M. Butterfly: Orientalism, Stereotypes, and Gender Identity
This essay analyzes David Henry Hwang's play M. Butterfly, focusing on how the protagonist Gallimard's deeply held Orientalist stereotypes allow him to sustain a long-term relationship with a Chinese spy he believes to be a woman. Drawing on Edward Said's concept of Orientalism and Puccini's opera Madame Butterfly, the essay examines how Gallimard's fantasy of the submissive Asian woman enables his self-deception, how Song Liling exploits that fantasy, and how the play ultimately reverses conventional gender and power roles. The essay argues that Gallimard's blind acceptance of a false stereotype leads to his personal and professional ruin, revealing him as the true "Butterfly" of the story.
- Introduction: Hwang's Premise and Gallimard's Worldview: Gallimard's lifelong desire for submissive women
- Orientalism and the Stereotype of the Asian Woman: Said's Orientalism applied to Gallimard's fantasy
- Madame Butterfly as Myth and Mirror: Puccini opera as template for East-West stereotyping
- Song Liling and the Deconstruction of the Butterfly Fantasy: Song exploits and critiques the Butterfly myth
- The Reversal: Gallimard as Butterfly: Gallimard revealed as the true Butterfly figure
✍️ How to write this paper — guide, tools & examples ▾
What makes this paper effective
- The essay builds its argument systematically, moving from character motivation to cultural theory to dramatic irony, keeping the reader oriented at each step.
- It integrates direct quotations from the play effectively, letting Gallimard and Song speak for themselves rather than relying solely on paraphrase.
- The paper grounds its literary analysis in Edward Said's theoretical framework, giving the reading intellectual depth beyond plot summary.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates how to deploy a theoretical lens — here, Said's concept of Orientalism — to illuminate a literary text. Rather than simply describing what happens in the play, the writer uses Orientalism as a framework to explain why Gallimard believes what he believes, connecting individual psychology to broader cultural and political power structures.
Structure breakdown
The essay opens by establishing Gallimard's character and his attraction to an idealized Asian femininity. It then introduces Said's Orientalism to name the cultural mechanism at work. The Puccini opera is examined as the specific myth Gallimard internalizes. Song Liling's role as both critic and performer of that myth is then analyzed. The essay closes by reversing the Butterfly metaphor, arguing that Gallimard — not Song — is the submissive figure destroyed by illusion.
Introduction: Hwang's Premise and Gallimard's Worldview
David Henry Hwang's play M. Butterfly was based on a true story about a French diplomat who carried on a long-term relationship with a Chinese spy he believed was a woman, but who was really a man. This basic story serves as the outline for Hwang's examination of the key questions people asked when the story first broke: Did he really not know? How is this possible? In the play, Gallimard believes that Song is a woman because he holds deep stereotypes about the Oriental; he identifies with Pinkerton of the Puccini opera as a result. When Song's true identity is revealed, Gallimard recognizes that his blind acceptance of a false stereotype has led him to ruin and to the diminishment of his experience and character — and that he is, in fact, the Butterfly in the story.
Gallimard, the diplomat, is presented as a man who has waited his whole life for a beautiful woman "who would lay down for you" (Hwang 505). He seems to elevate Asian women, but in fact he sees them as inferior, which is one reason he is attracted to Song, as he himself reveals: "Did you hear the way she talked about Western women? Much differently than the first night. She does — she does feel inferior to them — and to me" (Hwang 508). He is also driven by guilt as he pursues what he regards as an inferior creature: "If there was a God, surely he would punish me now. I had finally gained power over a beautiful woman, only to abuse it cruelly" (Hwang 510). When he is promoted to the position of vice-consul, he goes to Song and explicitly links his view of her with the opera, asking if she is his Butterfly.
The relationship between the two satisfies Gallimard because he attributes Song's unwillingness to undress or allow certain intimacies to her Asian background and culture. The stereotype he holds of Asian women is that they are always demure, refined, restrained, and shy. This is one reason he has been drawn to these women in the first place — his vision of them gives him the power he never feels he has with a Caucasian woman. In his own culture, women are more assertive and individual, so he seeks a woman who is very different, which conforms to the stereotype he has of Asian women. He tells her that "we will go very, very slowly" (Hwang 512).
