Summary
Scene 12. Ambassador Toulon's, a French ambassador's residence in Beijing. A party is taking place.
Toulon pulls Gallimard aside at the party, and while it seems for a moment like he is firing Gallimard, he is in fact giving him a promotion to vice-consul. He tells Gallimard that he has become "this new aggressive confident...thing." Gallimard is shocked about the promotion and says to the audience, "At age 39, I was suddenly initiated into the way of the world."
Scene 13.
Gallimard goes to Song's apartment late at night without warning her. After eight weeks of not being in contact, he shocks Song, who tells him that his arrival will "scandalize the neighbors," but Gallimard is eager to tell her about his promotion. "Are you my butterfly?" he asks, abruptly, but Song does not want to say that she is. He references that she wrote in her letter, "I have already given you my shame," but she is insistent that she does not want to tell him explicitly about her feelings for him.
After a moment, Song says, "I am your Butterfly," to which Gallimard responds, "It is because of you that l was promoted tonight. You have changed my life forever. My little Butterfly there should be no more secrets: I love you." When he kisses her hard, she asks him to be gentle with her, insisting that she is sexually inexperienced. When he tries to remove her clothes, she tells him she is "a modest Chinese girl."
Song then asks that he turn off the lights so that she can please him. She recites Italian lines from Madame Butterfly, the last of which translates to "All ecstatic with love, the heavens are filled with laughter."
Act 2. Scene 1. Gallimard's cell. He reads from a contemporary critic's commentary on Madame Butterfly, one which states, "Butterfly is the most irresistibly appealing of Puccini's 'Little Women.' Watching the succession of her humiliations is like watching a child under torture." Gallimard comments that no man could resist being in Pinkerton's position of power.
Scene 2. Gallimard and Song's flat in Beijing.
Gallimard narrates that they secured a flat together, which Song decorated and in which she pursued an education. Song tells Gallimard, "The Chinese men—they keep us down...That's one of the exciting things about loving a Western man. I know you are not threatened by a woman's education." To this, Gallimard replies, "I'm no saint, Butterfly."
Scene 3. At the French embassy, Gallimard and Toulon discuss the fact that the Americans are planning to bomb North Vietnam. As the two of them discuss politics, suddenly Toulon refers to the fact that he knows Gallimard is keeping a Chinese mistress. "I'm sure she must be gorgeous," he says, which leaves Gallimard speechless. Toulon asks Gallimard, "What do the Chinese think?" Gallimard tells him that they "miss the old days," before suggesting that the consulate ought to tell the Americans "that there's a natural affinity between the West and the Orient." He adds, "The Orientals are people too. They want the good things we can give them. If the Americans demonstrate the will to win, the Vietnamese will welcome them into a mutually beneficial union." He then says, "Orientals will always submit to a greater force."
As Toulon goes to leave, Gallimard asks him if he thinks a lot of people are gossiping about his affair with Song. Toulon assures him that his affair is a good thing, and Gallimard confides in the audience, "I was learning the benefits of being a man."
Suddenly, Comrade Chin enters the stage, and Gallimard becomes upset at her presence. Song reassures him, saying, "Rene, be sensible. How can they [the audience] understand the story without her?" Gallimard addresses the audience: "Now, you will see why my story is so amusing to so many people...Please—try to understand it from my point of view. We are all prisoners of our time and place."
Scene 4. Gallimard and Song's flat.
Comrade Chin and Song talk privately. It is clear that they are passing information back and forth, as Chin wants Song to find out from Gallimard when the Americans plan to start bombing Vietnam. Song tells her that she will try, but she does not want to "arouse his suspicions." She then gives Chin more specific information about American military strategy. "How do you remember so much?" Chin asks, to which Song replies, "I'm an actor."
Chin then alludes to the fact that Song is wearing a female disguise and asks her if she's being loyal to the Communist Party. "...you represent our Chairman Mao in every position you take," Chin says, to which Song replies, "I'll try to imagine the Chairman taking my positions." Before Chin leaves, she turns back to Song and reminds her that homosexuality is not allowed in China. "Yes, I've heard," says Song, as Chin leaves. After Chin has left the stage, Gallimard pops out from the wings and asks if he can continue to tell his story from his perspective.
