At the end of the play M. Butterfly, a jailed French diplomat turned spy named Gallimard says, "There is a vision of the Orient that I have" (Hwang 3.3.7). In that moment he is implying that there are still beautiful women, as he thought his "Butterfly" was. This is suggestive of the colonial appeal. Colonization is made possible by one society characterizing another in a way that makes it seem like a good idea. The characterization of these cultures, such as the Orient or Africa, is carried out through literature, works of art, and drama. Certainly, plays, poems, books, and stories are only a few of the ways used to convince the masses of a modern nation of the justification to colonize. If one wants to rebel against colonization, one would need to place corruption upon the colonizer so to support the liberation. This approach looks to be accepted in drama, where there are two excellent illustrations of postcolonial literature, M. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang, and A Tempest by Aime Cesaire. Both plays are re-worked versions of and Puccini's opera, Madame Butterfly and Shakespeare's The Tempest, and retain similar characters and basic plots. Shakespeare's and Puccini's works created symbols of other cultures. Caliban is the black devil, and Cio-Cio San is the timid and beautiful "Butterfly." These symbols have become stereotypes in Western culture, and formed, the justification for colonization.
To pin these works against the idea of colonization, Cesaire and Hwang must greatly alter the content. They do so, but they also mimic the styles of the original versions. A Tempest is written in modern English, and Shakespeare's songs are substituted with slave tunes. Hwang dr...
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.... And in imagination I will remain” (Hwang 2.2.137-138)
Song ends up winning in the end by reversing the roles and possessing the power. The only actual effect of the victory is Gallimard's suicide, which seems to hurt Song. The inconclusiveness in both of these endings could be a result from the unknown quality of the postcolonial world. Colonization forces us to endure and incorporate the unknown and unwanted. What follows cannot be a simple return to native ways. Whatever society arises will be a combination of the old and the new, set free to make its own way. Our world is made up by the stories that are told. The Tempest and Madame Butterfly constructed characters that became symbols of entire cultures. These symbols are carried on in M. Butterfly and A Tempest, showing us how the underlying issues might look different, but they never really change.
As Chandin tries to mold himself into the person that aligns with European ideas of perfection, he begins to turn the racist ideas of colonization into his own beliefs of racism and self-hatred. “He began to hate his looks, the color of his skin, the texture of his hair, his accent, the barracks, his real parents and at times even the Reverend and his god” (Mootoo 33). In this excerpt, Mootoo’s attention to Chandin’s self-hatred shows the developing hatred that racism causes within the people upon which such hatred is cast. Through her depiction of Chandin, readers see that Chandin’s feelings of hatred for his looks and the ways in which he speaks causes him to project those feelings upon the people who embody those ideals. Since the people of his community cannot live up to standards of his believed racial superiors, Chandin tries to distance himself from them through intellectual superiority. Because he cannot change his outward appearance, he begins manifesting the hatred for himself upon those that look like him. Since his children embodied the lifestyle and looks that he hated, his abuse served as punishment, for they did not align with his ideals of racial perfection. With focus on the
Vickers, Brian. 1993. Appropriating Shakespeare: Contemporary Critical Quarrels. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
all, Song has deceived a somewhat intelligent individual for over twenty years. I saying , Song :"Rule One is " Men always believe what they want to hear." ( 82 ) I don't think that is entirely accurate,but Song has proven it to be throughout the play in dealing with Gallimard. So basically in that area Song's "rule" applies. Gillimard wanted to believe his "love" was indeed a young , Oriental woman. He refused to acknowlege otherwise because that was his " fantasy". However, I must disagree when "Rule One" also states, Song: " So a girl can tell the most obnoxious lies and the guys will believe them every time--" (82 ) Again, as far as Song's relationship with Gillimard is concerned, it is again truthful. However, I think that would be an extreme exaggeration in speaking of "men" in general, even in terms of "men" in this play. I don't think Song could have fooled Marc for very long. I think perhaps we see some of Hwang's own experiences in his life poking through into the play.
When I hear the word “colonization”, I think about Christopher Columbus sailing to America in 1492 and taking over Native American territory. Well, actually, I think of the movie The New World which was directed by Terrence Malik in 2005. It starred Colin Farrell and it took us through his journey coming to America as John Smith, who has a fling with Pocahontas, which was played by the very young and decently talented Q’orianka Kilcher. (Just so you know, Colin Farrell was Ms. Kilcher’s first kiss, e The Tempest by Shakespeare is his most fanciful of works. There are elaborate tricks and ideas that Shakespeare has put into play. That’s what many might see on the surface when reading The Tempest for the first time. But what some might be able to explore when digger deeper into the work, is the theme of colonization that Shakespeare bestows upon his characters.
Marsden, Jean. I. The Re-Imagined Text: Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Eighteenth-Century Literary Theory. Lexington, Kentucky: University of Kentucky Press, 1995.
