M. Butterfly's womanly and weak East

 Perhaps one of the most important aspects/themes in David Henry Hwang's play, M Butterfly, and indeed the thing that stuck out to me the most as I read it, is that the West tends to hold onto the delusion that the East (specifically Asian countries) is subservient, weak and feminine. This seems especially true, mentality wise, when it comes to Gallimard, as he is all too eager to believe in and exploit this idea when it comes to his lover, Song.

Although it may be said that this mentality could just be a mirror Gallimard's ideals about women in general, to a great extent, they are quiet distinct and separate. For instance, when Gallimard says, “Did you hear the way [Song] talked about Western Women? … She does – she feels inferior to them – and to me.” (31) he reveals, quite clearly, that he thinks Song is subservient to him not because he thinks she's a women, but because she's not Western. The fact that Song is a women (in Gallimard's eyes) has nothing to do with it, in fact, Gallimard had previously mentioned how much he'd been socially hobbled when it came to women – for the majority of his life, he's been, “... afraid they'll say no....” (8) It's only now that he has an Asian woman, who is easily intimidated, that Gallimard finally feels, “the absolute power of a man.” (32)

Throughout the rest of the play, the view that the East is weak is continuously brought up, though it doesn't always concern women. When Gallimard is talking to his boss about the upcoming Vietnam War, he says that, “Orientals will always submit to a greater force.” (46) This stupendously stereotypical statement about Easterners shows just how deeply Gallimard – who can be seen as an accurate representation of the collective Western thought at the time – believes that the East is weak and feminine. This mentality, which is undoubtedly a byproduct of his experiences with Song, is one that persists for the rest of the book. Not only that, but it accounts for his puzzlement at the eventual American loss in Vietnam and his failure to ever see through Song's charade, because as Song says, “...being an Oriental, I could never be completely a man.” (83)