2.   How do views of the French as expressed by the partygoers in Scene 2 compare to Gallimard’s introduction earlier and to your list above?  What other groups or institutions are being stereotyped here and in other scenes?

 3.   Bring two tourism advertisements to class, preferably of different countries.  Notice how each is selling its culture and identity.

 4.   What does Gallimard say are the qualities of an ideal woman?

 5.   Do you agree with Pinkerton’s observation that “Oriental girls…want to be treated bad” (6)?  Why might this view come from Gallimard who counts himself among men “who are not handsome, nor brave, nor powerful” (10)?  Why does Gallimard compare Butterflies to the magazine women he first discovers at his uncle’s?

 6.   Familiarize yourself with the plot of Puccini’s opera Madama Butterfly.  How does Hwang’s play make use of that famous prior text?  How is Gallimard’s “my version of Madame Butterfly” different from Puccini’s (9)?  What is the effect of Gallimard’s retelling of that story from Scene 3 to the beginning of Scene 6?  What changes occur in the translated “The Whole World Over”?

 7.   “Pinkerton, in an act of great courage, stays home and sends his American wife to pick up Butterfly’s child” (15).  Why is this statement ironic?

 8.   The humor and meaning of parodies lies in their engagement with the text(s) that inspired the spoofing and the new ideas created from this interaction.  A student has begun a parodic rewriting of Armitage’s “You’re Beautiful.”  How do you think the poem should continue and end?  Please finish the poem for us.

You’re Fluent

because you’re a prep school graduate.

I’m incompetent because I associate English with grammar exercises.

 

You’re fluent because you subscribe to The New York Times.

I’m incompetent because of what I did in that sentence with a verb and a noun.                  

 

You’re fluent because for you, the British accent is instinctive, not a marketing campaign

I’m incompetent because my birthplace is impossible to hide.

 

Incompetent like I am,

Fluent like yours,

Fluent like natives,

Incompetent like mine,

Fluent like you are,                 

Incompetent like foreigners.

9.   Cio Cio San proclaims that “Death with honor / Is better than life / Life with dishonor” (15).  How is death viewed by characters in Yeats, Beber, and Hwang?

 10. How is Rene Gallimard characterized by Marc?  What is Pinkerton like?  What does Gallimard mean when he says “our positions were usually—no, always—reversed” (7)?

11. While Hwang’s text reproduces several cultural fantasies, it also provides many of the opposite, like “The Japanese used hundreds of our people for medical experiments during the war, you know” (17).  What effect might Hwang hope to create with such an injection? 

 12. Gallimard claims to have come to the Chinese opera for the first time to “further [his] education” (21).  What does he learn, if anything, from Song Liling in Scene 8?  Compare their conversation to that in Scene 10.  How do the characters speak or behave differently between the two scenes?  Song asks Gallimard toward the end of their first “educational” session, “Do you believe everything I tell you?” and follows it with the invitation: “Come another time and we will further expand your mind” (22).  Is there a lesson in the question?  How well is the intention in the invite fulfilled in Scene 10?

 13. In Scene 9 is it surprising that Gallimard dreams about having Marc’s approval and blessing, and not the “typical” dreams that “other people” have “where angels appear.  Or dragons, or Sophia Loren in a towel” (23)?