M. Butterfly's Discussion

The play begins introducing us the main character, Rene Gallimard. He is in his prison cell and he is describing it, also he is showing off by saying how everybody likes him and how he is a celebrity. The next scene there is a trio talking about Gallimard, he naturally shows off. They are talking about how mad it is what he had done. He then tells us that his favorite play is M. Butterfly. The main character in the play is Cio-Cio San. She is bought off by an American of the U.S. Navy. He buys her by approximately sixty six cents. We still don’t know what the insane and horrible thing was that Gallimard had done. Later on in the first Act he is talking with Helga (who is actually Gallimard’s wife), they discuss how the Chinese people hate the play because it demoralizes and gives a very despicable image of what the Chinese woman is. The person that plays the character Cio-Cio San is called Song. We later on learn that she is a spy for the Chinese government. She is also using Gallimard to retract useful information from him. At the end of the first Act we learn that Gallimard is sent back to France because he couldn’t finish the mission he was assigned to do. We can infer the reason he failed is because he got tricked by Song and also fell in love with her. The second Act begins in his cell in France, the second scene is a flashback to Gallimard’s and Song’s flat in Beijing, then we see Gallimard going to the French embassy and he learns some secrets from Toulon. The next scene Song is talking with Chin and telling her everything that she heard from Gallimard and Toulon and receiving new orders from her (Chin). After that we see how Gallimard is telling Song that he is going to divorce his wife and live happily ever after with her. Later on Chin founds out about Song and Gallimard’s affair. Song is tortured for being a homosexual and insulted gravely. The third and last act shows us the trial that is condemning Gallimard for treason. Gallimard finds out that the love of his life and his special woman is actually a man. He can no longer live with this insanity and this irrationality so he decides to kill himself by sticking a knife to his body.
This play confused me a lot because I always mixed up the different settings and the parts that were actually flashbacks and what was actually happening. At the end of the play he says that he is Rene Gallimard, also known as Madame Butterfly. This part actually really confused me. At first I thought that maybe it was all a product of his imagination but I didn’t think that was possible when Song was standing in front of him smoking a cigarette. I think that he was in love with himself, or better yet he was in love with the person inside of him. I think this is a very disturbing play because of the ending. I didn’t like it at all and besides it was very confusing.