M Butterfly Essay

The role of performance is prevalent in David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly in both the obvious and abstract sense. An example of the obvious sense is found in Song, Gallimard’s love in the play, who is “a woman created by a man” (Act 3, scene 3), to use Gallimard’s words, but really Song is a spy for the Communist party under Mao’s rule. Song directly states that he is an artist and that Gallimard was his “greatest acting challenge (Act 2, scene 7). Further, an example of the abstract sense is found in the vague generalities about the West and East, how both have misunderstandings of the other based on how each portrayals themselves to the world, e.g. the West as being masculine with a unexplainable love for “big guns, big industry, big money;” and the East as being “weak, delicate, poor” (Act 3, scene 1). Beyond the politics and ethnicity, however, I am much more interested in the
Butterfly has the fresh appeal as it perhaps did when it was first written due to its portrayal of gender roles and sexuality (and of age as well). For instance, many scholars delve into what the play is saying about gender, sexuliaty, and sexul idenity first; followed by exploring the theoretical implications and political ‘connotations’ of these findings. Because of this, M. Butterfly “advances progressive social attitudes” with its examination of “the social construction of ethnic and sexual identity” (Shimakawa). However, some scholars have also noted that much has been examined on the issues of “performing gender, race, sexual orientation, and culture, but not age” (Lipscomb). This shows that even while the two main issues of gender roles and sexuliatiy are at the forefront in reading Hwang’s play, the issue of age is also something to consider (and presents another example of ‘thirdness’ that Hwang fails to capitalize on and, as a result, closes any opening in the tight binary