Cornejo 1

Evelyn Cornejo

Professor Batty

English 102

07 December 2018

How Queer Theory plays an important part of Gender Identity and Sexuality through the

Adventurous Stories of Left Hand of Darkness and Madame Butterfly

Authors have many themes in mind when it comes to literature and in this case, both Le

Guin and David Henry Hwang used Queer Theory in both M.Butterfly and Left Hand of

Darkness. Queer Theory was adapted in the early 20th century, it consists of an umbrella of all

aspects of different gender identities such as homosexuality, transgenderism, bisexualism and

more. Left Hand of Darkness and Madame Butterfly share a similarity and difference of

interpreting issues such as gender identity, gender stereotypes and sexuality by including

androgynous beings and characters who struggle with their identity/sexuality.

Madame Butterfly is a play that tells a story of a Western Man who falls in love with a

beautiful Eastern Opera singer who as a result, reveals himself as a man after having 20 years

of an affair together. Throughout the play each character is introduced with different character

traits, the main character known as René Gallimard is presented as a vulnerable and

un-masculine French diplomat who is seeking approval from his male counterparts by

becoming dominant over a submissive woman in order to feel empowered as a man. His

influence of masculinity came from Marc, one of his womanizing friends. René deeply cares
 Cornejo 2

about how others perceive him because he stands out and doesn’t fit that category of machoism

but it all changes as he meets Song. Analyzing the relationship between René Gallimard and

Opera Singer Song Liling was mostly a ruse since Song was only playing a part in order to

work for the Chinese Government as a communist spy, no love was ever felt. As René

encounters this internal conflict of confusion and devastation he struggles with his gender

identity, questioning whether he still loved Song as a man as much as his desire able fantasy of

when he played a part as the perfect woman in this scene where he is performing as Madame

Butterfly,“ Gallimard: I have a vision. Of the orient. That, deep within its almond eyes, there

are still women. Women willing to sacrifice themselves for the love of a man. Even a man

whose love is completely without worth”(Hwang 92). This evidence proves that Gallimard had

the realization that he loved Song, both as a man and a woman because he now portrays as the

submissive woman, faces the exact betrayal and kills himself to escape from his inner battles of

his sexuality. In this case, the tables have turned into a 180 in a sense where Gallimard feels

more like a heartbroken woman rather than the masculine man he desired to become for the

sake of his ego since he feels that his discovery of his sexuality is a dishonor as a western man.

Knowing that he has been in an intimate relationship with a man after 20 years made him feel

less of a man because Song took dominance over him, Song’s dominance was in fact

sociopathic manipulation and betrayal.

In an article called “Performing Gender and fictions of the nation in David Hwang’s

M.Butterfly,” written by Michelle Balaev, she explains how the theories of gender and

nationalism of the East and West are combined in M.Butterfly. It summarizes how culture could
 Cornejo 3

define identity, every culture has a script for gender stereotypes and avoiding aspects of what is

not acceptable for females or males.She explains how Gallimard was caught up to the idea of

becoming the man he has always felt he should become which was why he felt conflicted to

accept that Song’s gender was in fact, a man,“Gallimard says that he was afraid to find out

Song’s sexual identity because it would mean that he was further away from being a “real” man.

In other words, real mean don’t love other men, or, rather in his heterosexual matrix, a man

loving another man is not a ‘real’ man” (Balaev 7).Balaev’s concise viewpoint on Gallimard’s

state of mind throughly sums up the idea that heterosexual acts is a trait of a real man rather a

homosexual man. His idea of becoming the “ideal” masculine man is to be involved with a

number of women who would easily praise him just like he thought Song would. It places him

on a pedestal which shows how he desperately wants to feel prideful as the man he has been

wanting to become, for him it is clearly seen as a competition. Gallimard desperately depends

on gender stereotypes and forcefully puts himself in a box of how a man should act, feel or do

according to the standards of society.

For Song Liling’s characterization, she is seen as a no nonsense, clever and manipulative

person towards Gallimard. Throughout the play, Song might enjoy cross dressing just to “stay in

character” in order to stay committed as a communist spy as she mentions to comrade chin, who

is disgusted by her behavior. Song does not show any shame in presenting himself/herself as a

woman as long as nobody knows her secret. However, there may be a possibility that she also

struggles with her gender identity even though Gallimard is presented as the true victim in the

play since it may be possible that throughout 20 years of their intimate affair Song was lead to
 Cornejo 4

believe that she was meant to be a woman instead of a man who loved another man. Which

could make us question if both Gallimard and Song were struggling equally with gender identity

and gender stereotypical standards from the same expectation from their cultures. According to

