M. Butterfly (1988), by David Hwang, is essentially a reconstruction of Puccini's play Madame Butterfly (1898). The key difference between them is on the surficial level (the plot), the stereotypical binary oppositions between the Orient and Occident, male and female are deconstructed, and the colonial and patriarchal ideologies in Madame Butterfly are reversed. M. Butterfly ends with the Westerner (Gallimard) killing himself in a similar manner to Cio-Cio san, the Japanese woman who was married to a Western man (Pinkerton) but later on betrays her. This is the most symbolic difference, where Huang's story seems to take on a postcolonial and feminist stance in giving power to the Orient and the female, and thoroughly reshuffles the traditional patriarchal and colonial stereotypes established in Madame Butterfly. However, upon closer scrutiny, M. Butterfly still conforms to these traditional stereotypes and enforces the exact sexual and cultural undertones. Firstly, though there is a reversal of power between the East and West, or the Orient and the Occident based on the plot, M. Butterfly still enforces the traditional superiority of the Occidental. In Madame Butterfly, the Oriental woman, Cio-Cio san is portrayed as weak, dependent and even willingly submissive to towards Western subjugation. She is treated as a possession, being compared to a butterfly "caught  by the Westerner (Pinkerton) whose "frail wings should be broken . He shows a rude disregard to her culture and religion, calling the wedding ceremony a "trifle wearisome  and even imposed his own religion, ideals and culture forcibly unto her. She submissively accepts Pinkerton's claims that he should be her "new religion , or new "motive . She is brainwashed to a point where even though she was denounced by her family for betraying her religion and culture, she claims to be "scarcely grieved by their desertion , a reaction completely different from before. This is symbolic of both the dominance of the West, and also of traditional gender stereotypes (male superiority), such that the entire life of the Orient woman revolves around the Occident man. However, in M. Butterfly, the hierarchy of the relationship between the East and West is reversed, where Gallimard, the French diplomat and Song, a Chinese male spy who disguises as an opera singer. Song tricks Gallimard into believing that she is a woman even after 15 years of interaction and body contact. Gallimard tries to act like the traditional Western man, being dominant and stressing his possession over Song, stressing that Song is "his  butterfly. Song plays along submissively, acting like a traditional girl, she dismisses the importance of her career in way of her getting pregnant, claiming she "loves most of all ¦feel something inside me ¦I know is yours . Meanwhile, though Gallimard is suspicious of Song's true gender, he is blinded by his stereotypical preconceptions of the East as being feminine, exotic and filled with worldly pleasures to accept the truth. Even when Song offers to strip to reveal her real gender, Gallimard screams at her not to, saying that even though he had finally "learned to tell fantasy from reality , he chooses to remain in "fantasy . His ignorance and stereotypical view towards the Orient has caused himself to be labeled as a traitor and mocked by everyone for being a fool. Yet even though his freedom and pride has been taken away from him, he still refuses to acknowledge that the love of the "perfect woman  he had gained was all fake, even naivel