Gallimard's Expiration

As the final scene of M Butterfly begins, Gallimard asserts that his sacrifice of self will prove his love for Song was not in vain. We are left to sort out how this whole strange affair could be productive and how exactly self sacrifice gives this love worth.

Gallimard describes his investment in the dominant/dominated narrative which underpins the prevailing versions of Eastern femininity and Western masculinity as a vision which "has become my life" (91). Upon first reading this passage, I interpreted Gallimard's suicide as an effort to validate the "truth" of this narrative by embracing the feminine role to which Song's deceit has reduced him.  He identifies his "simple and absolute" mistake making self- sacrifice necessary as his act of loving "a cad, a bounder"(92). Interestingly enough, his dishonor does not stem from his act of loving a man, but the act of selflessly loving one who did not return his affections. Because Song, a man, has tricked and shamed Gallimard despite Gallimard's devotion, the French diplomat has been reduced to a Butterfly sprawling on a pin. Gallimard has been deprived of pride and agency (literally). He has been feminized. Killing himself, the ultimate sacrifice of self, can be interpreted as a "proper" performance of woman within the conceptions of gender and power he is invested in. His romantization of the self-sacrificial Oriental woman makes it clear he sees beauty in the notion of selfless love and his suicide can be interpreted as a vindication of this beauty.


Nevertheless, Gallimard seems to understand the patriarchal world valuing women's selfless love is fantastical. He characterizes death "as returning to the world of fantasy," indicating his self identification as woman and subsequent self sacrifice does not make the the imagination of Oriental women he and society embrace true. His recognition of the emptiness of patriarchal narratives is made clear in the lines "The love of a Butterfly can withstand many things- unfaithfulness, loss, even abandonment. But how can it face the one sin that implies all others? The devastating knowledge that, underneath it all, the object of her love was nothing more, nothing less than... a man"(92). The figure of man is demystified by the description "nothing more, nothing less than... a man," which reads as a recognition of the humanity or imperfection of the patriarchal figure of power. Power structures with clear dominant and dominated groups can only be legitimized by assertions the powerful entity is better somehow. Similarly, selfless love can only be beautiful if the one evacuating the self is lower than the object of their affection. It seems Gallimard kills himself for a notion of beauty he recognizes as false. He dies for a fantasy and his choice to hang onto this fantasy begs the question of whether reality affords so little possibility for beauty.