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Sabrina Cuevas

Professor Batty

English 102

09 September 2018

Subverting Binaries, Performing Gender Roles, and Questioning the need for Gender in Hwang’s

M. Butterfly​ and Le Guin’s ​The Left Hand of Darkness

The 1988 play, ​M. Butterfly​ written by David Henry Hwang, tells the story of a French

diplomat, Rene Gallimard, who is stationed in Beijing, China, where he falls in love and enters

an adulterous relationship with a Chinese opera singer. This Chinese opera singer, another

important character in this story, in guise as a woman, goes by the name of Song Liling, who

also just so happens to be a spy for the Chinese government. In ​The Left Hand of Darkness

written by Ursula K. Le Guin in 1969, the main protagonist, Genly Ai, visits a foreign planet

known as Winter, home of the Gethenians, on a mission to get them to join his people, The

Ekumen of Known Worlds. During his stay on Winter, Genly meets Estraven, a Gethenian, who

ends up becoming close to him in ways he never before imagined. Many different topics such as

sexuality, love, and gender are touched in these two pieces of literature. It might be said that

because ​M. Butterfly ​is a play and ​The Left Hand of Darkness ​is a novel, they share no

similarities. However, in my view, both texts subvert hierarchical binary oppositions such as

male and female, but differ in that ​M. Butterfly​ suggests gender roles are socially constructed and

therefore performative, as opposed to ​The Left Hand of Darkness​, which suggests that society

would benefit from eliminating gender since doing so would rid society of gender equality

issues.
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In both ​M. Butterfly​ and ​The Left Hand of Darkness​, hierarchical binary oppositions such

as male and female are subverted. The fact that Song does not choose to identify as male or

female, but rather both throughout the course of the play, is a challenge to the hierarchical binary

oppositions of male and female. In act 2, scene 3 of the play, after Song has already revealed

herself to be a man, he and Rene carry on a conversation where this idea of the male and female

binary being challenged is shown:

GALLIMARD. Look at you! You’re a man! (​He bursts into laughter again)

SONG. I fail to see what’s so funny!

GALLIMARD. “You fail to see--!” I mean, you never did have much of a sense

of humor, did you? I just think that it’s ridiculously funny that I’ve wasted so

much time on a man!

SONG. Wait. I’m not “just a man.” (88).

Throughout this conversation between Rene and Song, Rene only looks at Song as a man,

despite the fact that he had dressed up and identified himself as a woman multiple times before.

Song, on the other hand does not think of himself as “just a man,” because of the fact that he

dressed up as a woman and identified himself as one. This shows that this play is in fact

subverting the male/female binary oppositions by implementing characters that identify

themselves as both male and female. On similar terms, hierarchical binary oppositions of male

and female are just as equally subverted in ​The Left Hand of Darkness​. In the story, there is no

such thing as gender on planet Winter, which is challenging the idea of the need for male and

female binaries. It is stated that, “ There is no division of humanity into strong and weak halves,

protected/unprotected, dominant/submissive, owner/chattel, active/passive,” (100), which shows

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that this text is challenging issues of gender. On the planet Winter, there is no such thing as

labeling humans as strictly male or female, limiting them as to what they can and cannot do,

simply because of their gender. While both authors are undermining these categories of male and

female, each work is suggesting something different regarding gender roles.

This idea of gender and sexuality being socially constructed and performative is suggested

within the lines of ​M. Butterfly​. In the play, Song is able to fool Rene for twenty years into

thinking that she is, in fact, truly a female. This is only possible because she simply “performs”

the role of being a woman. It is in her “performance” of gender that Rene is actually convinced

that Song is a woman. Since Song was able to successfully carry out her guise as a woman, this

shows that Hwang is suggesting anyone can perform gender since it is socially constructed.

Michelle Balaev, author of ​Performing Gender and Fictions of the Nation in David Hwang’s M.

Butterfly,​ an article that touches on gender in Hwang’s ​M. Butterfly s​ tates, “ Gallimard, the male

French diplomat, believes for twenty years that Song is a woman either by his own foolishness or

by the contingencies of gender that allow anyone to perform the role of Woman or Man.” In

other words, this quote is saying that Song is able to fool Gallimard through her performance of

gender, strengthening the argument that through his play, Hwang is suggesting that gender is a

construction of society, and thus performative. Towards the end of the play, when Song reveals

herself to be a man, Rene rejects Song because of the fact that he is a man, only to then transform

himself into his socially constructed idea of what a female should be, or in other words, his idea

of the perfect woman (86-93). In a different article, ​“Who’s to say?” or making space for

Gender and Ethnicity in ‘M. Butterfly,’ b​ y author Karen Shimakawa, the topics of gender and

ethnicity are discussed. In her article, Shimakawa makes the claim that “[I]f gender is instituted
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through acts which are internally discontinuous, then the appearance of substance is precisely

that, a constructed identity, a performative accomplishment which the mundane social audience,

including the actors themselves, come to believe and to perform in the mode of belief.(9),”

meaning that because Rene ends up transforming himself into what he thinks a female should be,

gender is constructed by society and thus, performed. Shimakawa also goes on to mention “That

Gallimard and Song both perform multiple genders independent of their biological sexes only

serves to emphasize the performative nature of gender. . . .” which also ties into the argument

that in ​M. Butterfly​, Hwang is suggesting that gender is a performative act due to the socially

constructed ideas that exist revolving gender. In the play, Hwang focuses on revealing that

gender is performative, as opposed to what Le Guin suggests about gender overall in ​The Left

Hand of Darkness​.

