One of the most outstanding questions that arises throughout the plot of David Henry Hwang’s play, M Butterfly, is that of how Gallimard did not know that Song Liling was a man throughout the entirety of their affair. Indeed, how is it that this affair, that spanned several years and was consummated, enabled Song to disguise himself as a woman for so long, and so completely? The relationship between Gallimard and Song was allowed to continue without breaking the illusion simply, because people do see what they want to (or that people will refuse to see something that they do not, no matter how much evidence there is to the contrary).
Gallimard saw first Song in the role of Butterfly and refused to dissociate the actor from the part. The role of Butterfly is representative of the “ideal woman” and more so typifies for Western audiences (particularly Western men) the Asian woman. Butterfly is the submissive, feminine woman ready to give everything up for the powerful (or not) Western man.
Puccini’s opera exemplifies Western foreign policy with the East and how the West perceives the East as some sort of mystical, seductive beauty that bends to the will of the more superior West. If Butterfly, the symbol of Asian women and the East as a whole, can so easily submit to Pinkerton, a good-for-nothing American ass, then the East must indeed be inferior, thus feminine. With this outlook, Westerners assume that Asia is the archetypal damsel in distress that needs saving. Therefore, the West can never see the East as an equal; the East cannot be masculine or powerful. That is how Song is able to disguise himself as a woman.
In the courtroom scene in the opening of Act Three, Scene One, Song explains to the judge how he was able to pass a woman to Gallimard for so long. He states that:
As soon as a Western man comes into contact with the East—he’s already confused. The West has a sort of an international rape mentality towards the East…The West thinks of itself as masculine—big guns, big industry, big money—so the East is feminine—weak, delicate, poor…The West believes that the East, deep down, wants to be dominated—because a woman can’t think for herself…[and when Gallimard] finally met his fantasy woman, he wanted more than anything to believe that she was, in fact, a woman…I am an Oriental. And being an Oriental, I could never completely be a man. (III. iii. 82-83).
Gallimard so readily accepted Song as a woman because he was Asian. He first saw song in the role of Butterfly, the pre-accepted concept of Asia and Asian women by Western audiences, and transferred that to the actor who played Butterfly (conveniently forgetting that Song was no longer on stage in character). If he ever noticed something different while he was with Song, Gallimard associated Song’s behavior or differences in anatomy as some form of “Chinese modesty” or the fact that Song was Asian, thus foreign and allowed to be different. More so, if indeed Gallimard recognized Song as a man in terms of biology, he himself would never see Song as an actual man; a man that could be powerful and strong, because that violates the stereotype of the inferiority of Asians. Gallimard’s mind simply rejected the idea that Song was indeed a man and persisted that Song was his Butterfly and that any anomalies were merely the fact that Asian “women” were just different from the women he was used to.
Furthermore, Gallimard as a symbol of the West demonstrates the severe bias and assumption that the West has towards the East and foreign policy in Asia. In order for the West to feel superior, to feel that they have the “big guns,” it is necessary that the West deny Eastern power or individuality. No, the East needs to be dominated by the better West.
Gallimard refuses to admit that Song is a man, even when deep down inside he knows the truth. Just like in the Vietnam War, where the West refused to pull out and admit defeat. Because defeat at the hands of Asians, of “women,” is intolerable. This persistence in Eastern inferiority continues to this day. Maybe this view is merely the West projecting its own inferiorities on to an easier “target.” Perhaps the West is the true Butterfly, and simply needs to see the East as it really is, an equal.
I thought it was interesting too that in the play Hwang describes a stereotype of asia being a feminine. There is a part where he says that this is because the West sees Asia as just some cultured area but not cultured in a masculine way. More like the West sees it as some place where they serve tea all day and put importance on calligraphy and philosophy. It made me think of all of the movies I had seen where a white man goes over into an Asian country. Is it that Asia seems so different than the West that we exaggerate it's cultural differences so much that it defines not only that place but it's people? And it made me wonder if the image that's portrayed of the East in movies will ever change. But then... the movies are sort of like an escape/dream. Much like Gallimard's view/relationship with Song. It isn't real and is his escape/dream. The core being that he keeps his mind from thinking she is a man because the dream is a more fulfilling form in the same way that books and movies might not change the stereotypical image that it gives Asia because to make them more similar "more masculine" like the West would kill a place/people we've invented to be a completely different kind of people. So that's what happens to Gallimard in the end I feel. That the Asian woman he thought he was controlling and manipulating was really molding him into what he had fallen in love with. He didn't really respect her as an equal because he believed he was manipulating her so when he realized it was Song in control--it killed the dream. And he was so consumed and for 20 years the dream is all he knew and in the end he believed the dream had more worth than reality.
ReplyDeleteAs Sam describes while analyzing the quote from Act three, Gallimard allows himself to be oblivious to Song’s true identity because he relies on the stereotypes applied to Asians and women, to define a Chinese woman. For Gallimard, admitting that Butterfly did not really exist means admitting that his own power over a woman also did not exist. This strips Gallimard of his manhood as defined by the rules expressed throughout the play. But in scene two while Song finally strips for Gallimard, the reluctant Gallimard admits, “I knew all the time somewhere that my happiness was temporary, my love a deception. But my mind kept the knowledge at bay. To make the weight bearable” (III, ii, 88). This is interesting because when we juxtapose both quotes, we wonder if Gallimard knew he was being tricked, perhaps subconsciously. But what does that say about Gallimard’s subconscious? I think that because Song plays on these stereotypes of femininity, she appeases Gallimard’s fantasy of his own masculinity. Gallimard’s view of men and women are limited to the rigid definitions of masculinity and femininity formed by the contemporary society, but most manifest in the story of Madame Butterfly and the character Marc. The quote from scene two signifies that Gallimard had a problem with his own masculinity before he even met Song, and that imagining a relationship with the “perfect women” was the only way to shape a personality that would be considered masculine by contemporary western society. I think the play criticizes the inflexibility of gender roles within contemporary society, as well as society in the past. In the play we have a man who has always been uncomfortable with his sexuality because in the play’s society masculinity means power and domination: “big guns, big industry, big money” (III.iii. 82). In real life, Gallimard could never fit this mold, so he searches and finds Song who creates for Gallimard a fake masculinity. When considering the quote from Act III, scene i, we might wonder if Gallimard created this fantasy on purpose, just to fit in.
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