M. Butterfly takes place in a prison cell in Paris with Monsieur Rene Gallimard, a sixty-five-year-old man and the protagonist of the play. Throughout the play, he addresses the reader and refers to his flashbacks to tell the story of his incarceration. At the beginning of the play, Gallimard describes his cell and his fame for some monumental event in his past based on the hallucination of Song Liling. Song Liling is Gallimard's Butterfly, a woman dancing to a love duet in the opera Madame Butterfly. Scenes five and six of Act 1 include Gallimard describing the plot of Madame Butterfly, which is parallels to his story. Gallimard’s insecurity as a boy is depicted through scenes five and six. Also, that he married a woman named Helga. Song is