Orientalism and the Stereotype of the Asian Woman
Hwang presents Gallimard as a man who has internalized the stereotype of Asians as bowing, blushing flowers, and shows him falling in love with a fantasy rather than a real person. This image is what Edward Said calls Orientalism. Said was concerned with the ways in which European and American observers created imaginative geographies of "the Orient" and used them in formulating policy. He also saw such analysis as shot through with metaphors of theater and drama, dividing issues into illusion and reality, present and future. Said argues that the West accepts these stereotypes because "Orientalism is fundamentally a political doctrine willed over the Orient because the Orient was weaker than the West" (Said 240). Though Said speaks specifically about Islam in his analysis, his argument applies equally to other parts of Asia. Hwang himself states that he uses the term "Oriental" "specifically to denote an exotic or imperialistic view of the East" ("Afterword" para. 2).
Critics observe of Hwang that his "condemnation of Western masculinity emerges powerfully, identifying him as a critic, rather than a celebrant, of Western culture" (Shin para. 5). It is significant that Hwang uses Western cultural forms to critique Western culture from within.
Madame Butterfly as Myth and Mirror
Hwang uses the image of Puccini's Madame Butterfly to evoke the stereotype that the West has long recognized and absorbed. In the opera, written in 1904, the central Western character is Lieutenant Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton, stationed in Nagasaki at the turn of the century, who uses a marriage broker to acquire a fifteen-year-old geisha girl, Cio-Cio San — "Butterfly" in Japanese. He marries Cio-Cio San, and she bears him a child. He then leaves Japan for three years, vowing to return, but Cio-Cio San eventually learns that Pinkerton does not plan to come back and that he intends to take another bride. The news devastates Butterfly, who kills herself with a knife. The submissive Oriental woman submits even in death — she punishes herself for the perfidy of Pinkerton.
In Hwang's play, the Butterfly image is what Gallimard keeps in mind at all times and elevates to a position of reverence. Gallimard narrates the story to the audience, shifting time and place as needed, and in the end makes his own statement about his relationship with Song Liling, challenging the laughter of others as he publicly denies that Song Liling is a man:
"There is a vision of the Orient that I have. Of slender women in chong sams and kimonos who die for the love of unworthy foreign devils. Who are born and raised to be the perfect women. Who take whatever punishment we give them, and bounce back, strengthened by love, unconditionally." (Hwang 536)
This image derives directly from Madame Butterfly, including its reference to women who kill themselves for love. As one news profile notes, "Some of the issues Hwang raised in M. Butterfly, including perceived Asian submissiveness and the origin of racial stereotypes, are among the hot-button topics that he thinks have to be addressed by today's playwrights" ("Henry David Wang — Profile of a Playwright" para. 15). Anne Anlin Cheng describes Hwang's play as "his version of this tale of East-West intrigue" (Cheng 109), a tale told in different forms over the years and rooted in the dynamics of East-West relations. Critic Frank Rich argues that the true story was merely a starting point and that Hwang was not interested in the mechanics of how the spy fooled the diplomat, but instead sought "to open a liaison to reveal a sweeping, universal meditation on two of the most heated conflicts — men vs. women, East vs. West — of this or any other time" (Rich para. 2).
Works Cited
"Afterword." 2007. April 5, 2007.
Cheng, Anne Anlin. The Melancholy of Race. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
"Henry David Wang — Profile of a Playwright." University News Service (19 June 1995).
Hwang, David Henry. M. Butterfly. In Plays for the Theatre, Oscar G. Brockett (ed.), 492–536. New York: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1996.
Jones, Chad. "TheatreWorks' 'M Butterfly' still has wings." Oakland Tribune (29 Aug 2006). April 3, 2007. http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4176/is_20060829/ai_n16694081.
Rich, Frank. "'M. Butterfly,' a Story of a Strange Love, Conflict and Betrayal." New York Times (21 March 1988). April 4, 2007.
Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Penguin, 2003.
Shin, Andrew. "Projected Bodies in David Henry Hwang's M. Butterfly and Golden Gate — Critical Essay." Melus (Spring 2002). April 4, 2007. http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2278/is_1_27/ai_89929579.
Always verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.