Reading Response - play by David Henry Hwang M. Butterfly Essay - 1

Reading Response - play by David Henry Hwang M. Butterfly - Essay Example sha, Linling’s love, and face the subsequent revelation of Linling’s true gender identity, Hwang creates a unique dramatic scope for his audience to experience the extremity of the West’s reaction to the orients’ self-decisive, so called, masculine activity. The development of the West’s stereotypical masculinity and feminization of the Asians as a dominant theme of the play mainly revolves around Galliard’s tragically flawed predisposition to assume Liling as a woman. Whereas at one end of this gender-confused relationship, Gallimard represents the West’s traditional prejudiced attitudes and stereotypes about the Asians, in a broad term, about the oriental people, their culture and nations, Liling serves as a representative of the disguised oriental masculinity. Gallimard as a representative of the West hegemonic masculine self is prone to accept Song Liling as a girl. Indeed his perception of Song is a typical extension of his assumption of the Chinese and Asians in general. Again since Hwang’s protagonist habitually is inclined to stereotype the Chinese women as subservient, compliant, submissive, and modest, the stereotypical feminine role, flawlessly played by Song Liling, keeps the truth of Song’s identity away from being revealed to Gallimard, without much effort. Indeed Hwang’s protagonist’s hegemonic and typical colonial attitude towards oriental cultures determines most part the relationship between Gallimard and Song. Gallimard’s tendency to stereotype Asian women is evident in the following lines: â€Å"She is outwardly bold and outspoken, yet her heart is shy and afraid. It is the Oriental in her at war with her Western education.† (27) The play’s theme is serious and finally it t urns into tragic. But the development of the theme is such that Hwang’s play cannot but assume a slight comic tone due to reversed gender relation. Yet in the play, Hwang’s primary tone is serious, grave and tragic. His deconstructive approach to