SOURCE: Kerr, Douglas. “David Henry Hwang and the Revenge of Madame Butterfly.” In Asian Voices in English, edited by Mimi Chan and Roy Harris, pp. 119-30. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1991.
In the following essay, Kerr compares the representation of Asian characters in M. Butterfly and Puccini's opera Madama Butterfly. Kerr argues that the opera aligns the audience's sympathy with the pathos of the central Asian character, while Hwang's play aligns the audience with the plight of the central Western character.