Scene 5. 1961-1963. Gallimard tells us that over the next three years, he and Song continued their affair. He sadly recounts that she pleasured him with her hands and mouth, and that she listened to him talk about his life. "Perhaps there is nothing more rare than to find a woman who passionately listens," he says.
We see Helga and Gallimard talking in flashbacks. Helga tells her husband that she visited the doctor to talk about fertility, but Gallimard does not want to consult a doctor, and just wants to keep trying. She tells him that the doctor wants Gallimard to come in for some tests, and he resists the idea.
Gallimard then speaks to Song about his wife's desire for him to go in for tests, and she suggests that his wife is incompetent. She says, "In Imperial China, when a man found that one wife was inadequate, he turned to another—to give him his son." Gallimard asks Song if she wants to have his child, and she tells him she would, making him promise he will not visit the doctor.
Scene 6. 1963. A party at the Austrian embassy.
Gallimard speaks to a woman named Renee about the Vietnam War. Renee tells him that she's a student, adding, "My father exports a lot of useless stuff to the Third World." She tells him that she came to learn Chinese, and complains about the lack of things to do at night in China. Abruptly, Gallimard asks Renee if she wants to "fool around" and she says she would. Gallimard describes Renee to the audience as his "first extramarital affair."
Gallimard delights in the fact that Renee is "picture perfect," but towards the end of his glowing monologue wonders, "...is it possible for a woman to be too uninhibited, too willing, so as to seem almost too...masculine?"
Analysis
In this section of the play, just at the moment that Gallimard fears he is going to be punished by his unholy interest in a Chinese girl, he discovers he is receiving a promotion from the ambassador, Toulon. What's more, Gallimard's performance at work seems to be directly connected to his sexual invigoration. He tells Gallimard, "A year ago, you would've been out. But the past few months, I don't know how it happened, you've become this new aggressive confident...thing." Toulon observes that Gallimard has changed in the past few months and become a leader, and the audience cannot help but attribute it to his growing affection for Song.
A curious element of Gallimard's ascent in the workplace is the fact that it seems directly connected to his sense of manhood and his own self-regard for his masculinity as it subjugates femininity. After receiving the promotion, he says, half to himself and half to the audience, "God who creates Eve to serve Adam, who blesses Solomon with his harem but ties Jezebel to a burning bed—that God is a man. And he understands!" Gallimard feels "initiated into the way of the world" through his love for Song, and this initiation seems to have to do with his sense of the superiority of men over women. His confidence is of a misogynistic bent, one in which women serve men and men have power.
The play further examines the overlap between colonialist subjugation of the East and the subjugation of women as Gallimard and Song embark on an affair. As Gallimard falls more deeply in love with Song, he feels more power as a man, and more particularly, feels his power over his compliant mistress. In comparing himself to Pinkerton—while reading a commentary on Madame Butterfly that calls Butterfly "the most irresistibly appealing of Puccini's 'Little Women'" before comparing her narrative to "watching a child under torture,"—Gallimard reveals that he is primarily motivated by his desire for power.
Gallimard's affair with Song initiates him into a patriarchal order and also bolsters his belief in imperialism. In his meeting with Toulon, he assures his boss—based on his expertise as a man who has a Chinese mistress—that "Orientals will always submit to a greater force." Toulon uses this "privileged" knowledge to pass along his approval of American military action in Vietnam. Thus, we see that sexual power dynamics in M. Butterfly are used to justify military force and imperialistic oppression.
The grand twist of the play comes to light now, as we see that Song is a spy for Comrade Chin, a member of the Red Guards, a paramilitary group of the Communist party. Song passes information that she learns from Gallimard to Chin, betraying his trust and helping the Chinese cause. While Gallimard believes both that he is in love for the first time, and that he has superiority over his romantic partner, a naive and modest Chinese girl, it now becomes clear that she has been betraying him all along. Furthermore, we learn that she is not biologically female, but a man in disguise.
