Ethnocentrism as epistemic structure: the persistence of the Butterfly stereotype in Madame Butterfly and M. Butterfly

This article employs Jacques Derrida’s concept of ethnocentrism as its primary analytical framework and uses comparative textual analysis to examine the construction and partial deconstruction of the ‘butterfly stereotype’ in Giacomo Puccini’s Madame Butterfly and David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly. It argues that Madame Butterfly constructs Eastern women as submissive and self-sacrificing ‘Others’ through intertwined forms of institutional and emotional colonisation, thereby reinforcing Western cultural dominance and gender discipline. Ethnocentrism is not treated here as a peripheral influence but as a generative epistemic structure that sustains the stereotype by positioning Western modes of interpretation as universal while rendering their cultural standpoint invisible. Although M. Butterfly explicitly critiques colonial fantasy, the play does not fully displace this ethnocentric framework. Song Liling’s perspective remains mediated through Gallimard’s confessional narrative, raising questions about whether marginalised voices can attain genuine epistemic autonomy. The analysis demonstrates that the ‘butterfly stereotype’ emerges from the intersection of ethnocentric and patriarchal discourses and persists even in works that attempt to expose its artificiality. By foregrounding ethnocentrism as an underlying mechanism of cultural intelligibility, this study contributes a deeper explanation for the resilience of cross-cultural gender stereotypes. It concludes that meaningful transformation in cross-cultural gender narratives requires not only revising representational images but also unsettling Western epistemic centrality, enabling dialogic forms of storytelling in which Eastern subjects possess discursive authority.