Butterfly David Henry Hwang's Pulitzer-prize-winning drama M. Butterfly is almost single-minded in its examination of the role played by preconceptions in the establishment of cultural expectations and stereotypes. Based on a true story, the drama to some extent lays out in clear precise terms the ways in which Western prejudices toward China can lead to results that would seem wildly implausible in a brief factual summary, but are nonetheless the foreordained

She knew the secret I was trying to hide. but, unlike a Western woman, she didn't confront me, threaten, even pout. (Hwang 519) Song also expresses how Gallimard has viewed her and her country when the says to the judge, The West thinks of itself as masculine -- big guns, big industry, big money -- so the East is feminine -- weak, delicate, poor... But good at art, and full of

Butterfly, David Hwang questions many assumptions about Asian women that are apparent in Madame Butterfly. In Madame Butterfly, the beautiful young Japanese geisha, Butterfly, sacrifices her family ties, religion, and eventually her life for an American, Lieutenant Pinkerton, who never intends to take her back to America. Hwang's M. Butterfly, in contrast, tells the story of an American man in China during the Vietnam era, Gallimard, who falls in love

In the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries most of the major European powers were part of this colonial grab for power and territory; and after the American Civil War, so was the United States. Almost immediately this translated into an East/West schism in which both sides harbored bias about each other, never really understanding the motivations of each other's actions. This is the world in which Pinkerton arrives --