Paper: Manipulating Art and Power in M. Butterfly

This paper was submitted for “English Composition 5W: Literature, Culture, and Critical Inquiry – Concepts of Reality” with Dr. Lisa Gerrard in Winter 2008.

Almost anything we create can be considered a work of art; anyone can translate his or her perspective through art, making art one of the most influential mediums. Puccini’s Madame Butterfly is one work of art that defined symbols of a culture for its viewers. “Here…here was a Butterfly with little or no voice—but she had the grace, the delicacy…I believed this girl. I believed her suffering…so delicate, even I could protect her” Gallimard says as he’s watching Song. On one hand, Gallimard is enthralled and intrigued while watching Song play the role of Butterfly—enthralled to have his fantasy modeled by her and curious if he can exert power over the meek Butterfly. On the other hand, Song plays the role as a “job” to fulfill his own duties (III, I, 61). In David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly, Gallimard and Song consciously use the influence of art to gain power and manipulate one another.

Puccini’s Madame Butterfly underlines M. Butterfly during Gallimard’s opening scene in his prison cell, foreshadowing the opera’s influence in the play. He becomes transfixed on Butterfly, in this archetypal East-West romance, who performs the “Love Duet” as the “feminine ideal”—“beautiful and brave”(5). She seduces him as she glides past him bowing her head, portraying the typical obedient and submissive Oriental woman. Furthermore, the hero of the opera, Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton, is portrayed as a typical Yankee, who “cast[s] his anchor wherever he wants”, and tries to “win the hearts of the fairest maidens” (I, iii, 7), ultimately symbolizing the white westerner, who is cruel, foreign, and a “real” man.

As Gallimard watches the opera for the first time in China, the power of the beautiful story unravels even further, as Butterfly, now played by Song, sacrifices herself in the death scene. Reminiscing about seeing Song sing the lines from the opera, Gallimard continues to be enraptured by her “grace” and “delicacy”, making it that much easier for him to “believe this girl.” As a result, he is convinced of her suffering, and thus immediately wants to protect her in his arms. Song’s powerful and convincing performance consumes Gallimard, as he is taken in by a fantasy of the exotic east, obedient women, and the art of pleasure. Gallimard sees Song “singing the death scene from Madame Butterfly” and attributes the symbols of Eastern culture to her (I, vi, 16). He is so devoured by the opera, that he ultimately wants to place himself in Pinkerton’s role, after seeing Song transform into Butterfly on the stage. He cannot differentiate her from her role as an actor; he only sees her through the lens of the cultural myth. Gallimard constructs Song as his “feminine ideal,” his piece of art (I, iii, 10). This inability to separate Song and her character eventually sets Gallimard up for self-deception and deception by Song.

Even after the opera ends, Song immediately labels Gallimard as the typical white man: “You see any other white men? It was too easy to spot you. How often does a man in my audience come in with a tie” (I, viii, 20). She not only sets his role as the stereotypical westerner, but begins to solidify his belief that the opera can become his reality. Although Song seems to vehemently try to deconstruct the racist undertones of the opera, by telling Gallimard to reverse the roles and reevaluate whether he still “[sees] the beauty of the story” (I, vi, 18), she actually manages to call attention to the aspects which Gallimard is most drawn to. For example, she disapprovingly says, “It is one of your favorite fantasies. Isn’t it? … You find it beautiful” (I, vi, 17)—ultimately trying to construct and confirm his infatuation with their positions in the fantasy created by the opera. In this way, though her attempts seem to want to change Gallimard’s mind, Song actually marks him as the cruel white man, while reaffirming his desire for a passive Oriental woman. Thus Gallimard continues to aspire to become Pinkerton, reasoning that although, “We men may all want to kick Pinkerton, very few would pass up the opportunity to be Pinkerton” and “like Pinkerton, we deserve a Butterfly” (II, ii, 35; I, v, 13). Song’s presumptuous commentary about Gallimard’s views of the opera captivate him, as he becomes spellbound by the infallibility of the stereotypes of the opera, and adheres to the idea that the “Oriental girls… want to be treated bad!” (I, iii, 11).

