M. Butterfly (David Henry Hwang)
This is an excerpt from the paper...
M. Butterfly is a memory play in which author David Henry Hwang smoothly switches time and place throughout the play in order to reveal a story that is already known to the narrator and central character, Rene Gallimard. The play is constructed as an "evening" in the theater in which the speaker will take the viewers over his story until his "ideal audience" will come to envy him because he has been loved by "the Perfect Woman" (1936). Hwang (and Gallimard) assume that the audience is already somewhat familiar with the outlines of the story. Yet, just in case anyone is not clear on it, a certain amount of suspense is built in to the play. The opening conversations of the people at a party do not specifically state the case. Their remarks could be understood by anyone who knew the story and would offer hints to those who did not. But the gradual revelation of Song Li's gender is not so much a function of the presentation of the plot to the audience as it is a function of Gallimard's own review of the story. The structure of the plot and the organization of scenes reflects the structure of Gallimard's mental representation of the story rather than any objective reality. There is no point where he specifically interjects himself into the story as the gradual revelation is made. He does not, for example, want to be present on the stage when Madame Chin comes on for the first time to discuss Song's assignment. Gallimard has said, in introducing the scene, that the audie
. . .
ldup of the affair and the movement toward treason and revelation and disgrace -- is secondary to the real plot which is Gallimard's development of understanding .
Character is plot in an unusual way in this play. Gallimard says he has gone over the whole affair many times and he has reached a climax where he understands what has happened. But he never does quite understand because, like Butterfly in the opera, he kills himself for love. This demonstrates simultaneously that he is not a Pinkerton and that there is some emotional plausibility to the idea of Butterfly's suicide. A person can be willing to destroy himself or herself for love. Just as Pinkerton was definitively shown to have betrayed Butterfly, Song has betrayed Gallimard. But his death places Gallimard firmly outside all the play's significant categories -- the French, the Western, the "Oriental," the Chinese, and the Asian. The movement from the unhappy young man who is never able to find a girlfriend to the man who, when he does find one, dies for her is the trajectory that outlines Gallimard's development of his own story. He can only see himself as being outside or inside the "club" of men. He is far less interested in the nature of his response to Son
. . .
Some common words found in the essay are:
Toulon Renee, Chin Gallimard, Madame Chin, Chinese Asian, Gallimard's Song's, Marc Toulon, Oedipus Hamlet, Westerners Asians, Song Song's, Song Li's, madame chin, madame chin comes, gallimard remains, own fashion, scene madame, gallimard's own, gallimard's development, gradual revelation, chin scene, scene madame chin, repeated viewings readings, willed ignorance, gallimard willfully,
Approximate Word count = 1765
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)
More Essays on M. Butterfly (David Henry Hwang)
|
Customer Service
to Over
32,000 Professionally Written Papers!!!
