The role of the woman within M. Butterfly, Miss Saigon and Memoirs of Essay

The role of the woman within M. Butterfly, Miss Saigon and Memoirs of a Geisha - Essay Example They are merely stereotypes created, promoted and perpetuated by literature and mass media. In all the three, the Asian woman’s identity is one of being an object of desire. It is all along macho Westerners dominating the humble Eastern female. M Butterfly was a Chinese woman (?) hired by the government to spy by way of a relationship with a French diplomat. Miss Saigon was a young, innocent Vietnamese bargirl sold for a night to an American Marine. Chiyo was sold into the Okia by her poor Japanese parents. They are prostitutes, tasty Asian delicacies. They can be given away as prizes in a raffle. They beg for love, have sleepless nights waiting for their men, for weeks, for years. They are even willing to go to the extent of supreme sacrifice, killing themselves only prove how intense their love is. (Didn’t Madame Butterfly disembowel herself in the end? It doesn’t matter who actually died. Madame Butterfly’s existence may be unreal but her death is real. The Perfect Woman existed only in Gallimard’s fantasy world and she died when that world crashed down.) They are passive, submissive and servile. They can be conditioned easily. A man can do anything with them. He does not have to hesitate to make impetuous advances in the first meeting. Still, men are women’s saviors who change their lives for the better and are generous enough to accept their children. When they seduce a woman, they are actually doing a favor to them. In the plot of Miss Saigon, all the woman characters that the reader comes across are prostitutes. But there is a beautiful, innocent virgin with a heart of gold, who had never been kissed. The summary briefly is about a White man saving an Asian woman from an Asian man and the Asian woman dying for the White man (Shimizu, 2007, 36). Kim chooses love as her road to liberation. Such dependent attitude, a mistaken perception of enslavement to be empowerment, is frustrating. It later proves to