East vs. West: M Butterfly

Throughout the play M Butterfly, writer David Henry utilizes characters of different gender and race to support themes of nation, gender, race, and ethnicity.  The East and the West are two parts of the world illustrated in the play.  The West is portrayed as being masculine, dominant, controlling, and successful while the East is seen as being powerless, week, frightened and very vulnerable. In ACT ONE, Scene 10 Gallimard describes Song as, “Outwardly bold and unspoken, yet her heard is shy and afraid It is the Oriental in her at war with her western education”(27).    Gallimard’s western presence brings Song to attempt to act more Western by speaking with a dominant, bold tone, yet her true character shows with the shyness and fear that overrides.  This scene is the first encountering in which Gallimard and Song converse within “her” home.  Gallimard and Songs relationship is a prime example of the relationship between the East and West.  After their interactions in the apartment, Gallimard describes how he, “felt for the first time that rush of power- the absolute power of a man”(32).  Little does he realize, the role is really reversed.  Song is utilizing Gaallimard’s western power against him.  Gallimard describes Orientals as, “Always submitting to a greater force”(46).  Western Gallimard is acting arrogant and proud. The themes of gender and racial differences separate the East from the West.  The man being from the West and the women being from the east symbolic represents the different cultures as well.