Exploring Sexuality: An Analysis on Hwang’s M. Butterfly

Abstract

David Henry Hwang’s play M. Butterfly is consistently reviewed by literary critics to be a work consisting of symbols and metaphors that, together, parallel a relationship between two men (one, a seemingly heterosexual male; the other cloaking themselves in the guise of a female) and the domination of the West over the East. Critics commonly surmise that Hwang was in fact stressing these metaphors to portray this image of a despotic Western culture over the ostensibly docile Oriental culture and, though focusing on different metaphors and giving a variety of connotations to each symbol, still arrive at the same conclusions. While not discounting the validity of these views and theories, my argument instead centers on the notion that the individual homosexual identities of the characters Song and Gallimard play a crucial role in understanding the pressures of gender roles in a predominantly heterosexual world and context.