M. Butterfly
51 pages • 1-hour read
David Henry HwangM. Butterfly
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Background
Literary Context: Madama Butterfly
Content warning: This section of the guide contains discussion of death by suicide.
Madama Butterfly is a 1904 opera by Italian composer Giacomo Puccini. The opera’s plot partially derives from an 1887 French novel entitled Madame Chrysanthème by Pierre Loti. Hwang’s play draws heavily on Puccini’s opera, using it to inform the relationship between Rene Gallimard and Song Liling. Though the play discusses some of the opera’s major plot elements, it may be useful to approach the text with a more comprehensive knowledge of the plot.
Madama Butterfly takes place in Japan and is set contemporaneously in the era that the opera was written. While stationed in Nagasaki, US naval lieutenant Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton rents a house and buys the right to marry a 15-year-old local girl named Cio-Cio-San (or Butterfly). Pinkerton isn’t serious about the relationship and plans to eventually abandon Butterfly for an American wife. Butterfly, on the other hand, is elated by the prospect of marrying an American man and converts to Christianity before the wedding. The wedding ceremony is held at Pinkerton’s house. However, Butterfly’s uncle barges into the ceremony, disowning Butterfly for her conversion. The guests scatter, though Pinkerton and Butterfly resolve to devote themselves to each other in love.
In the second act, Pinkerton leaves Butterfly behind in Nagasaki. Three years pass without contact, yet Butterfly holds out hope for her husband’s return. The American consul, Sharpless, eventually visits her, reluctantly informing her that Pinkerton doesn’t plan to return. Butterfly asks Sharpless to relay to Pinkerton that she has given birth to his son. Later, Pinkerton’s ship arrives in Nagasaki harbor.
Pinkerton returns, though his new American wife, Kate, is with him. After learning about his son, Kate agreed to raise the child as her own. Pinkerton sees that Butterfly has prepared the house for him and is immediately filled with guilt. Out of cowardice, he asks Kate to tell Butterfly their plans for his son. Butterfly agrees to the plan on the condition that Pinkerton meet with her. She prays to the gods of her ancestors, places an American flag in the hands of her son, and blindfolds him as she dies by suicide, observing the Japanese ritual of seppuku. Pinkerton arrives just in time to see her die.
Puccini’s opera and Hwang’s play share the theme of imperialism as a common ground. Pinkerton and Gallimard mirror each other as Western men who see the East as a place to conquer through sexual exploits. Hwang takes the imperialist undertones of Madama Butterfly and injects the political subtext of the Cold War and its proxy conflicts to add to its message. As a result, M. Butterfly subverts the resolution of Puccini’s opera, and Gallimard, not Butterfly, dies by suicide, acting on his guilty conscience.
Historical Context: Bernard Boursicot, Shi Pei Pu, and the Cold War in Asia
The espionage case that surrounds Rene Gallimard and Song Liling is based on a 1986 political scandal featuring a French diplomat named Bernard Boursicot and a Peking opera singer named Shi Pei Pu. Much like in Hwang’s play, Boursicot entered an affair with Shi Pei Pu believing that the latter was a woman. Shi used their relationship to access sensitive documents from the French embassy. Shi even convinced Boursicot that they had a child together, though it was later revealed that Shi adopted the child from an Uyghur community in Xinjiang Province.
Boursicot and Shi’s affair became public knowledge when they were arrested in France. Boursicot insisted on his beliefs until the trial, when the prosecution made him aware of Shi’s gender. Shortly thereafter, Boursicot attempted death by suicide but was eventually convicted of espionage by the French government.
One might think that the Boursicot scandal would have greatly disadvantaged France in its relations with China. In truth, the political tensions between France and China had relatively little impact on the Cold War in Asia. French President François Mitterand even pardoned Shi as a peace offering to China in 1987. What’s important to M. Butterfly is that Hwang uses France to stand in for the Global West, or the Western Bloc.
Throughout the latter half of the 20th century, Western powers, chiefly the US, used proxy conflicts in Asia to wage a soft conflict against their rival in the East, the Soviet Union. This conflict represented differences in cultural and economic ideology. The Global West embraced capitalism and the free market, while the Soviet Union used its resources to spread communism among its neighboring countries. The 1949 proclamation of the People’s Republic of China represented the Soviet Union’s most significant ideological victory in the brewing Cold War; however, worsening relations between the two Communist powers nullified the impact of this victory.
Southeast Asia became a significant stage for conflicts between the Eastern and Western Blocs. Vietnam frequently features in Hwang’s play as a key site of international conflict. Because of Gallimard’s incorrect analytical insights on the geopolitics of China, the Communists gain a major advantage over the US and France. Consequently, the Western Bloc’s aggressive actions in Southeast Asia inspire mass movements in Western countries. This is evident near the end of Act II when Gallimard and his American wife, Helga, return to France, only to be caught amid the turmoil of political rallies sympathetic to Communism. Hwang ultimately uses his play to criticize the Western Bloc’s superiority complex, drawing a parallel between political theory and gender politics to make his point.
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