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Phillip Cabral

Professor Duneer

May 11, 2011

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Inspired by true events and the famous Puccini opera u
 
, David Henry

Hwang¶s play u

 is the story of a French diplomat who becomes fatally consumed by

his own fantasy of the perfect Oriental woman ± a woman who, in reality, turns out to be a

transvestite communist spy. The play explores a number of different themes including

imperialism, Orientalism, gender identity, and sexuality. By intricately exploring such a vast

number of diverse themes, the play invites an equally vast number of interpretations from

countless critical perspectives. In this essay, I will use the theoretical groundwork of Fish,

Althusser, and Walder to support my argument that this was precisely the author¶s intention.

In his essay, ³Interpretive Communities,´ Fish attempts to explain how ³if interpretive

acts are the source of forms rather than the other way around´ it is true that ³the same reader will

perform differently when reading two ³different´ . . . texts´ and that ³different readers will

perform similarly when reading the ³same´ . . . text´ (217). These apparent ³facts´ of reading

would seem to indicate that there is meaning inherent in any given text; that the text precedes

(and predicates) its reading or interpretation. Fish, however, argues the opposite, claiming that a

text does not exist prior to its interpretation; it is created only when a reader has interpreted it

(217). He asserts that readers make a number of interpretive decisions prior to reading (such as

what the genre of a text is) and that these decisions ³immediately predispose [readers] to perform

certain acts, to ³find´ . . . themes . . . significances´ (Fish 217). In other words, ³interpretive
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strategies are not put into execution after reading . . . they are the shape of reading . . . making

[texts] rather than . . . arising from them´ (Fish 218). Even though they don¶t V  to, different

people may make different interpretive decisions regarding the ³same´ text or ³different´ texts,

or the same person might interpret all texts the ³same´ or differently (Fish 218). This is because

interpretive strategies are random and not inherent in any given text.

Fish elaborates on this by introducing the ³notion of interpretive communities´ which he

defines as groups of individuals who read texts in the same way; that is, who use the same

interpretive strategies to ³perceive the [same] text´ (219). These communities are not fixed,

however; they may ³grow larger and decline´ and ³individuals [may] move from one to another´

(Fish 220). For Fish, this resolves the issue at hand. He also explains that ³interpretive strategies

are not natural or universal, but learned,´ while stipulating that the ³ability to interpret is not

acquired; it is constitutive of being human´ (Fish 220). Instead, what ³is acquired are the ways of

interpreting . . . [which] can also be forgotten or supplanted´ (Fish 220). Fish concludes his essay

by adding that ³utterers´ (the ³actual´ authors of ³source´ texts so to speak) invite their readers

to apply the set of interpretive strategies to their work that they themselves would apply if they

were reading/interpreting it (220).

Althusser, in his essay, ³Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses,´ defines ideology as

a ³set of practices and institutions that sustain an individual¶s imaginary relationship to [their]

material [real] conditions of existence´ (693). They are merely ³illusions´ that ³make allusion to

reality, and that´ need to be ³interpreted´ in order to reveal that reality (Althusser 693). However,

people only admit that an ideology does not ³correspond to reality´ when it is not their own; only

the ³world outlooks´ of some V, ³primitive society´ is accepted as mere myth (Althusser

693). (One would have to be ³scientific´ or ³subjectless´ to acknowledge that their ideology is a
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fantasy (Althusser 699).) Thus, it could be said that people who share the same ideology form an

³interpretive community.´

Having concluded that men use ideology to ³represent their real conditions . . . to

themselves in an imaginary form,´ Althusser begins to speculate on why men needed to create

ideologies in the first place (694). He offer up one theory (which itself is an ideology and

interpretation) that ideologies were invented by ³priests and despots´ as a way of exploiting and

enslaving other men, but ultimately concludes that men do not represent their ³real world´ to

themselves with their ideologies, but their relationship to the ³real world;´ in other words, they

create such ³imaginary distortion(s)´ as, ³I am a child of God,´ to represent that in reality they

have a father, or are the product of a patriarchal society (Althusser 694-5). Such ideological

distortions (or interpretations) of reality give men a sense of purpose that allows them to be

productive. Althusser also questions ³the nature of this imaginariness;´ after all, how can an

ideology objectively be ³imaginary´ if it seems real to its adherents? (695).

