While reading M. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang there were some interesting questions that arose from the story. What if there is a deeper meaning than we are seeing? Some specific points are going to be dug deeper into are: how does Gallimard show his masculinity and why he feels suicide is a better choice rather than admitting that he fell in love with a man. The play is about a man from the civil service in china that falls in love with an oriental actress. They have an affair and his wife leaves him. The man stays with this oriental woman for twenty years and he is put in prison for treason. The man soon finds out that this woman is actually a man. So he kills himself while his “mistress” watches. This play is based off of the original
In the past, when a man had a very beautiful oriental woman that he was married to or having an affair with, it meant that he was manly. To have such a woman want you and surrender to your desires showed how much of a man you were. Many men in the west had their wives and another woman or women that would surrender to them. “All your life you’ve waited for a beautiful girl who would lay down for you. All your life you’ve smiled like a saint when it’s happened to every other man you know. And you see them in magazines and you see them in movies. And you wonder, what’s wrong with me? Will anyone beautiful ever want me? As the years pass, your hair thins and you struggle to hold onto even your hopes. Stop struggling, Rene. The wait is over.”(24) Other men looked up to the men that could get such women, it showed how respectable they were. The main character did not have a woman that would surrender to him, until he met the oriental performer. In act one, Gallimard shows what he thinks of man’s power to oriental women’s weakness. When Gallimard compliments Song on her performance she responds with: “Well, yes, to a Westerner. . .It’s one of your favorite fantasies isn’t it? The submissive oriental woman and the cruel white man.”(18) Another way that masculinity was shown was, if the woman was afraid of the man. It was said that the oriental women “want to be treated bad.”(11) In M. Butterfly it says, “Their women fear us.
Butterfly by David Henry Hwang brought up questions that needed to be looked at more in depth. One of the questions being: How does Gallimard show his masculinity? The second being: Why does he chose death over facing reality? There are plenty of other questions that could be looked at but those are the two that I chose. The answer to the first question that came up was: having a beautiful oriental woman surrender to you and if she was afraid of the man she was with. The answer to the second question that came up was: He would rather die in the honor of the woman he fell for instead of the shame of falling in love with a man. This play was very enlightening and entertaining. It brought up many great questions that were explored and it took many smaller questions to come to a final
In the Time of the Butterflies is a historical fiction novel by Julia Alvarez based on events that occurred during the rule of Trujillo in the Dominican Republic. This book shows the hardships the Mirabal Sisters had to go through while being part of an underground effort to overthrow the dictatorship of Trujillo. It also shows that ultimately, it was their courage that brought upon their own death. Alvarez wants us to understand anyone and everyone has the potential to be courageous.
The Mirabal Sisters, otherwise known as Las Mariposas, made their mark in history due to their efforts in the revolution against the Trujillo regime in the Dominican Republic. Julia Alvarez, a native Dominican herself, wrote In the Time of the Butterflies due to an account told by Dede Mirabal about the lives and tragic fate of her sisters Patria, Minerva, and Maria Teresa. Dede’s three sisters were murdered due to their involvement in the revolution; Dede did not join the revolution, and thus survived to help recount their story. Since the novel’s publication in 1994, In the Time of the Butterflies has impacted various aspects of life, and contemporary culture frequently alludes to facets of the novel. One critic commented that "In the Time of the Butterflies suggests that the Mirabal sisters not only fought against the Trujillo regime, but also against the Dominican Republic’s patriarchal culture and gender roles. They were very
Other research has devoted to unveiling the origins and the development of their stereotyping and put them among the historical contextual frameworks (e.g., Kawai, 2003, 2005; Prasso, 2005). Research has shown that those stereotypes are not all without merits. The China doll/geisha girl stereotype, to some degree, presents us with a romanticized woman who embodies many feminine characteristics that are/ were valued and praised. The evolving stereotype of the Asian martial arts mistress features women power, which might have the potentials to free women from the gendered binary of proper femininity and masculinity. Nevertheless, the Western media cultural industry adopts several gender and race policing strategies so as to preserve patriarchy and White supremacy, obscuring the Asian women and diminishing the positive associations those images can possibly imply. The following section critically analyzes two cases, The Memoirs of a Geisha and Nikita, that I consider to typify the stereotypical depictions of Asian women as either the submissive, feminine geisha girl or as a powerful yet threatening martial arts lady. I also seek to examine
all, Song has deceived a somewhat intelligent individual for over twenty years. I saying , Song :"Rule One is " Men always believe what they want to hear." ( 82 ) I don't think that is entirely accurate,but Song has proven it to be throughout the play in dealing with Gallimard. So basically in that area Song's "rule" applies. Gillimard wanted to believe his "love" was indeed a young , Oriental woman. He refused to acknowlege otherwise because that was his " fantasy". However, I must disagree when "Rule One" also states, Song: " So a girl can tell the most obnoxious lies and the guys will believe them every time--" (82 ) Again, as far as Song's relationship with Gillimard is concerned, it is again truthful. However, I think that would be an extreme exaggeration in speaking of "men" in general, even in terms of "men" in this play. I don't think Song could have fooled Marc for very long. I think perhaps we see some of Hwang's own experiences in his life poking through into the play.
