An Elegy Of Persona:On The Tragedy Of The Protagonist Gallimard In M. Butterfly

David Henry Hwang is a famous American playwright, screenwriter and librettist. He was born in a first-generation Chinese immigration family in Los Angeles, California. David Henry Hwang has gained a large number of awards and has played an important role in the field of American Drama. His early works pay much attention to tortures and difficulties suffered by the Chinese Americans in the United States, his succeeding works turn the attention to such perspectives like cultural clashes and fusions between the West and the East, and various interpersonal relationships among all kinds of people.M. Butterfly is David Henry Hwang’s most famous work and has a great influence on the whole world. This play is the adaption of Madama Butterfly by Puccini. M. Butterfly relates a story of a French diplomat Gallimard who was very fond of Madama Butterfly and was in love with a Chinese “woman” Song Liling. Gallimard maintained that this Chinese woman was actually his Butterfly and his perfect love who had given him the desired love. However, Gallimard found out that this Chinese “woman” Song Liling was actually a man at last. Gallimard committed suicide because he could not accept the fact that the woman he loved was a man. That he did not find out Song Liling was a man and his suicide set the suspense for readers. This thesis tries to employ the persona theory of Carl Jung to interpret Gallimard’s tragedy.The thesis is composed of three parts: Introduction, four Chapters and Conclusion. The part of Introduction presents the life and works of David Henry Hwang and his masterpiece M. Butterfly. It also lays out the overseas and domestic studies on this play and points out the theoretical and realistic significance of this thesis.Chapter One briefly introduces the life of Carl Jung and the archetype theory. This part traces the development of his persona theory and points out the feasibility of the persona theory in analyzing this play. According to the persona theory, people choose to wear appropriate persona to meet the requirements of the society. If people can balance the persona and their true self, they can succeed in their life. However, the innate nature of human beings sometimes will not accept the imposed persona, resulting in the conflict between the true self and the self under the persona, which will lead to the agent’s insanity or even death. Gallimard’s tragedy falls into the latter category. He was indulged in his persona, and his true nature could not co-exist with the persona, which made it impossible for him to face up to the reality. He had to escape through committing suicide.Chapter Two testifies that Gallimard’s persona, in nature, is the masculine hegemony of western man. Judged from Gallimard’s behavior, he was not a man of male-chauvinism, in his male body there resided a female soul. He was a man of “androgyny”, in a term put forward by Virginia Woolf. “Androgyny” is the sexual truth of both men and women. In this play, faced with the great social changes and the improvement of western women’s social status, the deep-rooted patriarchal ideas in the society made Gallimard put on the persona of patriarchy. Though the increasing social status and independency of the western women gradually peeled off Gallimard’s esteem, and his discourse power became weaker and weaker, Gallimard still tried hard to maintain his masculinity in the western world. At the same time, Gallimard, with the persona of masculine hegemony of western man, also intended to find his male esteem and discourse power in the Chinese “woman” Song Liling, in order to be recognized by the society. Enthralled by the great satisfaction brought by Song Liling, Gallimard was totally lost in his persona of masculine western man.Chapter Three analyzes another reason why Gallimard took such a fancy to Song Liling. Gallimard intended to find an outlet for the strong femininity residing in his body; however, this possibility was denied by the patriarchal society. Otherwise, Gallimard would be labeled as “abnormal” or “alien”, thus endangering his career, or even bring destruction to his esteem. According to Freud, if one depressed his certain kind of complex, he would bring himself self-destruction. Thus, Gallimard expected to find out an outlet for his femininity by means of Song Liling, and thus Song Liling became a substitution for his own femininity. That means Gallimard’s expressed his femininity through Song Liling. The presence of Song Liling just satisfied the hallucination of Gallimard and also made him experience submissiveness and timidity of women. However, indulged in the hallucination, Gallimard did not want to get rid of his persona or admit his wish for the expression of his femininity.Chapter Four probes into the reason of Gallimard’s suicide. Since he was addicted to his persona of masculine western man, Gallimard was afraid of exposing his strong femininity and only chose to commit suicide. In order to get the recognition of the society, Gallimard had to wear the persona of masculine western man. However, with strong femininity, Gallimard wanted to transfer his femininity to Song Liling and practice his femininity in her in an indirect way. But when the truth was uncovered, Gallimard without his persona did not dare to face up to his true self, but chose to commit suicide to free him.The last part is the Conclusion of the whole thesis, and points out the revelation of Gallimard’s tragedy to modern man. Gallimard’s tragedy is in nature a tragedy of persona. People should not live only with his persona masks and hide their true self. People must bravely confront his true self and balance his persona masks and his true self in order to survive in the society.