Althusser goes on to explain the concept of ³ideological State apparatuses´ or ISAs.

Because an ³ideology always exists in an apparatus, and its practice,´ ISAs are how ideologies

are manifested; they are rituals like prayer or attending Mass (Althusser 695). People adopt

certain behaviors, perform certain ISAs, and in turn assume a certain ideology. Their beliefs are

derived from their actions and not the other way around, just as a text is shaped by its

interpretation rather than the reverse. Similarly, a person¶s ideologies adapt to changes in their

behavior just as a person¶s interpretation of a text changes as they adopt new methods of reading.

An individual can likewise be seen as a text, and their ideology can be seen as the interpretation

that preceded them. As Althusser explains, people freely choose the ideologies that best

correspond to their own conscious ideas, that are ³obvious´ to them (696-8). We all exist as
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³always-already subjects´ who are recruited by the ideology that interpellates (hails) us and that

we respond to through self-recognition (Althusser 696-8).

In his essay on post-colonial theory, Walder expounds upon the ideas of Fish and

Althusser by arguing that interpretation and ideology influences the way we understand (³read´)

history. He claims that the history we are taught is only one side of the story, that our perception

of the past has been skewed and filtered through the lens of whatever dominant, colonizing

culture created the literature (³texts´) that we have been left with to interpret. The only problem

is that these texts have already been interpreted through the ideology of said ³utterer´

³interpretive community´ (Walder 1077). Thus, it is our job as ³readers´ to become ³scientific´

and interpret the fantasy of our ideologized history to get to the basis of its relationship to the

real world and what really happened. Walder argues that to do this we must become aware of and

reinterpret history from the alternative perspectives of those who have been oppressed, colonized,

and/or othered (1077, 1082). (An ³other´ being someone who has had their identity created for

them by another person, usually an ³imperialist,´ as a way of subjugating them (Walder 1076).

In other words, they have had an ideology thrust upon them that they did not freely chose; that

they did not self-recognize with.) Hwang seems to be in perfect agreement with Walder on this

point, and this would appear to be his motivation in writing u

.

The play is loosely based on the real life case of Bernard Bouriscot, a French diplomat

who was tried for treason after falling in love with a Chinese male spy whom he had mistaken

for being a woman (Hwang 4). Hwang claims that he was inspired to write the play after reading

a ³two paragraph story in the New York Times´ about the trial (85). From this brief article alone,

Hwang quickly formed his own interpretation of what had happened and decided that Bouriscot

had been operating under the Orientalist ideology present in the opera u

 (85-6).

Although he had never read or watched the opera before, he decided to frame his play as a
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deconstruction of it based on his personal perception (interpretation and imagining/ideology) of

the story. (Thus, the play can be seen as an interpretation of history filtered through an

ideological lens, filtered through yet another ideological lens.)

Rene Gallimard, the play¶s central character, can be viewed as something of a parallel to

Hwang, then, as he, too, adopts u
 

 as the ideology through which he interprets

his story. Throughout the play Gallimard makes frequent references to 
, or rather, V


interpretation of it (³We now return to my version of Madame Butterfly´) (Hwang 13). He uses

it as a way of framing his commentary on his own plight. (In fact, as the play is V
narrative, we

get his commentary ± his interpretation ± on just about everything that is said and done!) It

becomes increasingly obvious that 

 is the ideology that he lives by (and that fans of the

play are his interpretive community): each move he makes is governed by the opera¶s ISAs and

he imagines those around him as characters in the story, personally self-recognizing with its anti-

hero, Pinkerton (Hwang 10). He doesn¶t just want his life to be like the opera, he thinks that it

already
the opera!

Throughout Act 1, Gallimard lovingly explains the plot of u
 

 to the

audience while performing scenes from it in his own little fantasy world (ideological state). All

the while, and for almost the entirety of the play, various arias from the opera play in the

background so that we, the audience, become fully immersed in Gallimard¶s ideology. Lyrics

from the opera are also often sung or quoted, in Italian, only to be immediately translated into

English by Gallimard. (It is important to note that translation is itself a form of interpretation,

and it is even more interesting to note that the entirety of u

 is in English even though

its characters speak Mandarin and French. Thus, the ³truth´ ± the ³scientific´ reality ± of the play

has been completely mediated through yet another level of interpretation.)

