Home> Archive> 2017> Volume 7 Number 7 (Jul. 2017)
IJSSH 2017 Vol.7(7): 425-430 ISSN: 2010-3646
doi: 10.18178/ijssh.2017.V7.860

Rising Voice: Song Liling’s Masquerade as an Alternative Discourse in M. Butterfly

Wenhsiang Su

Abstract—Based on a real story and converted into a box office play, M. Butterfly successfully draws the audience’s attention to the issue of gender camouflage. Developed from Puccini’s Madame Butterfly, David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly contains a deeper meaning to explicate the transformation of a male figure dressed as a female character to challenge the taboo of sexuality. As many critics emphasize the relationship between Song Liling and Gallimard, this paper will explain how Song Liling’s transvestism confronts Gallimard’s fantasy of a submissive Oriental woman in terms of cosplay, a modern social phenomenon. As a contemporary representation to express differentiated idiosyncrasy, cosplay can be juxtaposed with carnivalesque, as highlighted by Bakhtin. Thus, this paper will explore the power of costume donning gained by Song Liling to debunk Gallimard’s false identity.

Index Terms—M. butterfly, gender, sexuality, cosplay, carnivalesque.

Wenhsiang Su is with the Department of Applied English, Shih Chien University Kaohsiung Campus, Taiwan (e-mail: whsu@g2.usc.edu.tw).

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Cite: Wenhsiang Su, "Rising Voice: Song Liling’s Masquerade as an Alternative Discourse in M. Butterfly," International Journal of Social Science and Humanity vol. 7, no. 6, pp. 425-430, 2017.

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