Douglas Kerr in “David Henry Hwang and the Revenge of Madame Butterfly,” he suggests that,

“when David Henry Hwang undertook Butterfly’s revenge and turned the story upside down,

that centre of gravity remained fixed , though the victim was now not the Oriental Woman but

the western man. Song triumphs over Gallimard; but Song’s revenge (as we have seen) reveals

him to be unfeeling an cruel. Gallimard’s undoing leaves him as a pathetic, even tragic

loser”(Kerr 10). This leads us to question if Song should receive the same compassion as

Gallimard? After his rejection towards Song? Maybe to a certain extent, but the possibilities

could be how song felt resentful towards Gallimard’s rejection so his revenge of destroying

René emotionally pleased him or he/she did not have an identity crisis after all and is seen as a

sociopath who is unfazed by his lover’s death.

In Le Guin’s novel The Left Hand of Darkness, it is a story about a gender identified

male named Ai, who encounters a planet called Winter. In this planet, he discovers the

Gethenians who are genderless beings and becomes curious about how different their

perspective is from his when it comes to gender identity and sexuality. Ai becomes confused

and does not quite understand androgyny since he says sexist or stereotypical remarks in his

own view, since he came from a gender-based world. In this world, Ai encounters Estraven, a

character who Ai does not trust fully at first claiming that , “Estraven’s performance had been

womanly, all charm and tact and lack of substance, specious and adroit, was in fact perhaps this
 Cornejo 5

soft supple femininity that I disliked and distrusted in him”(Le Guin 13)? Analyzing this quote

sparks up the idea that Ai is a sexist man, his distrust for Estraven was biased instead of looking

through who he really was as a human being. Ai admitted to his sexism because he questions

Estraven’s feminine attributes, therefore degrading him in his own view as a gender identified

human even though Gethen faces no discrimination based on sex, they are all equals. Ai places

them in categories as he tries identifying which gender they characterize as rather than

understanding that gender does not exist there, it is hard for him to think like they do.

Le Guin also addresses a unique viewpoint on sexuality because the Gethenians

depend on their kemmering cycle. Kemmer is a period where Gethenians have a chance of

reproducing and have the capacity to turn somehow into a woman or a man. Sexual

encountering during that time is crucial for them. Based on an article called “ Exorcising

Gender: Resisting Readers in Ursla k. Le guin’s Left Hand of Darkness,”​ ​written by John

Pennington suggests that,”As an androgyne, Estraven is literally that shady area-that gap- where

male and female readers must resist their gendered reading, for Estraven is not sexless; he is

genderless​”​(Pennington 355). As readers, Ai has our view because this is another world where

gender and pronouns do not take place except for “he”. Their sexual encounters could be

anyone, an enemy, a friend or a sibling. Ai was moved by the adventure Estraven has given

him in an intellectual sense rather than a biased one because at one point they were attracted to

one another but did not have an intimate relationship with each other. This could result in Ai

being a Demi sexual because his attraction towards Estraven was not sexual but rather

emotional since he has felt a connection after getting to know him personally. Estraven is the
 Cornejo 6

example of a biological form of Gethenians that are genderless but they are not sexless because

they function just as well as males and females do for reproduction.

Both Le Guin and Hwang share the similarity of adding Queer Theory into their

stories because gender identification and sexuality are the main topics and as it is compared,

they share a different presentation of androgyny, gender stereotypes,and sexual orientation.

Hwang created a story that included gender stereotypes, gender identity and sexuality in a

gender based view while le Guin represented gender identity and sexuality in an androgynous

point of view correlated with the view of one gender based main character, The teachings of

both texts resulted in an educational view on Queer Theory, feminism and breaking

strict binaries.
 Cornejo 7

Works Cited Page:

Hwang, David Henry. M. Butterfly. New York : New American Library, c1988., 1988. EBSCOhost.

Balaev, Michelle. “Performing Gender and Fictions of the Nation in David Hwang’s M. Butterfly.”

Forum for World Literature Studies, no. 4, 2014, p. 608. EBSCOhost,

library.lavc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eds

Kerr, Douglas. David Henry Hwang and the Revenge of Madame Butterfly. Gale,

2005.EBSCOhost,​library.lavc.edu/login?=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db

=edsglr&AN=edsgcl

Le Guin, Ursula K. The Left Hand of Darkness. New York : Ace Books, 2000, ©1969., 2000.

EBSCOhost.

PENNINGTON, JOHN. “Exorcising Gender: Resisting Readers in Ursula K. Le Guin’s Left Hand

of Darkness.” Extrapolation, no. 4, 2000. EBSCOhost,

library.lavc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsglr&AN

=edsgcl.68704463&site=eds-live​.
Cornejo 8