After the roles are set, Song and Gallimard begin exhibiting the personalities of their characters. Song plays into the shy and inferior Oriental female role stating, “Please…it all frightens me, I’m a modest Chinese girl” (I, xii, 40); and Gallimard responds as the powerful westerner conqueror, as he describes her as being a spoil of his triumph: “My poor little treasure” (I, xiii, 40). In Puccini’s Madame Butterfly, Butterfly confesses to Pinkerton that she has heard that if an American man catches a butterfly, he will pierce its heart with a needle and leave it to die. Alluding to this remark, Gallimard says, “Had I, too, caught a butterfly who would writhe on a needle?” In this manner, Gallimard completes his transformation into Pinkerton, while Song reaffirms, “Yes, I am. I am your butterfly” (I, xiii, 40). As his butterfly, Song “feels inferior”, is “helpless before [her] man”, and is filled with “shame”. Admitting to her and himself that he is the cruel white man, Gallimard finally declares, “I’m a foreign devil” (I, xi, 31). Gallimard finally declares, “I’m a foreign devil” (I, xi, 31). They both use these roles—which are directly extracted from Madame Butterfly—for their own advantage: for Song to find out France’s position on the Vietnam war and for Gallimard to complete his fantasy.

Once being the character trying to catch the butterfly, Gallimard becomes the butterfly himself when he has fulfilled his fantasy and is in love with the perfect woman. When he asks Song if he can undress her and she hesitantly denies, the fantasy is not yet fulfilled–Song is supposed to weak and submissive. However, after Song fully complies, conceding, “Our love, in your hands,” Gallimard cannot continue to be “Pinkerton stalking towards his Butterfly” and he finally lets go: “Pinkerton… vanished from my heart” (II, vii, 60). Likewise, Song is released from her role as a passive Oriental woman as she finally reveals herself as a male spy.

After years of deceit, and the revelation of his true identity, Song has the power over Gallimard, whose dreams and fantasies have been swiftly destroyed. The feeling of shame is ultimately transferred from Song, to Gallimard. Gallimard’s complete transformation into Butterfly, however, comes at the end of the play when he physically replicates Butterfly and turns himself into a piece of art. He realizes that the work of art, the Madame Butterfly, the fantasy–the things he longed for he has found, not in another–but in himself. He does not need to search for a Butterfly anymore for he is Butterfly; he has lived his own ideal. In his final moments, Gallimard reaffirms his belief in his original vision saying, “I have a vision. Of the Orient. That, deep within its almond eyes, there are still women. Women willing to sacrifice themselves for the love of a man. Even a man whose love is completely without worth” (II, iii, 92). By killing himself, Gallimard reenacts the final death scene and regains the power over Song as he ignores the truth and dies with those original symbols and stereotypes of the Orient performed in Madame Butterfly.

Because art is influential, it also holds the power to control and construct beliefs based on one person’s ideas. The reversal between Song and Gallimard illustrates how power is shifted when one person has control over the other. However, at times, they can be mirror images of each other; both turned to the audience three scenes apart, sardonically commenting, “Prophetic” (II, viii, 52; II, xi, 57). Throughout the play, art is a tool for manipulation and a means to exert power over one another. It is imperative to be able to objectively judge and critique art, illustrated as Song challenges Gallimard, “How can you objectively judge your own values?” (I, viii, 21). Hwang deliberately keeps the audience out of the play, which is essentially Gallimard’s retelling, his interpretation, his work of art of the events preceding his imprisonment, by employing Gallimard to continually address us directly, breaking the theatrical spell. Hwang protects us from mistaking art from reality by doing so.

In On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense, Nietzsche argues that truth is a name given to the point of view of the people who have the power to enforce their opinion. In other words, truth is a social construct, something that is accepted then adopted by society. Many languages and many metaphors exist to signify the same thing; language works as a system of metaphors—“metaphors which correspond in no way to the original entities” (Nietzsche 62). In M. Butterfly, both Song and Gallimard, at different points, represent qualities attributed to Puccini’s constructed stereotype of a Butterfly in Madame Butterfly—someone, namely an Oriental woman, who is delicate and compliant. Song and Gallimard signify butterflies as one takes control over the other.

While Nietzsche and Derrida both seek to invalidate the Platonian view that there is an absolute truth, Derrida explicitly counters Nietzsche’s claim of a socially constructed truth with his theory of deconstruction. Derrida writes in Signative Event Context that “performative communication [can] become once more the communication of an intentional meaning” (Derrida 65). This is possible through deconstruction; if something is a cultural construct, it can also be deconstructed and something else could be constructed in its place. Using Derrida’s theory of deconstruction, Hwang analyzes the stereotypes in Puccini’s Madame Butterfly to expose their assumptions and contradictions. By taking apart Gallimard and his fantasy, as well as Song, Hwang reconstructs them to become one another, to blur and subvert their apparent significance or unity.

With the onset of more virtual realities and less inhibition, we are constantly deconstructing with any art we create—be it via a documentary, reality TV, or a virtual character in Second Life. Art in any of these mediums can be used to substitute our fantasy as someone else’s reality. Madame Butterfly was an essential work of art in reinforcing the symbols of Eastern culture to Gallimard, making it easier for Song to inveigle Gallimard into believing Song was his “Perfect Woman.”