"Are You My Butterfly?"

The play M. Butterfly is based upon the play Madame Butterfly.  In the play M. Butterfly Rene Gillimard asks Song "are you my butterfly?"  After Rene is told that he is being promoted because of how confident he has grown to be, he instantly rushes to Song.  He asks her many times "are you my butterfly?" He is obsessed with the play Madame Butterfly that he had seen Song perform.  The Butterfly is the Asian girl who is madly in love with an American Westerner that she would rather die for than live without.  Rene wants Song to be so devoted and in love with him that she will give everything for him.  He wants to feel as though he is in complete power over her.  He brings up Butterfly because that is how they first connected.  She played the Butterfly character in the opera which made him want to seek her attention and be obsessed with her.  If Song does become his Butterfly than that means that she will become so blinded by her devotion to him that she will become someone that she won't recognize.