Monday, November 15, 2010

West vs East in "M Butterfly" by David Henry Hwang

The play "M Butterfly" by David Henry Hwang depicts the characteristics of both west and east but in different ways. West as more of masculine, strong and trying to take control of everything but East as feminine and weak always listen to what westerner say. West is always considered as a most powerful empire from last few centuries and most of the oldest colonies controlled by the west existed in east such as Britain ruled over India and its surrounding countries for like two centuries and they did everything they could to destroy their vast cultural diversities.
But everything that's happening in this play is opposite of this as Song is from east and she has complete control over Gallimard. she took advantage of this westerner behavior always thinking themselves as superior and she tries to maintain this level of supremacy in her relationship with Gallimard as their relationship progresses and also made Gallimard think that he is the one who is controlling everything or dominating. But instead Song built so much affection between them that she insisted Gallimard to pass out every bit of information to her from U.S army activities in Vietnam. I am not doubting Gallimard or westerner whether or not he knew when he met Song that he was man even though they had sex many times and even Song quoted in his lines "he must've felt around?"(81). I think Gallimard was in true love which was not common in white people from West who usually married to a girl to full fill their lust and then they left them alone with some money so that they can catch fish from another pond as describe by Pinkerton in his quotes "When I leave, she'll know what it's like to have loved a real man. And I'll even buy her a few nylons"(6). So I think East in this described as growing force which knows how to work its way through powerful west this also signifies that East is tired of West supremacy describing them as weak and tries to come out as new power.

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