M. Butterfly: Analysis of Major Characters
"M. Butterfly" is a play that explores complex themes of identity, manipulation, and cultural perception through its major characters. Central to the narrative is Rene Gallimard, a French diplomat in Beijing who embodies emotional vulnerability and romantic idealism, which leads him into a tumultuous relationship with Song Liling, a Chinese spy. Song skillfully manipulates Gallimard's fantasies of dominance and submission, presenting herself as the quintessential "Butterfly" while extracting sensitive information from him over two decades.
Gallimard's character is contrasted with Marc, his schoolmate, who epitomizes physicality and sexual conquest, highlighting Gallimard’s emotional naivety. The play also introduces Helga, Gallimard's oblivious wife, and Renee, a Danish student who shares a brief affair with him, both of whom reflect different facets of female presence in his life. Comrade Chin, a party official, and Manuel Toulon, the French ambassador, further complicate the political and interpersonal dynamics, showcasing the entangled relationships of power and deception. Through these characters, "M. Butterfly" delves into the intricacies of love, betrayal, and the clash between fantasy and reality.
M. Butterfly: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: David Henry Hwang
First published: 1986
Genre: Play
Locale: Paris, France, and China
Plot: Drama-romantic tragedy
Time: 1960–1970
Rene Gallimard, is a French diplomat working in Beijing, China. He is physically average and admits to being a socially inept dullard. He is a man fully ruled by his emotions. He is married to Helga but is in love with the romantic notion of Puccini's opera Madame Butterfly and seeks to reproduce the situation of the opera in his own life as a foreigner in China by taking on a Chinese mistress as his own Butterfly. His desires make him easily manipulated by Song Liling, a spy posing as an actress who becomes his lover. While she plays the role of the subservient Chinese to the all-powerful foreigner, Rene will fulfill her every desire, including sharing French government secrets. While he believes that she is in his power, in reality, he is in hers. Rene's romantic notions lead to his undoing as he is arrested and jailed for supplying classified intelligence to the Chinese government. Even while incarcerated, Rene's fantasies continue to dominate his existence. Although he is 65 years old and locked in a prison cell, facing the possibility of spending his waning life behind bars, he remains enthralled to the dream life he had in China even after it is revealed that Song is in fact a man. When he ultimately dons Song's clothes, wig, and makeup, the fantasy has defeated reality as he forfeits his own identity to become Butterfly.
Song Liling, is a male Chinese government spy posing as an actress and singer in the Chinese opera who lures Rene Gallimard into a romantic relationship in order to bleed him for classified information. He plays the female character initially as tough and unapproachable and then subservient to make Gallimard feel he is the strong and powerful “foreign devil” dominating the weak, subservient Chinese maiden. Song initially rejects Gallimard's advances, but that only amplifies his desire and becomes Gallimard's mistress for more than 20 years, even managing to fake sex and bear him a son (a baby supplied by the Chinese government). When America is on the verge of military intervention in Vietnam, Song uses Gallimard's position as a courier and his love for her to attain sensitive photos and documents, which she supplies to the Chinese. When Gallimard is arrested and jailed, Song is sent to Paris to continue the ruse. Song ultimately reveals his true identity to Gallimard.
Marc, is Gallimard's schoolmate and friend. He is Gallimard's antithesis; he is popular in school with the other students as well as with women. He secretly arranges for a girl to offer herself sexually to the virgin Gallimard while at school. Marc is pure libido and boasts to having sex with 300 different women in a little more than a decade, despite having a wife (he began having sexual escapades with other women after only six months of marriage). He is the physical while Gallimard is the emotional.
Comrade Chin, is a Chinese Communist Party official serving as Song's instructor and contact for receiving the government intelligence Song acquires from Gallimard. Chin strictly adheres to party dogma without question and corrects Song when he has strayed.
Helga, is Gallimard's wife. Unlike her husband, Helga dislikes living in China and makes no attempt to learn anything of its culture or people. She also seems oblivious to her husband's affairs both with Song and a young woman named Renee. Although she longs to return to France, once she and her husband are sent back to Paris, the riots and other trappings of the political upheaval of the 1960s make her yearn for the quiet life she enjoyed in China.
Renee, is a Danish student who has an affair with Gallimard while living in China to learn the language. Her father imports “squirt guns, confectioner's sugar, hula hoops” and other useless items to third world countries and thinks it will be important later if she can speak Chinese. She has a center-fold body and is sexually forward. She and Gallimard have a detailed conversation on the proper euphemisms for the male sex organ in which she shows no embarrassment whatsoever.
Manuel Toulon, is the French ambassador to China. He thinks of his staff, including Gallimard, as his children. However, he puts himself in a position where he accepts no responsibility for his actions or those of his office and instead places blame for errors on his employees. He knows that Gallimard has ensconced himself in Chinese culture, complete with a local mistress, and asks Gallimard for opinions on how the Chinese will react to possible American military intervention in Vietnam. Toulon shields himself from criticism—and punishment—for errors in evaluations of the political atmosphere in China by crediting Gallimard with supplying the information in his reports to the French government.
Shu Fang, is Song's servant girl.