M. Butterfly: With an Afterword by the Playwright
Home : M. Butterfly : Essays : Masculinity, Femininity, and the Western Rape Mentality in "M. Butterfly"

Premium Content Masculinity, Femininity, and the Western Rape Mentality in "M. Butterfly"

By Juliette Tang - June 05, 2004

As its title suggests, "M. Butterfly" is essentially a play about metamorphosis. It is, firstly, the metamorphosis of Giacomo Puccini's famous opera "Madame Butterfly" into a modern-day geopolitical argument for cultural understanding. Author David Henry Hwang shows, through a highly implausible love affair between a French diplomat and the male…

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