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M. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang
22
Sexuality
Differences
Why is this significant to literary analysis?
Constative:
- Socially constrained interpretations
Performative:
Different types of sexuality?
Discussion Q: From your readings did anyone believe that Hwang was Homosexual?
Should it?
Sexuality in M. Butterfly
Blurred sexual lines.
- Is Galimard gay for sleeping with a man, while not knowing it?
- Is song gay for sleeping with a man even though it is for political purposes; a means to an end?
"Sometimes a counter-revolutionary act is necessary to counter a counter-revolutionary act".
David Henry Hwang
- Born August 11, 1957
- Chinese-American
- Play premiered in 1988
- Bernard Bouriscot and Shi Pei Pu
"The White Man's Burden" by Rudyard Kipling
Madama Butterfly
Giacomo Puccini
Premiered 1904
Pinkerton & Cio-Cio-San (Butterfly)
Imperialism
"To wait in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild-
Your new-caught, sullen peoples, Half-devil and half-child"
"Comes now, to search your manhood, through all the thankless years
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom, The judgement of your peers!"
"Take up the White Man's burden And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better, The hate of those ye guard-"
M. Butterfly by
David Henry Hwang
Jarrettoby Lewis
Mitchell Cobb
Brittney Weise
Race
Innate? or Socially Constructed?
Gender
Identity:
- We negotiate contexts to produce meaning.
Can we lose our identity when we read?
- Essential vs Culturally-constructed
- "Universal" truths
- How does gender play a role in M. Butterfly?
Can a white man read into whiteness the same way a black man does?
Gender in M. Butterfly
- "Asian Femininity"
- Validation of masculinity
- Gender idealism
- Gender reversals
Race in M Butterfly
Works Cited
East vs. West
- Dominance
"Orientals simply want to be associated with whoever shows the most strength and power"
"Orientals will always submit to a greater force"
Hwang, David Henry. "M. Butterfly."
New York: Dramatists Play Service Inc., 1988. Print.
Nealon, Jeffrey and Susan Earls
Giroux. "The Theory Toolbox." 2nd edition. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2004. Print