Description
Hi! Nice to work with you again. This is a close reading assignment about the book “M. Butterfly” M. Butterfly – David Henry Hwang – Google Books and the movie of M. Butterfly https://gauchocast.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Page… I strongly recommend you use litcharts as they provide summary and plot that might help you. M. Butterfly Study Guide | Literature Guide | LitCharts Please follow the instructions in the document. Thank you.
Unformatted Attachment Preview
AsAm 5
CR exercise: Hwang
Adapting a postmodernist play into a realist movie entails making a great many decisions. This
exercise is aimed at helping you to recognize authorial/directorial choices more clearly, and to
distinguish between choices made on the level of the “content” of the story vs. on the level of its
“form.” While the point is to see that the latter (form) has implications for the former (content), it is
necessary to begin by sorting each out as clearly as possible.
Compare these “backstage”/”costume change” scenes:
Play: from “SONG: The change I’m going to make…” to “Underneath, he
wears a well-cut suit” (pages 78-80)
in combination with
Play: from “SONG: Yes. You” to “SONG: … I might have blown a puff of
smoke right between your eyes. Come.” (pages 20-21)
with this one:
Film: backstage scene to “my cigarette?” (7:17 through 8:36)
link or 17:05- 18:23 on
gauchocast
STEP 1: Use the table below to sort through differences between the scenes (these can include not just
dialogue but stage directions, props, etc.—anything on the page/screen). Do not include instances
mentioned in lecture. Address each example on a separate line. You should have at least one “yes” and
one “no.”
Potentially useful dialogue or staging/production details that the
movie has changed from the play
Is the play version of
your example
possible in realism?
(Yes/No)
Form or
content?
STEP 2: A surface “reading” of the M. Butterfly play and movie might well be that the story is the “same”
across the two presentations. Consider formal changes made in the service of realism (i.e., “No”
examples in the previous chart). How do the director’s realist choices produce a different underlying
meaning than the playwright’s postmodermist ones? (1 ¶)
●
OPTIONALLY, you may wish to also include/discuss content-level details that further support the
movie’s shift to realism. How do they do so? What meanings were lost or new ones created? (1 ¶)
STEP 3: Develop a thesis explaining how differences in formal choices between the scenes above are
meaningful and, thus, deliver different experiences or messages—even when basic character, plot
facts, and key dialogue are unchanged.
Consider the different choices (in staging, etc.) that make one presentation postmodernist and the
other realist. What experiences or messages does the play make possible that the movie forecloses
(or vice versa)?
Note: You must do more than merely describe or summarize the differences. The goal is to
understand their effects.
STEP 4: Write a Close Reading arguing your thesis.
Use the thesis you have developed and organize your answers into a coherent, linear argument.
Dissect specific details from the two versions of the given scenes to support each element of your
claims. Apply terms and analytical frameworks from lecture, as you deem necessary, to help
structure your explanations. You are not, however, required to define the terms explicitly—only to
use them accurately.
Your argument may discuss content-level choices as a supplement,
but must center an analysis of formal changes and their implications for meaning.
(Approx. 500 words)
Purchase answer to see full
attachment
