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M. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang
Introduction.
The play depicts a French diplomat working in the Chinese French embassy in Beijing who, while in the orient, falls in love with an opera singer, a man who masqueraded as a woman to spy and get information to china. The opera singer (Song Lilling) manages for twenty years to hide his identity from the diplomat (Rene Gallimard) by taking advantage of stereotypes associated with women (particularly the Asian women) and racial perception of the European to orient nations (Mcinturff 80).
Due to the stereotypes that West associates Asian women with, Gallimard couldn’t notice the pretense of Song; hence he fell into his trap. West had formed the stereotype type of Asian woman to be bowing, submissive, shy, and easy to be lured by money. Also, they had formed social constructions on how Asian women dress, how they apply makeup, and how they generally appear. Song took advantage of the stereotypes and social constructions associated with the women of the West to blind Gallimard, who was ignorant enough to question anything, assuming everything was a result of Asian culture. This saw him fall into the hand of the deceiving Song and let out his country’s secrets to a foreigner. Due to his mistakes, he is imprisoned and pays dearly for the mistakes he committed. In general, the play depicts how
