| Summary: | 碩士 === 靜宜大學 === 英國語文學系研究所 === 90 === Both The Lover by Durus and M. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang contain a story between Chinese and French characters. The Lover is about a romantic relationship between a rich Chinese man and a poor French girl. The poor French girl tries to hold her white privilege without concealing her lower social identity. The rich Chinese man doesn’t bother himself to present as an inferior character to the poor French girl because he is in a higher social position. Likewise, Gallimard, the French diplomat in M. Butterfly, reveals his subordination to the male/female Chinese character, Song. At the same time, Gallimard still retains his white privilege when Song assumes a role of a traditional Chinese woman like what the Communist country expects him/her to be.
The first chapter handles how the French girl and Gallimard present their determination to reserve their white privilege without denying their weak social identities. Though the Chinese characters are portrayed to possess higher social identity they are willing to be subordinate to the French characters. Self-alienation in the second chapter explains that all these four characters are willing to assume multiple social roles to reach social expectations. Self-alienation makes them free characters playing various social roles. Chapter three deals with the issue that the male characters, Gallimard and the Chinese man, are not born with masculinity but to assume the masculine roles that are alienated from their original gender selves. Their self-alienated masculinity breaks the myth that men are born masculine. The fourth chapter provides a discussion that both the French girl and Song present masculinity and homosexuality. Both of them assume two gendered selves: the natural one and the self-alienated one.
Stable instability concludes that these four characters are not restricted by multiple social roles or gender roles. However, they are free to decide which role to play under certain circumstance. Besides, they break the subjectivity in identity and gender issues. Characters are liberated from the restrictions of the fixed of self-identities and gender identities.
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