Hwang's M. Butterfly- Act I Response

I thought it was interesting to read everyone else’s opinions on the first act of M. Butterfly.  I agree with Keaton that the beginning is a little confusing, since the characters are acting as other characters.  I also agree with his take on Marc’s character, the Western man who seems to be a misogynist.  However, the entry that I found most interesting was Meryn’s comparison of the letters to the “Five Stages of Loss and Grief.”  I never made this comparison before she brought it up in class and I got a more thorough view of her point while reading her blog entry.  After looking at the differences between the four letters, I also believe that they also reflect the way a woman’s mind works.  Personally speaking, I know I jump from one thing to another in my mind and these different topics always have me feeling different emotions.  So the letters, I believe are just Song’s thoughts sprawled out in words.  Song is indecisive of her emotions toward Gallimard and is simply going back and forth between her emotions- including him through the letters.  Another example that reminds me of Song’s indecisiveness is my friend who recently broke up with her boyfriend.  She constantly goes from wanting him back, to despising him and then is idle in confusion. 

In my opinion, Gallimard sees Song as a conquest.  He uses these letters as an experiment, to see if he could make her love him by ignoring her, and he only goes to see her when it is convenient for him.  Actions like this help Gallimard feel like the masculine Western man, especially since he was pretty much shot down the first time he met Song.  Gallimard is a lot like Romeo from Romeo and Juliet, in that he does not act like the other men around him and he is more emotional, like a woman.  He even started to have another affair after Song, with a young woman named Renee, possibly in hopes to be viewed as a real man by Marc.  It is hard for me to predict what will happen in Gallimard’s search for acceptance, but I have refrained myself from reading the editor’s note and the back of the book.