David Henry Hwang's play M. Butterfly is a revisionist retelling of the Italian opera Madama Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini. Gallimard's character is reworking of Lieutenant B. F. Pinkerton, a naval officer who falls in love with a geisha named Cio-Cio-San (Madame Butterfly). Similar to Gallimard's pursuance of Song, Pinkerton pursues Cio-Cio-San until she agrees to marry him. Afterwards, Pinkerton leaves and Cio-Cio-San waits for years for his return. Gallimard is similar to Pinkerton in that he also abandons Song while she waits for his return. Gallimard wants to have control over Song the way that Pinkerton had control over Cio-Cio-San, but the dynamics of Hwang's play do not allow Gallimard's character this type of control. So, the opera serves as a symbol of the ideas of Orientalism that Hwang speaks against through Gallimard's character.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
In Act III, scene 2, why may the establishment of Claudius's guilt be considered the crisis of the revenge plot?
The crisis of a drama usually proceeds and leads to the climax. In Shakespeare's Hamlet , the proof that Claudius is guilty...
-
Algernon is the laboratory mouse whom Dr. Strauss and Dr. Nemur use to test their experiments of enhanced intelligence. When Algernon begin...
-
Appearances vs. Reality: Dickens has several characters that promote the theme that appearances are not necessarily a reflection of one...
-
The Nazis used hunger, fear, and violence to indoctrinate the prisoners into camp. The Nazis broke the prisoners down to their most basic an...
No comments:
Post a Comment