The Archetypal Drama in Puccini's Opera Madame Butterfly

Abstract

Archetypal stories are repeated in many different ways, from the plays of Shakespeare to Star Wars as well as opera. These are the stories that resonate deeply within us because they show us both how to, and how not to, navigate through the events of our lives. In this article Puccini's opera Madame Butterfly is explored for its archetypal themes. Puccini's own history and difficulties with women shed light on his fascination with the theme of tragic love. Madame Butterfly is the story of desire in the form of immature love and passion that ends in birth, death, and remorse. The main protagonist, Pinkerton, the British soldier, is compared to Faust, while Butterfly, the beautiful and innocent Japanese geisha, is compared to Gretchen. Although in both stories the driving force of individuation, seen in Mercurial energy, is to find love and connect to soul, these men instead wrongly sell their souls for passion, mistaking that for love. The psychology of both the male and female characters is explored in light of their histories as well as their contrasexual inner sides. The women in both stories carry the projections of the men's immature inner feminine to tragic ends, while the men live on in reduced, incomplete lives.