Analysis of M. Butterfly by David Hwaung

Shakespeare's Twelfth Night examines patterns of love and courtship through a twisting of gender roles. The play centers on the lead female role and protagonist, Viola, who

The play first reveals the shortsightedness of stereotypes made by Westerners, when the submissive Asian woman is awaiting a dominant Western male. Throughout the play, Gallimard is reliving his experiences that he has shared with Song in prison so he flashes back to describe his story of the perfect woman. Gallimard first flashes back to the German Ambassador house in 1960’s where he first meets Song. Gallimard and Song end up conversing about the opera Madame Butterfly that Song was performing in. Song thinks the opera is ridiculous, but Gallimard likes the opera. Gallimard tells Song how she did a beautiful job as butterfly and how her character was very convincing. Song argues with Gallimard, stating that this opera is only beautiful to Westerners. He asks if “it’s one of your favorite fantasies, isn’t it? The submissive oriental woman and the cruel white man” (17). After hearing these words, Gallimard turns rather defensive; despite his own stereotyping of Asian women, he does not want to be trapped in a stereotypical Western mindset. Song effectively trashes this stereotype by using his devious skills to manipulate

The symbolized inferior butterfly has been killed by a more superior human. Killing a butterfly doesn’t usually come to people as a huge occurrence but this really is a small event turned major because it alters the future timeline. The theme of this story is a metaphor on society because in the post-world war era this was an important message, one action from a high ranking official, or even a small person doing a dangerous deed could most definitely cause panic and have far greater impact on society, just as the two World Wars did.

In the Time of the Butterflies during the 1940s, in the Dominican Republic, the ruler or dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo punished people if they didn’t do as he told them and plenty of other cruel things. He ruled for about 30 years, so the people were tortured for quite a long time. He became the dictator by eliminating everyone who had power above him. He even married his wives just to use them to get the the top and control everyone. It was just an unfair way to handle things and an unfair country overall. In her book, “In the Time of the Butterflies,” Julia Alvarez incorporates the history of the famous Mirabal sisters by telling the history of their life and how it was back then for their Dominican Republic country. Julia Alvarez

The Moths by Helena Maria Viramontes is a short story about a relationship between a teenage girl and her abuelita. Although, the title seems unfitting for a story about a loving relationship between family members the significance of the moths, in this story, has a much deeper meaning than one would think. Like many other aspects of the piece, the insects have a symbolic meaning in order to convey the author’s feelings during the time of her grandmother’s death. Throughout the story we see the use of multiple descriptions, settings, as well as dialogue in order to pass a message to the audience. The Moths is not only a story about death and brokenness, but a story about cures and peace. Upon further examination of this narrative, the story presents symbolic attributes about the main characters personalities, descriptions, and religious imagery that tell the story about a cure for brokenness, a rebirth of hope, and coming of age.

Julia Alvarez’s novel In the Time of the Butterflies shows the lack of fairness in society and the importance of maintaining a strong family bond. Trujillo was not fair between men and women and granting men the rights to do whatever they want. The Mirabal sisters’ revolutionary against president Trujillo and fighting for freedom of the country and its people. In Saudi Arabia women are now granted to drive, but there some other things that men can do but women cannot. The Mirabal family has a strong maintain of a family bond. Minerva is one of the four sisters who is brave and had the courage to stand for others and started the revolution against the president.

In conclusion, In the Time of the Butterflies, is a very touching and breathtaking book that embedded the historical event into a chronological story that showed the symbolic and thematic topics that occurred in the time periods the book was set in which was from 1930’s-1990’s where Dede was telling the

Throughout history women have always been minimized from social, sexual , and political aspects juxtaposed to men. Just like in the novel  In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez, the author uses the Mirabal sisters to demonstrate the inequalities set in the Dominican Republic. The dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo causes the Mirabal sisters to come together and overthrow Trujillo’s regime.Trujillo. Rafael Trujillo was despised by many yet many were forced to worship him like some type of paragon. As the novel progresses, illustrations of male dominance often appear throughout each chapter. The Mirabal sisters: Minerva, Patria, Maria Teresa and Dede each demonstrate the ability to overcome stigmas in order to obtain freedom.

