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Deanna Fierro

Professor Batty

English 102

10 December 2018

Rethinking Gender and Sex With Hwang and Le Guin

“M Butterfly”, by David Henry Hwang, and “The Left Hand of Darkness”, by Ursula K.

Le Guin, are two works that can be seen as polar opposites when comparing both literature

genres. Despite this, even with a fictional play describing more realistic settings and characters,

versus Le Guin’s complete unreal universe describing a world with no gender, you can see how

both these authors are able to make their audience question the idea of gender identity. In both

works we see the main conflict generalizing around the idea of ones sexuality. Queer theory is

the area of gay and lesbian studies, and also looks to get rid of the traditional binary differences

between male/female, heterosexual/homosexual and more. Queer theory emphasizes the idea of

sexuality and gender being more of a spectrum rather than one or the other. Based on these ideas,

and promoted in their work, Le Guin and Hwang’s works force us to thoughtfully question the

binary idea of gender and sexuality, and how ones gender and sexuality are socially constructed

and determined based on someone’s biological makeup.

The term gender and sex are terms that are constantly mixed up and misinterpreted by

many people. Gender refers to someone's personal identification of male,female etcetera, despite

their biological makeup where as sex refers to the biological makeup when looking at genes and

chromosomes. Le Guin’s work is an approach to do away with the idea of masculine and

feminine roles. She seeks to allow readers to gain an open mind about how gender and sex is
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viewed. In the novel, there is no gender in this universe, unless during a specified time, but after

that the people on Gethen return to an androgynous society. By doing so, she gives this society a

clean slate, which allows us room to input our own feelings about the novel and who these

people are. She does so by “...depicting characters who redefine our understandings of gender

and race”(Revisioning Gender), a world with no permanent sex. The novel is an approach to

prove the idea of gender as a social construct. Even though Le Guin strips this society of gender,

the main character, Ai, still finds himself seeing these Gethenian people as male. With no visual

proof of this society being male or female, Ai still creates in his mind that these people are

primarily male. This is proven with Ai’s own words, “...my efforts took the form of self

consciously seeing a Gethenian first as a man…”(Le Guin 12). I think Ai, being in this world

very contrast from his, almost makes him arrogant to the idea of a life as different as Gethen.

Through her work, Le Guin is able to provide evidence of the possibilities of a society to develop

without the pressure and expectations of the male and female roles(Overview). The Gethenians

are able to pick their partners based on connection and attraction, rather than sex and gender.

One major example that supports how sex is a social construct is Le Guin’s use of the pronoun,

“he”. She was critiqued on the idea of using a masculine pronoun for this androgynous world.

She then argued, “...the fact that 'he' is supposedly 'universal' and therefore embraces women. It

doesn't as a matter of fact." When given the opportunity…”(Overview). Here we see how even in

an effort to do away with societal norms of male and female, we as readers still find ways to

reconstruct the binary idea, where for example, ‘he’ must mean man. Le Guin’s book offers a

different outlook on the idea of a no gender or sex based world, while still acknowledging gender

and sex as a social construct.

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In a different setting and plot, M Butterfly also addresses the social construct of not only

gender, but sexuality as well. This play tells the story of the diplomat Gallimard, and in being in

china, comes to meet a chinese woman, Song. After a twenty year love affair, Gallimard comes

to find that Song had deceived him this whole time and was using him to get information to

China; one major reveal in which Song was actually a man. In his play, Hwang brings to light

how sexuality is more of a spectrum than just polar opposites, which is supported by queer

theory. In Hwang’s work, we can’t help but question how such a competent man with high

standings, can go on for twenty years and not know his lover is a male. It’s a question that we

and characters in Hwang’s play can’t help but ask. A take away from his play is how as a

society, we see things from a surface level. Song cross-dresses to play this “spy” role for his

country, and because of the clothes he wears and the hair he has, and the build of his body, he is

a woman. It is not until the end of the play, when Song reveals his body to Gallimard, where

Gallimard finally faces the realization of the nature of his relationship. But one thing Hwang

makes us wonder, is if Gallimard realized ahead the true identity of Song. “Did I not undress her

because I knew, somewhere deep down, what I would find? Perhaps”(Hwang 17). Did Song

enjoy playing the role of a woman, or was he solely committed to deceiving Gallimard as the

actor he was. In every scene before Song puts on his suit, he is dressed as a woman, whether or

not Gallimard is even present (Who’s to Say). Here we were faced with the question of Song’s

true sexual identity. With gender and sexuality being a social construct, we can believe that Song

is a male, he has a penis,therefore he is a male and he was acting the whole time. But when we

look at Hwang’s purpose of bringing to light the social construction of sexuality, you can argue

that yes, Song’s biological makeup is of a male, but can his actions and cross-dressing be seen as

his struggle with finding his sexual identity of something other than a male? Similarly, once
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being revealed to Gallimard, the true identity of Song, do we think that just like that, in an

instant, those twenty years were just gone and the feelings had gone away. No, I think that

Gallimard had turned himself into the man that society deemed good enough to be a man when

he met Song. When he visually sees that his butterfly is a man, I think that he forces himself to

think that he isn’t in love with her anymore. I think that in his head, since he knows of the bad

stigma that is put on homosexuality, he decides he wants to steer clear of that, and he tells

himself that he does not love Song anymore. With the amount of time he spent with Song,

there’s no way that his love and desire for her was fake. Hwang shows how sexuality is a social

construct because he demonstrates how Gallimard is in denial of his own sexuality. He’s too

worried about his image and how it would look to admit that he had been in love with a man this

whole time. Hwang easily demonstrates how Gallimard is stuck on societals “one or the other”

choice that he can’t see that even as a man, Song is still his butterfly. Instead he looks to protect

his male ego. “By interweaving illusions about sexuality and cultural differences, Hwang creates

an ironic play that addresses social myths of gender and national identity”(Performing Gender).

