Fantasy, Narcissism and David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly

DOI

10.2991/assehr.k.210519.223How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Cultural imperialism, Stereotype of the Asian persona, Superiority, Fantasy, Narcissus myth, The Other

Abstract

David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly deconstructs Giacomo Puccini’s Madame Butterfly by entwining a fact happened in 1986 — a French diplomat Bernard Bouriscot who has a multi-year affair with a Chinese man disguised as a woman. Hwang displays how cultural imperialism and the stereotype of the Asian persona through the protagonist Gallimard who unconsciously perceives superiority of Western power over Eastern weakness, and the Western colonial male over the Asian female. Gallimard falls in love with the Chinese actress Song Liling to whom he projects his fantasy of a “perfect woman” without noticing the fact Song Liling is a man and a spy. His relationship with Song can be interpreted by concept of the Other in Western concept. This study discusses how Gallimard in M. Butterfly reflects the “Narcissus myth”, how “Othered self” and “selfed Other” work upon him as well as how Song, as a man, satisfies his Western superiority to the power of control and fantasy to an Oriental woman.

Copyright

© 2021, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Shu-Yuan Chang
PY  - 2021
DA  - 2021/05/20
TI  - Fantasy, Narcissism and David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly
BT  - Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Humanities and Social Science Research (ICHSSR 2021)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 1125
EP  - 1128
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.210519.223
DO  - 10.2991/assehr.k.210519.223
ID  - Chang2021
ER  -