Response to Chrissie's Post

I agree with Chrissie – Gallimard’s motives for treating women a great deal worse than his fellow male counterparts are quite questionable. When it comes to his unfaithful tendencies towards his wife, Helga, and his desire to dominate a submissive Japanese woman, a great deal is left for the audience to imagine/wonder (as Chrissie mentioned in her post)- “What [is it] about Helga that makes [Gallimard] distance himself from her?” However, I would dare to derive more psychological conclusions from Gallimard’s actions.

         While I agree – Gallimard seems to “believe ‘all men want a beautiful woman, and the uglier the man, the greater the want’ (14),” I feel as though it isn’t solely the unhappiness with the appearance of his wife that allows him to feel so unsatisfied with his current romantic condition. Instead, his own insecurities regarding his appearance and sexual experience, are being projected onto woman in order to transfer the root of his perceived problems from his own issue to that of attractive women who think they’re too good for a nice guy like him.

         In other words, Galimard’s sour attitude towards women and power is a critique on the influence pop culture has on exaggerating our expectations of the opposite sex to an extent so great, our own personal insecurities and “inadequacies” are painted as abnormal and limiting rather than natural and acceptable. Thus, instead of feeling comfortable with his current romantic, sexual situation, he searches for more because media culture (such as the scandalous magazine he fantasizes about) sends him the message that he is to be in control. Women are submissive objects. The ideal woman is a model of physical perfection who says no more than exactly what you wish to hear. You have not succeeded until you have achieved this in real life…..

         Helga, who’s name in itself does not paint a particularly appealing picture, comes across as heavy. It does not roll off the tongue figuratively or literally. There lies no mystery behind it. M Butterfly, on the other hand, seems mysterious, something that floats, flutters, is elegant, and girlish.          Therefore, the play as a whole, even down to the selection of character names, plays on this male fantasy of domination, but it does so with an ironic twist. In his quest to fulfill media-induced expectations, Gallimard finds something (Song Liling) that seems so “perfect” it’s ridiculous and too good to be true.

         For this reason, I feel that it is more productive to see Gallimard as a victim of the unrealistic expectations, etc. set up by greater cultural myths rather than seeing him solely as a jerky womanizer. In doing so, a larger critique of male expectations between Western and Eastern culture, among others critiques, are opened up instead of coming to a finite conclusion that behavior such as this begins and ends with Gallimard.