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This test consists of 5 short answer questions and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Gallimard start to call Song after their affair starts?

2. How does Toulon feel about Gallimard's infidelity?

3. What secret can't Toulon keep from Gallimard?

4. How has life in the West been for Gallimard?

5. What does Gallimard claim about the Chinese?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Hwang wrote M. Butterfly after hearing details on the true account of a French diplomat falling for a cross-dressing Chinese spy. However, the spectrum of ideas presented in this play are Hwang's. Write an essay summing up the larger ideas of this play.

1. What are the political themes of this play? What did Hwang hope to achieve by resenting them dramatically? Was he successful?

2. What are the gender issues associated with this story? How is the perception of the feminine/masculine a major thematic element?

3. Dramatically, what did Hwang attempt to present with this play? What are we as the audience supposed to walk away from this story feeling or wanting?

Essay Topic 2

Marc and Gallimard have different points of view on the definition of infidelity and the morals involved with it. Write an essay comparing and contrasting Gallimard and Marc and their view and treatment of women.

1. How does Marc know Gallimard? What is the nature of their relationship? During their friendship, how did their lives differ? More specifically, what were their places within their social circle?

2. How did Marc view women in his youth? How did he treat them? Did this change after he got married? How do these characteristics differ from Gallimard's? How are they similar?

3. What kind of life did Marc lead while Gallimard was in China? How did their relationship change during the course of the play? How did Gallimard conjured image of Marc affect his actions in the play?

Essay Topic 3

Throughout the play, Gallimard serves as the narrator, and although he is the guide through the play and the vessel of the story, his own conjured characters break the fourth wall to relate certain ideas or wants of their own that differ from Gallimard's. Occasionally, they break the fourth wall to speak directly to the audience.

1. Describe Hwang's structure of the play: the point of view of the story, and order of the vignettes and the "play-within-a-play" quality of Gallimard's imagination.

2. Cite examples of Hwang "breaking the fourth wall" and theorize why Hwang chose to do so.

3. How does this familiarity with the characters change the relationship to the audience. How does it differ from a script played in the third person?

4. How does the first person narrative change our relationship with Gallimard and his emotions?

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