The first couple of pages in this book completely shocked me. How could a man have a relationship with another man who is pretending to be a woman, for twenty years? This is completely strange to me. I find it interesting to view Gallimard's transformation and interactions with women. As he tells us from his jail cell that at first, he was loyal and quiet with his life, especially with his relationships. But then we are slowly led in to the world of his career and his women.
His interesting career as a spy launches him into the strange world of women. He meets Song, who is a beautiful opera singer and who is also undercover as well. He utilizes this relationship as an escape from his marriage with Helga. As I read on into Act 2, I realized that his marriage with Helga was somewhat of a testament to his insecurities of whether or not he is a man. *SPOILER* it is revealed that he and Helga are having trouble conceiving a child. This is detrimental to his manhood and he questions his masculinity. When Helga prompts him to go and see a doctor just to confirm that there is nothing wrong, he refuses. He would rather escape the truth by just replacing it with hollow information. In a way, this is his relationship with Song. It is simply an escape from the real world and the truth. And yet, she manages to make him feel manly. They ultimately move in together after his divorce with Helga. It is very interesting to me that Song makes him feel more masculine than when Song is really a man as well.
Along with that, Gallimard seems to become more confident as his career launches him forward. After he gets a promotion, he goes to some sort of dinner party and meets Renne, an English foreign exchange student. She is blunt and straight forward and by asking him if wants to fool around, she makes Gallimard feel needed and in control. He is ultimately on the hunt for control and masculinity and by playing multiple women and sneaking around in his career as well, he seems to think that he can achieve that. It will be interesting to see how his quest for ultimate masculinity catches up with him.
2 comments:
I have noticed the confidence shift as well. He went from people calling him ugly (he even jokes about it himself with Song's "child") to somehow being this somewhat charismatic and confident character. This transformation has me excited about what will happen next in the play.
I found this change interesting as well. I found his confidence boost with Renne particularly interesting. He seemed to be proud of his "extra extra-marital" affair, just as he was proud of his original affair with Song. It's interesting to me that Hwang seems to be insinuating that this masculine drive could be what leads to his demise.
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