Both authors create stories that allow us to think about different perspectives in regards to

gender, sex, and sexuality as well.

Respectively, one could argue that both these authors aren’t doing anything that promotes

the idea of gender and sexuality as a social construct. And in no way do they address ideas

emphasized in queer theory. It is arguable that these works simply tell a story that include themes

like denial, betrayal and love. But I think, although correct, there's a clear definitive deeper

meaning to these vastly different texts. Ursula Le Guin herself is known as a strong feminist and

openly states her beliefs and reasonings. In an interview she say that, “As soon as you say men

are, women are, you've lost sight of the fact that they are that way in your culture, in your
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society, right now. But can you look over the fence and see what they're doing in the next

garden? They're doing something totally different. I'm always aware of that”(Ursula Le Guin). In

her interview with Jane Slaughter, Le Guin is very open about her thoughts on the ideas of

unequal and flawed ideas of male and female. With how passionate and comfortably she speaks

about her feminist ideals, there's no reason why she wouldn't include that in her writing as well.

Le Guin has an agenda to educate and promote the idea of gender and sexuality as a social

construct, as well as promote queer theory, and she seeks to give people reason to question and

challenge the hierarchical binaries of male and female.Hwang’s works are also very well known

to “examines stereotypes and the powerful ways in which stereotypes are used to continue

prejudices and to keep power in place”(Hwang Overview). And it is in M Butterfly “which most

directly looks at sexual issues and power issues in ways that are informative to the lesbian, gay,

bisexual, and transgender (l/g/b/t) communities”(Hwang Overview). Again, Hwang has a history

of including such progressive ideas in his works, so there is no doubt that this particular work

also falls into those ideas. He emphasizes the ‘performativity of genders’ of Gallimard and Song,

as they both seem to interchange between male and female genders throughout the play.

Gallimard is not just a manly man, in the beginning of the play we see him as this shy almost

more feminine like character. It isn't until he meets Song, does he take on the persona of

dominance. Similarly with Song, he plays this timid, modest chinese woman, until the end when

he strips and shows a more tough and confident man. This exemplifies the spectrum of sexuality,

versus the black and white, which is a major theme.

In both works, Le Guin and Hwang promote the idea of gender and sexuality not being

so black and white. Both their stories follow along the lines of a queer theory approach. Both

authors have a natural writing style and history that supports the ideas of gender and sex as a
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social construct. Although both works are completely different ideas, Le Guin and Hwang are

able to execute their point of getting their readers to really question and look beyond the surface

level of the readings with the use of queer theory. As readers, we are left with questions that can

be answered so differently based on each person's perspective and open ideas to gender and sex.

Although each work highlight gender and sexuality differently, they both create an

understanding of the social construct of each by challenging the idea of binary thinking. The Left

Hand of Darkness, and M Butterfly both do a phenomenal job in getting you to challenge the

gender norms.

Works Cited

Balaev, Michelle. "Performing gender and fictions of the nation in David Hwang's M. Butterfly."

Forum for World Literature Studies, vol. 6, no. 4, 2014, p. 608+. Literature Resource

Center,http://library.lavc.edu:2102/apps/doc/A398253065/GLS?u=lavc_main&sid=GLS&xi

d=9c324547. Accessed 6 Nov. 2018.

Bigelow, Pamela. "Ursula K. Le Guin: Overview." Gay & Lesbian Literature, vol. 1, Gale, 1994.
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LiteratureResourceCenter,http://library.lavc.edu:2102/apps/doc/H1420004890/GLS?u=la

vc_main&sid=GLS&xid=794b1e3a. Accessed 6 Nov. 2018.

Guin, Ursula Le, and Jane Slaughter. "Ursula Le Guin." Contemporary Literary Criticism, edited

by Jeffrey W. Hunter, vol. 136, Gale, 2001. Literature Resource Center,

http://library.lavc.edu:2102/apps/doc/H1100034606/GLS?u=lavc_main&sid=GLS&xid=1cc

f9989. Accessed 7 Nov. 2018. Originally published in Progressive, vol. 62, no. 3, Mar. 1998,

pp. 36-39.

Rashley, Lisa Hammond. "Revisioning gender: inventing women in Ursula K. Le Guin's

nonfiction." Biography, vol. 30, no. 1, 2007, p. 22+. Literature Resource Center,

http://library.lavc.edu:2102/apps/doc/A160167145/GLS?u=lavc_main&sid=GLS&xid=bb37

5b4a. Accessed 30 Oct. 2018.

Shimakawa, Karen. "'Who's to say?' or, making space for gender and ethnicity in 'M. Butterfly.'."

Theatre Journal, vol. 45, no. 3, 1993, p. 349+. Literature Resource Center,

http://library.lavc.edu:2102/apps/doc/A14617715/GLS?u=lavc_main&sid=GLS&xid=7b

11ed57. Accessed 31 Oct. 2018.

Swartz, Patti Capel. "David Henry Hwang: Overview." Gay & Lesbian Literature, vol. 2, Gale,

1998. Literature Resource Center,

http://library.lavc.edu:2102/apps/doc/H1420004203/GLS?u=lavc_main&sid=GLS&xid=

ea53f4a5. Accessed 7 Nov. 2018.