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In Scene 6 of Act 1, Gallimard literally finds his very own Butterfly when he meets Song

Liling, a Chinese opera singer, after a performance of u


 in which ³she´ played

the title role (Hwang 18). (Gallimard mistakenly interprets Song as a woman when in fact ³she´

is a man.) He rubs ³her´ the wrong way, however, when he praises her performance and

professes his love for the opera, provoking Song to go off on him for his imperialistic attitude

towards Oriental women. She gives him (and the audience) her own interpretation of u



 (filtered through a post-colonial lens not unlike that of Walder), deriding it for its

sexism, racism, and hypocrisy. She even goes so far as to re-tell the story with an American

Butterfly falling for a Japanese Pinkerton to point out its absurdity before vowing to never

perform the opera again (Hwang 18).

Eventually Song cools down and begins an affair with the married Gallimard some weeks

later after he attends (half out of curiousity, half because Song¶s challenge to his ideology has

fascinated and unnerved him) the Peking Opera. His attendance signifies a willingness to adjust

his imperialist ideology by looking at things from the perspective of the colonized ³other.´ Song,

however, questions the genuineness of his motives, asking him, ³You¶re a Westerner. How can

you objectively judge your own values?´ (Hwang 21).

Throughout the course of their relationship, and for the remainder of the play, Song

represents/provides a perspective on events alternative to that given by Gallimard. Hers is the

voice of the other, and, seemingly, the voice of truth, as she forces a reluctant Gallimard to tell

the truth against his will on a number of occasions. This might seem like Hwang¶s way of saying

that the other¶s interpretation of events is always right, but in fact he does have Song caveat her

commentary by asking Gallimard, ³Do you believe everything I tell you?´ (22).

The play concludes with Song stripping off ³her´ clothes before Gallimard, revealing to

him that ³she´ was really a man (Hwang 65). This ³strip-show´ is symbolic of what Althusser
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might call a ³scientific dissection´ ± cutting away the layers of Gallimard¶s ideology to reveal

the reality underneath. Confronted with the truth ± that his beloved Butterfly was actually a man

all along ± Gallimard seems to descend into madness. He rejects his real world condition and

retreats completely and irrevocably into his fantasy world, choosing to live within the limits of

his ideology rather than face the cold hard truth. As he tells Song shortly after his disrobing,

³Tonight, I¶ve finally learned to tell fantasy from reality. And, knowing the difference, I choose

fantasy . . . I am pure imagination. And in imagination I will remain´ (Hwang 67).

By writing a play ± a form that by nature requires infinite interpretation and

reinterpretation ± that relies so heavily on the use of ideology/fantasy and alternative

perspectives, and that is itself based on an interpretation of the ideology of the ideology of

another play, and of historical facts, Hwang is clearly trying to emphasize a point about how

these things influence not only the way in which we read a literal text, but also the way in which

we read history and, more importantly, how we read each other. In M. Butterfly Hwang is using

the theoretical concepts developed by Fish and Althusser to stress the importance of Walder¶s

argument that it is essential to examine all stories from the point of view of everyone involved,

and to then take those views and interpret them in as many different ways as you can. For only

then can you strip away the makeup, wigs, and robes of ideology to get at the naked man of

uninterpreted, scientific truth, which is the only way there can ever be any real justice in the

world.
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Althusser, Louis. ³Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses.´ ´  VV
.

Eds. Julie Rivkin & Michael Ryan. 2nd ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004. 693-702. Print.

Fish, Stanley. ³Interpretive Communities.´ ´  VV

. Eds. Julie Rivkin &

Michael Ryan. 2nd ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004. 217-21. Print.

Hwang, David Henry. u

New York: Dramatists Play Service, 1988. Print.

Walder, Dennis. ³History.´ ´  VV

. Eds. Julie Rivkin & Michael Ryan.

2nd ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004. 1075-89. Print.