The Masculine and the Abject: Defiance of the Stereotypical Orient in M. Butterfly

Scholars have various approaches to David Henry Hwang’s play M. Butterfly. Some focus on the stereotypical racial images or the reversal of such images within the play (Moy 1990; San Juan 2002; Skloot 1990; Wen 2013). Others analyze the text or its characters using critical or psychoanalytical theories (Deeney 1993; Remen 1994). Still others such as Karen Shimakawa attempt to incorporate critical theory to analyze the cultural aspect of the play, claiming that Song, as national abject, possesses constructed femininity and equally constructed masculinity that is imposed upon him (Shimakawa 2002). While I agree with Shimakawa that M. Butterfly is a story of the masculine power struggle between men on individual and national levels, I do not see Song’s masculinity as untrue and forced upon him. Gallimard’s and Western power domination fantasy ultimately fails when Song threatens the realm of the Western man through his masculine attitude and actual gender. In this paper, I examine the femininity that Song Liling as a cultural abject mimics in order to consciously deconstruct the myth of Western masculinity re-establishment, and question the white norm that Otherizes races that are not white-American.