Subversion And Reconstruction: An Analysis Of M. Butterfly By David Henry Hwang From The Perspective Of Deconstructionism

David Henry Hwang is considered as one of the most distinguished ChineseAmerican playwrights of the twentieth century in the United States and currently oneof the most active ethnic dramatists in Hollywood and Broadway. Raised in LosAngeles in an immigrant family, he has gone through the process of multiculturalinfluences. Hwang’s well-known M. Butterfly was premiered on Broadway in1988,which won applause around the world. After its production, it has received numerousawards include the Outer Critics Circle Award for best Broadway play, the Tony forbest play of the year, etc. In this play, Hwang reinterprets Giacomo Puccini’s classicopera Madama Butterfly and describes gender discrimination, racial prejudice andwestern hegemony, which have earned much attention in the contemporary world.This research is conducted from the perspective of Jacques Derrida’sdeconstructionism. According to Derrida, westerners tend to form their opinions andthoughts in patterns of binary opposites where one is privileged and the other ismarginalized. This paper tries to interpret the deconstruction of three pairs of binaryoppositions in M. Butterfly and intends to analyze the new relationships between them,namely male and female, Caucasian and ethnic minorities, and the West and the East.This paper is divided into three chapters in addition to introduction andconclusion. The introduction covers the life and career of Hwang, the related studieshome and abroad, the theoretical basis about binary oppositions and deconstruction,the writing purpose and significance. Chapter one analyses the real-life context for M.Butterfly and the intertextuality between M. Butterfly and Madama Butterfly. Theplaywright based the story on events in real life. And he got inspiration from MadamaButterfly to form the structure by parodying the title and the plot with the purpose todeconstruct the thoughts conveyed in the classic play. Chapter two illustrates thegender problem in M. Butterfly. Hwang parodies Madama Butterfly, making thepower of voice between male and female reversed, thus tactfully deconstructing thebinary opposition between them. Chapter three illustrates the relationship between west and east. During the course of imperialism, ethnic prejudice is one of the reasonsfor the west to dominate the east. The tragic ending of the western Caucasiandemonstrates the collapse of the binary opposition between the white and non-white,the west and the east.The concluding part traces the process of this study and reinforces thesignificance of the production of M. Butterfly and makes visible the effort of theplaywright David Henry Hwang to shed a new light on the relationship betweendifferent genders, different races and different nations.