The Gethenians on planet Winter are an androgynous race, which, in contrast to ​M.

Butterfly,​ suggests the need to rid society from gender altogether. On planet Winter in ​The Left

Hand of Darkness​, there is no such thing as gender. Except for their mating cycle, “kemmer,”

lasting between 26-28 days, the Gethenians are sexually inactive and lacking gender (96-97). In

the novel, it is said that “Burden and privilege are shared out pretty equally; everybody has the

same risk to run or choice to make,” (100). Since there is no gender on planet Winter, there are

no differences between anyone that can potentially cause inequality issues; all are equal. The

quote above provides evidence to support that this novel is suggesting that a society lacking

gender would remove gender inequality issues and thus, benefit from this. Similarly, Kayla

Stephenson, author of article titled ​One’s a Crowd: Gendered Language in Ursula Le Guin’s The

Left Hand of Darkness​, also argues that this novel is “ An exploration of the possibilities of
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society without the constraints of a binary gender dividing everything from personal relations to

politics; the novel attempts to construct a world without constraints” essentially suggesting that

humanity would benefit from a world without gender. In a society where gender exists, it is

much easier to see the multiple drawbacks that come along with having gender, as opposed to a

society with no gender at all. The article titled ​Exorcising Gender:​ ​Resisting Readers in Ursula

K. Le Guin’s Left Hand of Darkness ​by John Pennington opens by informing readers on how Le

Guin invented a world with an androgynous race as a way to escape the male predominance of

our world, “​In a book review on science fiction for Ms. magazine, Ursula K. Le Guin writes: "I

escaped maledom by inventing the androgynes of The Left Hand of Darkness" (52).” It is

through her creation of ​The Left Hand of Darkness ​and the androgynous Gethenians that Le Guin

suggests the benefit of gender not existing in society. The text and its elimination of gender

reflects a world free of inequality between genders.

It might be argued that ​M. Butterfly​ and ​The Left Hand of Darkness a​ re in no way, shape,

or form similar because of the simple fact that one is a play and one is a novel. This argument

makes a convincing point in terms of formatting, given that each of the texts are formatted quite

differently. However, in terms of larger themes, these two texts are quite similar since they both

deal with similar topics of gender. For instance, ​M. Butterfly, ​deals with the topic of gender

identity in terms of Song identifying herself to be a woman and a man. Song dressing up as a

woman only to later on dress as a man and reveal herself to Rene, deals with gender identity.

Similarly, in ​The Left Hand of Darkness​, there are themes of gender identity, specifically when

Genly cannot help but identify certain Gethenians with gender biased traits. In one part of the

novel, after Genly and Estraven have dinner together, Genly can’t help but describe Estraven and
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his actions as a means for better identifying him. When Genly says that “at table Estraven’s

performance had been womanly, all charm and tact and lack of substance, specious and androit,”

(13) he is describing Estraven and in a way, identifying him as a woman, the only thing he can to

do try and understand him. Although each of these texts are different in their composition, they

still share similarities in regards to gender identity.

In summary, after thorough readings of both the novel and the play, one can find the

similarities that these two texts share in terms of challenging hierarchical binary oppositions such

as male and female. The two texts are also different in some aspects, such that one focuses on

how gender roles are a social construct that humans in society have no choice but to perform,

whereas the other proposes that inequality between genders would no longer be an issue if

gender were to be completely disregarded from society.

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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+. ​Literature Resource
Center,​
http://library.lavc.edu:2102/apps/doc/A398253065/GLS?u=lavc_main&sid=GLS&xid=9
c324547. Accessed 4 Nov. 2018.

Hwang, David Henry. ​M. Butterfly.​ Plume, 1989.

Le Guin, Ursula K. ​The Left Hand of Darkness.​ Ace, 1969.

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://library.lavc.edu:2102/apps/doc/A68704463/LitRC?u=lavc_main&sid=LitRC&xid=
5428f95b. Accessed 4 Nov. 2018.

Shimakawa, Karen. "'Who's to say?' or, making space for gender and ethnicity in 'M. Butterfly.'."
Theatre Journal,​ vol. 45, no. 3, 1993, p. 349+. ​Literature Resource Center,​
http://library.lavc.edu:2102/apps/doc/A14617715/LitRC?u=lavc_main&sid=LitRC&xid=
0dc3fa70. Accessed 4 Nov. 2018.

Stephenson, Kayla, "One’s a Crowd: Gendered Language in Ursula Le Guin’s The Left Hand of
Darkness" (2016). Senior Capstone Theses. Paper 25.