Western portrayals of Asian Americans have repeatedly been misrepresented as feminine and inferior, obscured in the mystery of Asian exoticism. Through the Orientalist stereotypes, perpetuated by the gendered binaries, was reinforced by creative art forms such as novels, art, operas, radio programs, musicals, plays, film, and television shows. The relationship between Western and Eastern cultures is often distinguished as the masculine and the feminine, the superior and the inferior, the aggressive and the submissive. This polarized relationship is exemplified in John Luther Long’s Madame Butterfly through Cho-Cho-San and Benjamin Pikkerton, perpetuating an Orientalist and gendered representation of “Asian” and “western” identities. David Henry …show more content…
Throughout the story, Long exemplifies the Orientalist stereotypes perpetuating the gendered binaries through the two characters. Pikkerton is shown to judge Cho-Cho-San based on the Japanese stereotypes of the Asian woman as a “lotus blossom,” someone who is delicate, sensitive, dainty, and willing to be subservient to the powerful male. He will “provide her a new motive…himself…and a new religion…himself again” and encouraged her “domestic autonomy.” This leads to her losing her family and friend, who disown her after pointing out that Pikkerton is limiting Cho-Cho-San’s opportunities of “reappearing on earth in a higher form of life.” Cho-Cho-San is symbolic of the weaker, feminine, and submissive “lotus blossom.” She loves Pikkerton unconditionally, willing to “get along without ancestors,” “adopt [the] new religion” and wait for his return. However, once he does return with his American wife, Cho-Cho-San is devastated, as Pikkerton has married to an American woman, and attempts suicide. Her decision to commit suicide is symbolic of her submission to Pikkerton, indicating the submission of the feminine East to its more aggressive and masculine Western