Fernandez 1

Saul Fernandez

Eng. 102, 20394

Prof. Batty

11-07-2018

The Queer Theory’s Intertwine In Two Stories

After reading “M. Butterfly”, by David Henry Hwang, and “The Left Hand of Darkness”,

by Ursula K. Le Guin, through the lens of the Queer Theory, you will notice that the two stories

have a lot of similarities and differences with each other and cover the same main themes,

conflicts, and ideas of gender, sexualities, and race in different ways. In gender, the authors give

us characters who can be identified as either a man or a woman. In sexualities, both stories

describe characters who have both feminine and masculine traits, and the author leaves us with

determining how we should identify these characters based off those traits or stereotypes. The

theme of race is brought up a few times in both stories but is stereotypical in one story and not

much in the other. Both authors had the same ideas about these themes but treated them

differently with their story’s protagonists, Renee Gallimard and Genly Ai. They deal with

political situations that involve these themes and explore the notion of "civilized behavior" in the

societies where they visit. The conflict of both stories ends up being both characters learning to

accept think and accept their gender or sexual orientation.

The first similarities and differences of both “M. Butterfly” and “The Left Hand of

Darkness” is their theme of gender, more specifically gender identification, how it can affect

them, and how it is portrayed in both stories. The Queer Theory explains that ‘gender’, our

assignment to social roles in ways that can related to our biological sex, is connected intimately

and differently to our experience of sexuality, and how that experience bears on our own and
 Fernandez 2

other’s identity. In “M. Butterfly”, the idea of gender identification came when Song, a

government spy, revealed to Gallimard, a French diplomat, that she was in fact a “he” and that he

was actually playing a woman to spy on Gallimard for over twenty years and get information for

the government. Following the biological sex reveal to Gallimard, Song’s gender identity was

quickly questioned as to whether he identified as a woman, or a man regardless of his biological

sex. In “The Left Hand of Darkness”, gender identification became an issue when Genly Ai, an

alien who traveled to Gethen on a mission to get Gethenian people to join the Ekumen, learned

that the aliens on Gethen were androgynous. Ai had trouble identifying his new Gethenian friend

Estraven, who can turn into both male or female during his mating cycle called kemmer and

decided to call him “he” due to his more dominant masculine attitude and low feminine presence.

Ai then tells Estraven about the way that gender identification is big on his planet and it greatly

affects his people social construct. He says, “I suppose the most important thing, the heaviest

single factor in one’s life, is whether one’s born male or female. It determines one’s

expectations, activities, outlook, ethics, manners…almost everything. Vocabulary. Semiotic

usages. Clothing. Even food. It’s extremely hard to separate the innate differences from the

learned ones” (Ai, 253). Estraven is shocked and can barely imagine a world like this. The idea

of feminists doesn’t seem to completely exist on earth yet. Both stories make the reader question

how the identity based off of a character’s gender can be and make us think how their lives are

affected by it. Michelle Balaev, who wrote “Performing Gender and Fictions of the Nation” for

the forum of World Literature Studies, stated that, “Gallimard was deceived into believing that

Song was a woman not because Song wore great make-up, but because the qualifications of

gender are fictive and contingent. That anybody can perform gender, just as nations can be

imagined regardless of geographic boundaries.” This idea of gender identification is the same in
 Fernandez 3

both stories, that it’s performative and can change others views on you. Only in both stories it is

portrayed differently. Both Song and Estraven were able to play both gender roles. They were

able to be both male and female people and left the protagonists in turmoil in deciding what

gender they fit into and how to accept them. The only difference between these stories and idea

of identification was that Song had one actual biological sex, while Estraven had two. Some

would say Song would should considered a man because of his biological sex, but socially,

others would say that he should be considered whatever gender he can play better and whatever

gender he prefers to be. A writer named John Pennington who wrote, “Exorcising Gender:

Resisting Readers” for the Literature Resource Center, supports both gender identification ideas

of the authors by saying that, “if biological gender differences are insecure, then sociological

distinctions separating the masculine from the feminine are also insecure.”

The second similarity and difference of both stories is their theme of sexualities, and how

they are portrayed in the characters. The Queer Theory investigates the relations between

different sexualities such as pansexual, heterosexual, and homosexual, and the authors provide

ways to view the sexualities through the characters in the stories and how it affects them or their

judgements. At the end of the story “M. Butterfly”, the character Gallimard is left with the

thoughts as to whether he was actually heterosexual or homosexual due to falling in love with a

woman who turned out to be a man after twenty years of living together. Song was questioning

whether Gallimard still had feelings for him because he was still technically the “Butterfly” he

fell in love with. It was also questioned as to whether Song was actually homosexual or still a

heterosexual because he was pretending to be a woman. In “The Left Hand of Darkness”, Ai

began to have feelings towards his friend Estraven after they’ve spent days out in their ice

journey together. He began to feel strange due to the fact that he couldn’t really see his friend
 Fernandez 4

Estraven as a woman or a man due to him being androgynous. Wendy Gay, who wrote

“Postcolonialism/s, gender/s, sexuality/ies and the legacy of “The Left Hand of Darkness” for

Modern Humanities Research Association, said, “When Estraven admits to Genly that s/he is in

kemmer, Genly says “it seemed to me, and I think to him, that it was from that sexual tension

between us, admitted now and understood, but not assuaged, that the great and sudden assurance

of friendship between us rose: a friendship so much needed by both of us in our exile [...] that it

might as well be called, now as later, love. But it was from the difference between us, not from

the affinities and likenesses, but from the difference, that that love came: and it was the bridge,

the only bridge, across what divided us.” It seems Ai later comes to terms, after they’ve finished

their journey and Estraven dies, that he will accept and love Estraven no matter what gender he is

and what sexuality he fits in. It looks like both characters fit more as bisexuals. In the play

Gallimard says, “I’m a man who loved a woman created by a man. Everything else…simply falls

short” (Gallimard, 90). Gallimard believed to still be on the heterosexual side due to still loving

“Butterfly” and not Song himself, but he does realize that he technically did fall in love with a

man and rather enjoyed the relationship even when he did not know the truth. He doesn’t

officially experience any sexual fluidity, but it does seem that he can also be a bisexual character

like Ai and Estraven. Similarly, both protagonists had to think about what their sexualities were

and how they would accept them. The difference being that one was more acceptant towards

their realization of their sexuality while the other was more distant from it.

