Act I, Scene 3

This passage represents Gallimard’s intent for the play. He willingly commits to retelling his story if only to get the <a data-internal-link data-link-type="Literary Device" href="https://www.supersummary.com/audience/">audience</a> on his side. His openness to the possibility that the audience might even envy him, despite his incarceration and public humiliation, hints at his arrogance, which is one of Gallimard’s key character traits.

Act I, Scene 5

Gallimard explains why he idealizes the plot of the opera <a href="https://www.supersummary.com/madame-butterfly/summary/?searchId=cdf43b77-dac0-43ed-9f9e-b0fb7a90b698&amp;searchPosition=1" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><a data-internal-link data-link-type="Symbols & Motifs" href="https://www.supersummary.com/m-butterfly/symbols-and-motifs/#765958">Madame Butterfly</a></a>. He views himself as someone so undesirable that it fills him with hope to think that Pinkerton, whom the opera similarly characterizes as undesirable, could enter the kind of romance he does with Butterfly. Gallimard’s low self-esteem is one of his biggest character flaws, driving him to accept the <a data-internal-link data-link-type="Literary Device" href="https://www.supersummary.com/illusion/">illusion</a> of Song’s love as reality.

Act I, Scene 6

Gallimard’s first encounter with Song shatters his fantasy while also giving Song the first impression of the fantasy she can use to ensnare him in her espionage operations. Gallimard is uncritical of Pinkerton and Butterfly’s romance because he sees and idealizes himself in Pinkerton’s shoes. Song, conversely, understands the opera’s flaws at once because of how it disenfranchises her as an Asian person.

Act I, Scene 8

Act I, Scene 9

Act I, Scene 10

Act I, Scene 11

Act I, Scene 13

Act II, Scene 1

Act II, Scene 2

Act II, Scene 3

Act II, Scene 6

Act II, Scene 7

Act II, Scene 10

Act II, Scene 11

Act III, Scene 1

Act III, Scene 2

Act III, Scene 3

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