M. Butterfly

M. Butterfly puts a twist on the expected gender roles of our current society. Madame Butterfly made a very critical point on Western glorification of not only a male hero, but a Caucasian male hero in a story. This play puts emphasis on why it is acceptable for Asian women to commit suicide for a Caucasian man who does not deserve her love; however, there is no sympathy for a story with a Caucasian woman committing suicide for her Asian male lover. This is because Westerners view themselves as dominant over Asian countries. An Asian woman who slaves herself for a white man makes a romantic story only because the white man wins, but this time, David Henry Hwang switches the roles and places the white man as Madame Butterfly almost as a way of humiliating Westerners.

Hwang made Madame Butterfly a man as a way to show how far gender roles are created by a dominant male society. Madame Butterfly was able to seduce Gallimard so well because he was a man, and men are the ones who really know how woman should act. Madame Butterfly, as a man, used his knowledge of what men want to get Gallimard to fall in love with him. This shows that men give a specific framework for how woman are expected to act.

When Gallimard kills himself at the end, we are not moved to tears by a tragic love story, rather I felt the tone of humiliation towards the Western people. It felt as if Hwang is saying to the Westerners, it is the flaws of your Western expectations of woman and Asian cultures that this was possible. This hurts the pride of Westerners because this time, the Asian woman was able to slave a white man and use deception to access political information. This leads to Hwang’s main point that Westerners should not underestimate other cultures, nor should woman be subject to being an obedient house wife.