From Caterpillars to Butterflies

The more thought I try to put into this assignment, the more I realise I will only be scratching the surface of a very complex and rich true story. Most people believe that Giacomo Puccini’s Madame Butterfly was the inspiration in David Henry Hwang’s tale, M. Butterfly; however, this just does not seem to be the case. While Puccini’s opera was most likely a strong influence on Hwang’s interpretations of gender and class, in all honesty the idea most likely came from Joyce Wadler’s surprisingly true short story entitled Liaisons. (Ansen 4) In her riveting true-to-life story, Wadler reports that when twenty year old Bernard Boursicot first encountered the twenty six year old opera performer Shi Pei Pu that he was dressed as a man and no one presumed he was anything else. This is just one of the many deliberate differences throughout the many versions of this tale. Despite their very different situations, every account of this story has had the same themes in common: a rich cultural, political, and sexual criticism on the influences and pressures of Western society on the Far East. I plan to examine and contrast these dissimilarities in order to better demonstrate the themes which underline and distort the very relationships between Eastern and Western cultures, as well as the affairs between men and women themselves.

Giacomo Puccini was not the driving force behind his epic opera; he actually got the idea from an American stage director by the name of David Belasco. Belasco’s one act play with the same title was seen being performed on Broadway by an eager Puccini. After a long courtship (Paul 13) Puccini eventually convinced Belasco that the story was worthy of much more attention and detail. Through the help of an interpreter, the two transformed the tale into a magnified example of an imperialistic culture dominating a presumably weaker society and more fragile sex. The self-absorbed American naval officer buys the young “Butterfly” not only to prove his wealth, but his manliness. He has no intention of staying with the delicate beauty, and treats her much like an expensive commodity. Once his short attention span is turned elsewhere, he abandons the juvenile geisha girl to her own shame and eventual suicide. This too is another strong cultural and sexual stereotype, putting the woman in a position of blame for her own tragedy. Therein lays the main ironies of David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly, that the woman isn’t just totally devoid of fault but completely absent from the story arch.

Mirroring Belasco’s story, David Henry Hwang’s version tells of a reluctant French anti-hero who is not only self deluded, but deceived by almost everyone around him. Still a man drunk on his own imperialism and position, Hwang’s protagonist falls blindly for Western stereotyping of Asia. By utilizing epic dramatic devices, David Henry Hwang forces the audience to critically examine the symbolism present within the play in hopes that they are confronted with the centuries old myth of Asian submissiveness to a Western dominated society. (Shin 182) Through comparisons with Belasco’s Madame Butterfly and this story, David Henry Hwang’s representation of Asians interaction with Anglo expectations of racial roles becomes blatantly apparent. But to truly understand how much of the true story was changed by Hwang’s views of a suppressed Asian society, one must look deeper into the true story behind M. Butterfly.

The true inspiration behind Hwang’s epic drama probably came from discovering Joyce Wadler’s report on the story of Bernard Boursicot. (Corliss 7) In her book Liaisons, Wadler recounts the life of a French diplomatic functionary who discovered on the eve of his trial for espionage, that the Chinese opera star he had loved for 18 years was really a man. (Ansen 4) When the two young men met, it was under no false pretenses. Through Wadler’s interviews with the Frenchman Bernard Boursicot, we discover that they were the best of male companions at first. As the friendship blossomed, the Chinese opera performer Pei Pu, revealed his darkest “secret”, that he was in fact a woman. (Ansen 4) Raised since birth as a boy, Pei Pu told a fictional story about how he was forced to live such a lie so that his parents could stay together; otherwise his father would be forced to take a second wife. (Wadler 297) While this custom was a complete fabrication by Pei Pu (Thurman 97) the naive Bernard Boursicot, who was still a virgin at the time (DiGaetani 150) bought into the story. Wadler’s version paints the young Frenchman as a typical hormone driven fool for love. As time passed, and their relationship became deeper, Pei Pu was able to control Bernard through a veil of false religion and customs. Much to the astonishment of the doctors who were sent to examine Pei Pu, they learned the small Chinese man had the unique ability to make his testicles ascend upwards into his body, helping to create the illusion of female genitalia. (Bureaucracy in Transition 12) David Henry Hwang used the many role reversals present in the true life tale, to create an anti-view of the original West versus East stereotype.

Surprisingly David Henry Hwang did not have to add many embellishments to his play, for the strangest twist were all apart of the real story. One of the greatest ironies of Hwang’s story is how he relates the themes present in the real life events to the story of Madame Butterfly. The Westerns’ infidelity is another common stereotype that both the real and fictional leading men lend credit to. In the course of his travels Bernard Boursicot, the real life Frenchman, had many more lovers than Pei Pu. Through his travels with the French Foreign Legion, much like the male leads of Puccini’s opera and Belasco’s play, Bernard had taken several female companions in Saudi Arabia, New Orleans, The Amazon, Mongolia, Jerusalem, Belize and even Paris. (Ansen 6) As it turns out women were not the only source of desire for Bernard, a fact which aids Hwang’s symbolism through out this story. In fact, Bernard Boursicot had affairs with both men and women, the most lasting of which was with another man named Thierry, beginning when Bernard was 29. (Hwang 97) At one point when Bernard managed to get Pei Pu and their “son” out of Beijing, the four shared a small apartment in Paris, and neither Frenchman ever doubted Pei Pu’s femininality for a second. David Henry Hwang is quoted with saying “Female sexuality has always been conceptualized on the basis of masculine parameters”, but can the opposition between masculine and feminine forces embody the drive behind the very revolution which the young couple helped to feed? Is there really a difference between men and women, or is the Western man so caught up in the idealistic Eastern woman that he is willing to over look the obvious lies all around him?

This topic is by no means settled, and as the West versus East debates comes to a head in the modern world I expect David Henry Hwang, as well as other Asian artist, to reinvent themselves in the battle to destroy stereotypes and establish Eastern identity. The story of the Eastern “Butterfly” is not only limited to Asian artist, as Giacomo Puccini and David Belasco helped to shape the best known modern example of those fatal stereotypes; people of many cultures explore the rich differences between the two cultures. References are explored through out modern pop culture: showing up in television shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, fellow writers such as Maxine Hong Kingston, songs by musician Gwen Stefani, contemporary art and music by Yoko Kanno, as well as many other sources. The battle for identity among Asian Americans and the fight to end senseless stereotyping will rage on for some time to come; however, thanks in large to people like David Henry Hwang, who purposefully stand out to draw attention to the problems of sexism and racism apparent in the world, a compromise could be lurking on the horizon. Modern America, as well as the world, can learn a lot and be greatly enriched by his words, his themes, and by his struggle of trying to come to grips with his own identity.