The last similarity and difference of “M. Butterfly” and “The Left Hand of Darkness” is

each story’s treatment on race. The Queer Theory questions the role that queer sexualities play in

the understanding of race, the role that race plays in understanding different sexualities, and the

limits of race as much as it can reflect on sexualities and their stereotypes. In “M. Butterfly”,
 Fernandez 5

they focus on the stereotypical and racial ideas that the males, particularly western males, hold

on concerning Asian women like Song. The stereotypic compliance of Asian women to the

males from the west, the knowledge in holding, viewing, and treating the female body, and their

desires in masculine qualities or features. The play first reveals the shortsightedness of

stereotypes made by Gallimard, when the submissive Asian woman (Song) is awaiting a

masculine and dominant white male (Gallimard). At one point in the play, Song asks Gallimard,

“it’s one of your favorite fantasies, isn’t it? The submissive oriental woman and the cruel white

man” (Song, 17). Gallimard gets a bit frustrated and opposing towards Song’s words after

hearing her stereotypes on men. Despite his own knowledge of the stereotypes that Asian women

have of his country, he does not want Song to see him as having the same stereotypical mindset

that the men in his country (the westerners) have. He wants to let her know that he’s different

than them. Gallimard also later assumed that he thought the reason why Song wouldn’t have any

sexual contact with him or take off her clothes in front of him was because of old traditional

modest Asian women culture. Song says, “No…let me… keep my clothes. Please…it all

frightens me. I’m a modest Chinese girl.” (Song, 40). Gallimard assumed that that’s exactly what

she was, a typical modest Asian woman. “Gender and race are shown to be as much the product

of imaginary constructions and concrete social practices as they are the result of biological or

genetic determinants”, says Angela Pao, a writer from the Modern Language Association of

America. In “The Left Hand of Darkness”, race was brought up a few times. There is one

moment where a character named “Shusgis” spoke with Ai and said, “I expected a monster.

Nothing of the kind. Only you’re darker than most of us” (Shusgis, 124), Ai responded with

saying that he was “earth colored” (Ai, 124). Although Ai looks like a simply darker human, to

those like the Gethenians, he is depicted as an un-trustable foreigner, and an unknown alien. He’s
 Fernandez 6

called monstrous. This is understandable. It’s difficult to comprehend and condole with an

unknown alien or a monstrous human than a person from your own home planet. Gethenians,

who don’t have things like gender inequality or different sexualities, they still have a bit of race

discrimination to those who are different colored. Most likely because they see those who are

different colored as unknown aliens, and probably one that cannot be trusted. It seems that in

both stories, sexualities and gender don’t have much to do with race. The difference is one story

uses race to try to understand their lover’s life with stereotypical judgements while the other uses

race to determine whether the alien (Ai) is trustworthy or not.

In the end, Le Guin and Henry Hwang were able to treat the studies of the Queer Theory

very similarly but with different situations and stories. They both present the different ways that

gender identification can affect people’s judgements about others and themselves. The ways

people’s sexualities can be questioned or changed and how race still plays a part in a world with

and without genders or sexualities. Both Le Guin and Henry Hwang were able to get the reader

to think about how important these themes are and how they can change the way people live and

act towards others.

 Fernandez 7

Works Cited

Balaev, Michelle. "Performing gender and fictions of the nation in David Hwang's “M.
Butterfly." Forum for World Literature Studies, vol. 6, no. 4, 2014, p. 608+. Academic OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A398253065/AONE?u=lavc_main&sid=AONE&xid=09279
d57

Pennington, John. "Exorcising Gender: Resisting Readers in Ursula K. Le Guin's Left Hand of
Darkness." Extrapolation, vol. 41, no. 4, 2000, p. 351. Literature Resource Center,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A68704463/LitRC?u=lavc_main&sid=LitRC&xid=5
428f95b

Pearson, Wendy Gay. "Postcolonialism/s, gender/s, sexuality/ies and the legacy of The Left
Hand of Darkness: Gwyneth Jones's Aleutians talk back." Yearbook of English Studies, vol. 37,
no. 2, 2007, p. 182+. Literature Resource Center,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A167030913/LitRC?u=lavc_main&sid=LitRC&xid=e07f72d
8

Pao, Angela. "M. Butterfly." Contemporary Literary Criticism, edited by Jeffrey W. Hunter, vol.
196, Gale, 2005. Literature Resource Center,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/H1100061266/GLS?u=lavc_main&sid=GLS&xid=7e493070
. Originally published in A Resource Guide to Asian American Literature, edited by Sau-ling
Cynthia Wong and Stephen H. Sumida, Modern Language Association of America, 2001, pp.
200-208.

Hwang, D. (2014). M. Butterfly. New York: Plume, p.90, p. 253.

Le Guin, U. (2010). The Left Hand of Darkness. New York: Ace Books, p.124.