In David Hwang’s play, M. Butterfly, the story covers the superior attitude that Western white men hold toward Eastern oriental women which is shown through Rene Gallimard’s experiences. Throughout the story, Gallimard constantly brings up his favorite play, M. Butterfly, where an oriental woman, Butterfly, gives up and loses everything including her life for the white man she loves, Pinkerton, and despite Butterfly’s efforts, Pinkerton ends up marrying another woman causing Butterfly to commit suicide. Many white men enjoy this play because it portrays white men to look superior and gives them the assumption that oriental women would do and give up anything for a white man. Gallimard is also one of the white men who believe they are superior to oriental women and that no matter what he does, an oriental woman would never leave his side. Gallimard 's belief of racial superiority is what led him to his control over Song as if Gallimard was Pinkerton and Song was his Butterfly, this fantasy that Gallimard created for himself was false because in reality, Gallimard was the Butterfly and Song was the Pinkerton.

Structure is salient, especially in literature. So much can be revealed solely through the way a novel is written. Two prime examples of this are Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman and In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez. Alternating points of view are present in both, and that detail exposes connections between two seemingly unrelated novels. Although Richard Mayhew and Dedé Mirabal are two very different characters, they share the struggle of loss and a lack of ipseity, but are resilient and overcome their hardships, which is shown constantly throughout each novel.

The setting in the two novels plays important roles in both of the plots. In The Butterfly Revolution, the setting shifts in the very beginning of the story. In the journal Winston Weyn receives for his birthday from his uncle, he describes his home. Winston also shares with us that from his parents he half-heartedly accepted a trip to High Pines for the summer. Winston was not like most boys, and instead of playing baseball and doing things that most boys do, he read books. This bothered his brother Howard, which just encouraged Winston to read more and more. His father and mother, both concerned, had multiple talks with Winston but none of these talks resulted in anything. “And here I am, sitting on a thin and kind of smelly narrow mattress on my bunk in a cabin at High Pines” (22). He went from the comfort of his own bed to the smelly mattress of High Pines. The central conflict of the story begins at the camp. This shift of setting allows the real story to begin. Later in the novel, the setting shifts again. Some of the boys begin to venture off into the girls camp, or Low Pines. After the revolution has begun, they take over the girl camp, also. If the girls’ camp was not involved, two out of the three deaths would have been prevented. John Mason would not have died under the

“In the Time of the Butterflies” takes place in the Dominican Republic in the 1960s. The author, Julia Alvarez is a native of the country, but moved to the US at a young age. She first heard about the sisters roughly around 1986 and instantly felt the need to share their story with the world. In the book, Alvarez tells the story of the Mirabal sisters and their fight for freedom against the Dominican dictator Trujillo. Rafael Trujillo reigned for about 30 years until his assassination in May of 1961. Trujillo’s reign of terror began in 1930 and the violence soon followed. The self centered dictator changed the names of cities and murdered roughly about 20,000 Haitians from the neighboring country. The book not only tells the sisters’

Based on the decline of the Karner blue across its historic range, it was listed as endangered in 1992. Since listing, two populations have been extirpated and are being reintroduced to Concord, New Hampshire, and West Gary, Indiana. A third population is being reintroduced to Ohio. The threat of the Karner blue butterfly extinction exists primarily from the loss of critical habitat caused by landscape fragmentation, natural succession and concomitant suppression of the natural disturbance regime (Smallidge 1996; Clough 1992).

M butterfly a play by David Henry Hwang has captivated audiences for many years! I love story with many twist and turns M butterfly describes an affair between a Chinese “women” and a French diplomat that caries on for 20 years only to discover that the Women was actually a man. A spy for the communist party sent to get information on the Vietnam war, but Gillard was to stubborn to see it until Liling the Chinese opera singer is sent to France where she is found to be a man in court. Through this we can see the relationship between Gender, capitalism and ethnicity/ nationality and sexuality.

In this paper I argue that in Walter Mosley's White Butterfly, Mosley uses the detective genre to counter stereotypes and myths regarding black masculinity. Mosley uses the protagonist Easy Rawlins to restore the image of the black man in America and to give readers a better understanding of black men in America. Easy Rawlins in many aspects can be seen as a role model. The book was published in 1992 and the setting is 1956, in Watts, Los Angeles California. A few years into the Civil Rights movement where blacks are struggling for equality.