Westerners’ Illusion About Chinese In M. Butterfly

David Henry Hwang, a Chinese American dramatist, is regarded as a spokesperson of Asian American community. Living in the West World obsessed with Orientalism, Huang wrote M. Butterfly with the purpose of subverting the stereotypes about the Oriental, which won him the honor of the most renowned Asian American playwright of20th century.In the history, westerners’perception of Chinese underwent a process of change. In ancient times, the predominant impression was a kind of positive and Utopian one. With the prevalence of colonialism under western empires, the major image turned into something negative and ideological in order to beautify their colonization and enhance their rule over the East.In M. Butterfly, both of the above-mentioned perceptions are just the embodiment of western illusion, which is typically projected on the hero Gallimard and other western characters. The former just fantasizes about the Peking Opera actor Song Liling as "the perfect woman" to fulfill his longing for male power, while the latter, for the purpose of strengthening their racial superiority and dominance of the world, imagine the oriental as inferior people needing to be ruled.Such a presentation can also be found in Hwang’s use of writing techniques in the play, which reflects his contradictory ideas. On the one hand, he unconsciously caters to westerners’fantasies about Chinese by means of diction and characterization; on the other hand, he deliberately subverts stereotypes about Chinese by combining Chinese theatricalities with alienation strategy. As this illusion is essentially developed by the West to establish self-identity and achieve world hegemony, Hwang is inevitably impacted by such illusion. But, in order to establish an independent Chinese American identity, he must destroy the illusion to search for a genuine Chinese culture.In a word, though it is impossible for Hwang to deconstruct the illusion, Hwang has made a meaningful attempt to subvert it by creating M. Butterfly and helps to speed up the process of disillusion due to the rapid development of the East and the deepened communication between the two sides.