The “Butterfly’s Tongue” is a film directed by Jose Luis Cuerda that transports us to Spain during the Second Spanish Republic and draws a clear and authentic image of the years before the civil war and the transition to it. The main focuses of the film are education, the new generations, and the continual battle (first "civilized" and then violent) between two completely contrasting ideologies for trying to control these two fundamental social elements. Cuerda masterfully manages the scenic positioning of her characters in several of the scenes to demonstrate this ideological struggle. An undoubted demonstration of this is the arrangement where the little Moncho (Manuel Lozano) is in the midpoint, while Don Gregorio (Fernando Gomez) and the
One particular topic mentioned was that of Orientalism. The theory pertains to foreign views on one another. An example would be what Gallimard says to Toulon in M. Butterfly: “The Orientals simply want to be associated with whoever shows the most strength and power” (36). The East is seen as the weaker race by the West and is often referred to as feminine. Because they are seen as weaker, they would obviously want ...
“The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom is courage.” In America, Americans are blessed to have the right to freedom. Unlike other unfortunate countries, their freedom is limited. In many Latin American countries, the government’s leader has all power of the Country. Citizens have no rights to freedom, they are trapped in a cruel country where innocent people are killed each day. Civilians fear to speak out to the regime of leader; However, there were a few courageous citizens enough to speak out against the government. For example, “The Censors” by Luisa Valenzuela and the historical fictionalized account, “In The Time Of The Butterflies” by Julia Alvarez reveal individual 's role in overcoming oppression.
In Leaves From the Mental Portfolio of an Eurasian, she describes the challenges both internal and external of living in such a gray middle ground. On one hand, she is the ultimate manifestation of Bourne’s ideal. As the son of a Chinese mother and a white father, the hyphen is in her blood. Yet at the same time, she is a dilution of both. This is seen in her rejection by both the white and Chinese communities. Of her parents, she says “I am different to both of them – a stranger, tho their own child” (Far, 240). She is always sensitively aware of her transience, her lack of belonging in any place. “Why are we are what we are?” “I do not understand myself” (240). Ultimately she is left to a life of roaming, both literally and figuratively. “When I am East, my heart is West. When I am West, my heart is East” (249).
...ding white, male superiority. Back in high school, I dated a non-Asian male from my class who often talked about how Asian women are “hot and sexy” yet “more faithful to men and less aggressive than White women.” At the time, I thought this was a compliment and I often tried to conform to this stereotype in order to satisfy my partner. Images of Asian-American women as both innocent and dangerous have legitimized any racist and sexist policies directed at Asians and women.
Males have always fiddled with the lives of women for years, they play it well and society is the audience asking for an encore, it is society that says it’s okay. They take advantage of their circumstances and the other gender has to endure the harsh results from that. Janie, a black woman in Hurston’s “Their Eyes Were Watching God and Edna, a white woman in Chopin’s “The Awakening” live in two
“Life is what you make out of it: one can go through it and let things pass them by, or a person can actually go out and get what he or she wants in that life.” These are common words repeatedly embedded into my head by my father, as maybe the same from one of your parent’s. In the Time of the Butterflies is a book about sisters that fight to take their god-given right of freedom in the Dominican Republic. To win this freedom, the Mirabal sisters had to give up their safety, give up their childhoods, and give up their lives. Julia Alvarez, the author of the book, takes the readers through these sisters journey’s of fighting against their dictator Trujillo, and the many hardships while under this political oppression. It is evident in the book that some sisters had to be the leaders of the group and some had to be the followers. The Mirabel sister that is believed to be the leader and the strong one is Minerva. Minerva, although strong-willed, is still not as strong of an individual as she would like to believe she is.
In the short story "Waiting for Mr. Kim," the main female character Gracie understands what it means to be an Asian female, but she does question the meaning because of her sisters. Her sisters ran away from home and eloped before their marriage could be arranged. This is totally against Asian culture, and it causes Gracie to question her heritage and her Asian femininity.
Geraldine Brooks the author of People of the Book conveys the story of Sarajevo Haggadah. In the chapter “An Insect’s Wings,” Lola, a young Jewish girl, experiences running away from Nazis and coming back to Sarajevo. In this chapter, it also shares some details of how the famed Sarajevo Haggadah was saved from WWII. This chapter shares the journey of Lola and all the unpleasant events she went through.
In today’s world, men and women are perceived equally by the society. In the past, authority and control define men while women are given the characteristic of helplessness. Men are able to get hold of high positions while women usually are subservient to them. In movies, we would usually see women portray roles that are degrading due to the stereotypical notions they associate with this gender group. Moulin Rouge, a movie set during the 1900s narrates the story of a courtesan woman, Satine, as she undergoes hardships to earn money, experiences love but unfortunately, due to her irrational choices, faces tragic consequences at the end. Satine is a symbol of how women are being treated by the society during the era before post-feminism, where men have superiority over women. As the plot develops, Satine transforms from a worthless prostitute to someone who is courageous and willing to face her fears in order to attain her aspirations. Psychoanalyst theory and feminist analysis are apparent throughout the film. The male gaze, fantasy and feminism are three topics that will be covered in depth in this essay through relating it to the movie.
... men in the story are portrayed, exhibits the degradation of the value of the self-expression of a woman.