling (Hwang, pg. 1679 line 4) are based loosely off Bernard Boursicot and Shi Pei Pu, respectively, and their relationship in the 1960s followed by the discovery of Shi Pei Pu’s deception and then the resulting case of espionage that they were convicted for by the French Government. Also, while the play depicts Gallimard being in jail at age 65, Boursicot was actually convicted and released before the age of 50. By understanding the true story that the play M. Butterfly is based on, the actors in the production can more accurately understand where the playwright…

The play M Butterfly, by David Henry Hwang, is an extremely complex piece of literature and a fascinating dissection of the East versus West mentality as well the gender binary. Examining Gallimard’s behavior under these lenses leads to many insights to his motivations and provides reasoning for his rather strange actions. These ideas which permeate the play are all grounded in the fundamental concept of ideology and the interpellation of the “subject” by said ideologies. As well as Althusser’s…

David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly, was first written in 1988 and his work was inspired and he was influenced by Giacomo Puccini’s opera Madame Butterfly and it is based on a true story. David Henry Hwang as a first generation Chinese American being born in California on August 11, 1975, the writer of the three-act play M. Butterfly was a son of Chinese immigrants, his father was from Shanghai and his mother was an ethnic Chinese from the Philippines. His father immigrated to Oregon during the…

Kirtan Patel AAST200- 0101 The Reality of M. Butterfly In David Henry Hwang’s theatre play, M. Butterfly manifests three keywords that have a greater and deeper meaning: race, gender, and Orientalism. “Race is a social construction…” (Hwang) Junaid Rana starts her definition of race by calling it a social construction. Where race was never truly a thing, it is something created to separate cultural and biological differences in a corporate class. Race was not an issue when it came down to…

Gender Performance: A Man Pretending to be a Woman Have you ever thought why we act the way we do? Have you ever thought you have to act a certain way because you are a male or female? Have you ever done something and you then realize, those actions should not be done be you? It happens all the time, when people feel they have to act a certain way because of their gender. In the book M Butterfly by David Henry Hwang, the character, Song Liling plays the role of a “perfect women”. In the play,…

Throughout time, people in the west and the east seem to have more humbleness once the different type of people visit places other then what they are use to. For example, a person born and raised in North Korea visits the United States and does not know how to speak the language or does not understand the culture of the people in the United States. It should force the person from Korea to become humble because if not then no one is going to guide that person. Going to uncomfortable situations…

David Henry Hwang’s M Butterfly, and Luis Valdez’s Los Vendidos are plays that shine a light on how stereotypes play a role in how human beings see and treat each other in our society. Hwang and Valdez show many different ways stereotypes play a part in how many different events can play out when we see them. I personally believe that Los Vendidos is the one play out of the two that really dives deep into the way racial stereotypes play a part in how Mexicans were treated, and what people…

French diplomat. While he is in China, he goes and sees an opera named Madame Butterfly. The main role is played by a woman/man named Song Lining. Gillimard is in love with her cultural beauty and acting skills. Over twenty years, Song and Gillimard had a sexual relationship and over those twenty years, Gillimard would tell Song about all the secrets of the French government thinking he could trust her, but she was secretly a spy and was telling these secrets to the Chinese communist party. As…

This negative emotion festers inside the individual, who wishes nothing more than to bury their failure. From this, self-deception is born: in self-deception, an individual attempts to modify their perception of reality in an effort to comfort themselves. However, reality inevitably undermines the quasi-structures the individual creates. This can be seen in the play M. Butterfly, where Gallimard presents his tragic story to the audience. Song, in the form of a memory within Gallimard’s mind,…

In David Hwang 's play "M. Butterfly" the antagonist Lilling Song, who is a man disguised as a woman performs feminine traits while in disguise and masculine traits outside of it. Men and women in today 's society are expected to act in a certain way based on their gender. Masculinity and femininity are viewed as having opposite characterics besides the natural biological differences between genders. Holly Devor explains in her article "Gender Blending" "These two clusters of attributes are…