Upon completing M. Butterfly, a prevalent theme I found throughout the book was race and more specifically, racism. Several times David Henry Hwang points out how the Chinese are culturally viewed as submissive and gentle, yet arrogant. On the other hand, the Westerners are dangerous and powerful and are often referred to as "foreign devils". I believe that misconceptions such as these are often the strongest factors behind something as simple as a misunderstanding or something as intense as war.

I feel that most have lost sight of how important communicating with one another truly is. I think the biggest problem between Gallimard and Song was their lack of communication. Gallimard did not take the time to understand who Song truly was and therefore, was misled. He allowed beauty to overwhelm his senses instead of attempting to evaluate and solve the dilemma that was at hand. When certain elements are thrown in to life, we must learn how to deal with them instead of walking the other way.

I don’t mean to lecture the importance of communication, but several times in my life I have been forced to deal with these situations and looking back, I wish I would have known what I know now. Just a bit of background – when I was younger, my family was the ideal family, living the American Dream, so to speak. My parents had been together since high school and I have two younger siblings. My dad brought in enough income so that my mother never had to work and we were able to be in an excellent school system. To make a long story short, there was a strong history of alcoholism on my mother’s side of the family and when her mother was diagnosed with cancer and later passed away, of course, alcohol was the easiest way to deal with the situation. Instead of trying to communicate with her family the pain that she was feeling, my mom shut everyone out and refused to believe she had a problem. As a result of this, she has lost all of us. I am not looking for sympathy, only attempting to share my experience with the cause and effect of lack of communication.

I feel that most of the wars we are fighting only prove to be a losing battle. I may be naïve but resorting to violence is unnecessary. Instead of attempting to make someone understand our perspective, physical actions or simply doing nothing are easier to succumb to. I really enjoyed the perspective M. Butterfly has given me and found the play, although relatively short – inspiring.