The issue of cultural stereotypes and misconceptions thematically runs throughout David Henry Hwang’s play M. Butterfly. The play is inspired by a 1986 newspaper story about a former French diplomat and a Chinese opera singer, who turns out to be a spy and a man. Hwang used the newspaper story and deconstructed it into Madame Butterfly to help breakdown the stereotypes that are present between the East and the West. Hwang’s play overall breaks down the sexist and racist clichés that the East-West have against each other that reaffirm the Western male culture ideas. The stereotypes presented in the play revolve around the two main characters, Gallimard and Song. The play itself begins in the present with Gallimard, a French diplomat who has been incarcerated in a Beijing prison. He relives his fantasies for the past with his perfect woman and shares his experience with the readers throughout the remainder of the play. Upon Gallimard’s arrival in China, he attends the opera and meets Song, and Gallimard immediately describes Song as his “butterfly”. Gallimard falls in love with the “delicate Oriental woman” that Song portrays (22). He then buys into the Western male stereotype that Eastern women need protection by strong, masculine Western men. Gallimard ends up falling in love with Song and has an affair with her to fulfill the stereotypical idea of a dominant Western male controlling an Eastern woman. Throughout Gallimard’s relationship with Song, the readers discover that Song is in reality a male spy for the Chinese government. Song had manipulated his looks and actions to mirror those of the ideal Chinese woman in order to earn Gallimard’s affection. M. Butterfly’s main issue arises from the cultural stereotypes of the masculin...
Vickers, Brian. 1993. Appropriating Shakespeare: Contemporary Critical Quarrels. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
Vickers, Brian. Appropriating Shakespeare: Contemporary Critical Quarrels. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. 1993.
Cohen, Walter, J.E. Howard, K. Eisaman Maus. The Norton Shakespeare. Vol. 2 Stephen Greenblatt, General Editor. New York, London. 2008. ISBN 978-0-393-92991-1
Since the seventeenth century many interpretations and criticisms of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest have been recorded. Yet, since the play is widely symbolical and allegorical Shakespeare’s actual intentions behind the creation of the play can never be revealed. But it is precisely this ambiguity in intention that allows for so many literary theorists, historians, and novelists to offer their insight into the structure and meaning of the play. For many years much of the critical treatment of the play has come from an educated European heritage, like the play itself. However, beginning in the nineteenth century with the re-emergence of the original text of the play and a growing global awareness in Caribbean and African nations, many attitudes were arising about the apparent cultural associations of the play’s characters and the largely heretofore unchallenged European views that had dominated popular ideology. What was once superficially taken as a play about the expansion of European culture into the Americas, was now being explored for its commentary about the inherent dominance and oppression of the natives of the Barbadian islands (the geographical setting of the play), and further as a commentary on slavery and oppression as a whole. The plays main characters, Prospero and Caliban, have come to personify the thrust of the oppressors vs. oppressed debate.
Vickers, Brian. Appropriating Shakespeare: Contemporary Critical Quarrels. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. 1993.
Shakespeare, William. The Three-Text Hamlet. Eds. Paul Bertram and Bernice Kliman. New York: AMS Press, 1991.
Frantz Fanon’s Black Skins, White Masks (1952; trans. 1967) and The Wretched of the Earth (1961; trans. 1963) offer an account of colonialism in which the psychology of the ‘native’ is determined by the Manichean dichotomy of the colonial project and, prior to the emergence of the more recent wave of post-colonial theory that focuses on hybridity, several creative writers portrayed a similar mentality. Thus Derek Walcott’s play Dream on Monkey Mountain (1967) dramatizes the split between a European and an African consciousness in its protagonist Makak’s vision of a White Goddess, who initiates him into an atavistic dream of African chieftainship. This Fanonian view of the double consciousness of the colonial psychology is underpinned by the epigraphs to the two parts of the play, which are taken from Jean-Paul Sartre’s Prologue to The Wretched of the Earth. In the second, Walcott quotes a passage from Sartre, in which he emphasizes the inescapability of such a double consciousness, with reference to the
In her essay “Shakespeare's Tempest and the Discourse of Colonialism,” Deborah Willis argues that the play takes on a much more complex and complete identity concerning the aristocracy of colonialism, and she presents the idea that Caliban as the “other” (Willis, p.277) isn’t inherently wrong but rather misguided in readings. While her article brings up important issues concerning the reading of The Tempest, she ignores the vastness and all-consuming nature of colonialism. Her essay helped me to conclude that I perceive The Tempest as not only being solely about colonialism, but all of the issues featured in the play being tied back to colonialism, including those that Willis emphasizes aren’t as important or are ill-founded.
Arguably the greatest playwright of his time, perhaps in all of history, William Shakespeare's literary works have had a tremendous impact (see Appendix 2). Reaching into the pop culture of the modern world through movies and quotes used in everyday conversation, Shakespeare's influence is astounding (see Appendix 1). One rarely stops to think, however, about events that had an impact on Shakespeare's life, particularly his writing. The outbreak of the plague, social disparity, political unrest, just a few of the historical happenings that impacted Shakespeare's plays, including Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, and Henry IV