M. Butterfly

Coming into reading M. Butterfly, I was intrigued most by the character of Song Liling, particularly how he carried his role as a female onstage into real life.  Having studied Peking opera, I was already intrigued by the female - or dan - roles in its tradition, as they were traditionally played by men who studied and trained their entire lives to play "the perfect woman."  At the time of the Peking opera, the idea of the perfect woman was so pervasive in Chinese culture that women would have their feet bound from an early age in order to adopt the swaying gait that was seen as making a woman desirable.  On stage, the men playing the dan roles would have to walk on stilts to emulate this, as they didn't have to bind their feet, and moreover, it was nearly impossible to walk with bound feet anyway.  In addition to this rather extreme example, the men in these roles would have trained their whole lives, carefully studying the mannerisms that made up the ideal woman.  This suggested that the ideals of what a woman should be - and, in a broader sense, all gender roles - were a social construction, and one which had to be taught throughout life.  The implication, of course, is that only a man would know how to be the perfect woman, as the role of the ideal woman was one created by men for men.

David Henry Hwang obviously takes this idea to heart, as he frequently uses Song Liling to explore and break down the roles of gender and sexuality, as well as the power those lend to a person.  Obviously, audiences are usually drawn in by the sheer fact that Song Liling poses as a woman for most of the story, but I think it's interesting to examine why he does pose as a woman in the first place.  The power and access it lends him as a spy obviously contributes to it, but I think a large part of it also becomes the access he gains as Gallimard's female lover.  Once he assumes the role, it's as if he becomes trapped in it. And, as proven in the end, the consequences of breaking that role are destructive to both Gallimard's life and his own.