On Cultural Conflicts In David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly And Chinglish:Reading From The Perspective Of Performance Study

As one of the leading contemporary playwrights in the United States, David Henry Hwang endeavors to describe the cultural conflicts between Chinese and American society. Based on Richard Schechner’s theories on performance study, majorly his theory about the restoration of behavior, and Sun Huizhu’s theories on social performance study, this thesis reads closely Hwang’s two plays:M.Butterfly and Chinglish, focusing on how the restoration of behavior and social performance study theories contribute to the analysis of the conflicts.This thesis first introduces the basic concepts of performance study and its development in China, i.e. the new discipline social performance study. Secondly, the thesis moves to the analysis of Hwang’s classic M.Butterfly, which will be considered as Hwang’s restored behavior from the former Puccini’s Madame Butterfly and the news issued on New York Times that inspired Hwang to write his play. The analysis will point out that the Gallimard’s restoration of the character Madame Butterfly is based on cultural stereotypes and is a fantasy while Song’s restoration is an effort to deconstruct that cultural stereotype. It is their uncoordinated and inconsistent restorations that result in the ultimate tragedy, which at the same time culminate the conflicts in the play. Last but not least, the thesis will present a detailed analysis of role-playing of the three major characters in Chinglish from the perspective of social performance study. The author points out that on one hand, conflicts aggravate due to the lack of basic cultural information and the performance of certain roles is not successful, whereas on the other hand, it is through the gradual learning of culture that the performance is rectified and refined, which in return dissolves the misunderstanding. The thesis concludes that the analysis of M.Butterfly from the perspective of performance study can help us see clearly Song and Gallimard’s restoration of Madame Butterfly digress from each other from the beginning to the end; and the analysis of Chinglish from the perspective of social performance theory provides the basic information and requirements of how to play a role right and successfully.