The fashioned victims: Addressing the un/dressed body in Hwang’s M. Butterfly

Abstract

Abstract In The Body and Society, Turner indicates that ‘There is an obvious and prominent fact about human beings; they have bodies and they are bodies’. Human bodies are simultaneously dressed bodies. In M. Butterfly, Song’s dressed body lures/ seduces Gallimard into his calculated scheme, whereas his undressed body triggers the collapse of Gallimard’s fantasy and foregrounds the undermining subversion. Thus, Song’s un/dressed body plays a vital role and deserves further investigation. By addressing the un/dressed body it not only delves into the mechanism of deconstruction but also focalizes the inextricable connection between body and self-identity. The focus on the dressed and undressed body can exemplify how the representation of self through fashion can be carefully calculated to make and then break a person. Thus, this article seeks to address the un/dressed body to redress the core issues, such as power relation, sexuality and sexual orientation, dramatized in Hwang’s M. Butterfly in order to show the seminal relation between the body and shaping of identity. Moreover, it goes beyond to re-examine and challenge the dress/ body/self as a totality by arguing how both Song and Gallimard become fashioned victims through the experience of the sublime in the economy established by the bodily scheme.