M. Butterfly Study Guide

David Henry Hwang's M. Butterfly is one of the most celebrated of recent American plays, and the first by an Asian-American to win universal acclaim. It was first produced in 1988 and won numerous awards, including the Tony Award for Best Play of the Year, the New York Drama Desk Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Broadway play, and the John Gassner Award for the season's outstanding new playwright. M. Butterfly enjoyed a popular run on Broadway and when it moved to London's Shaftsbury Theatre in 1989 it broke all box office records in the first week.

The play is based on a bizarre but true story of a French diplomat who carried on a twenty-year affair with a Chinese actor and opera singer, not realizing that his partner was in fact a man masquerading as a woman. The diplomat apparently became aware of the deception only in 1986, when he was charged by the French government with treason—it transpired that his companion had been an agent for the Chinese government, and had passed on sensitive political information that he had acquired from the diplomat. This almost unbelievable story stimulated Hwang's imagination, and from it he created a drama that plays with ideas on a grand scale and manages at the same time to be witty and entertaining. Weaving into the play many parallels with, and ultimately ironic reversals of, Puccini's opera, Madame Butterfly, Hwang explores the stereotypes that underlie and distort relations between Eastern and Western culture, and between men and women.

M. Butterfly Summary

Act I
Scenes 1-3
M. Butterfly opens in present-day Paris. Rene Gallimard is in a small prison cell. He describes his monotonous daily routine, and then confides that he is no ordinary prisoner, but a celebrity. People talk about him at parties from Amsterdam to New York. Scene 2 shows three people at a party joking about Gallimard, and the joke obviously has something to do with sex. Scene 3 returns to Gallimard's cell, and he confides that he has been loved by the "Perfect Woman.'' He then says that to understand his story, the audience must know the opera Madame Butterfly, by Giacomo Puccini. He describes the opera and plays some of the music from it on his tape recorder. His old school friend Marc appears as one of the characters, and Gallimard assumes the role of Pinkerton, the American sailor who wins the heart of Butterfly, the Japanese girl, and then betrays her.

Scenes 4-5
Scene 4 flashes back to 1947, at a school in Aix-en-Provence, France. Marc tries to persuade Gallimard to accompany him to a party, promising that there will be plenty of girls available, but Gallimard refuses to go. He lacks confidence with girls. Scene 5 returns to Gallimard's cell, and Gallimard further explains the plot of Madame Butterfly, commenting that in real life, it is not easy to find a woman who will give herself so completely to a man. The closest to it are the girls who pose in pornographic magazines. As Gallimard pulls some of these magazines out of a crate in his cell, a pin-up girl appears, and tantalizingly disrobes. Gallimard resumes his exposition of the opera, as Comrade Chin plays the part of Suzuki, Butterfly's maid. Gallimard reveals that he married a woman, Helga, for career reasons rather than love. Then he reveals that when he was a diplomat in Beijing, he first saw "her" singing the death scene from Madame Butterfly. He does not explain who the woman was.

Scenes 6-10
Scene 6 takes place in Beijing in 1960, in the house of the German Ambassador. Gallimard has just watched Song Liling sing an aria from Madame Butterfly. He tells her he was moved by the story. Song, however, expresses little enthusiasm for it. She does, however, invite Gallimard to attend the Peking Opera. After scene 7, in which Gallimard and Helga discuss Chinese arrogance, scene 8 shows a meeting between Song and Gallimard in the streets of Beijing after Gallimard has attended the Peking Opera. Song invites him to her flat. In the next scene, Gallimard lies to his wife about having met Song, and Gallimard relates a dream in which Marc urges him to begin an affair with Song. In... » Complete M. Butterfly Summary