May222012
Right before killing himself on page 92 and 93 Act 3, Scene 3, Gallimard says, “Death with honor is better than life… life with dishonor. (He sets himself center stages, in a seppuku position) The love of a Butterfly can withstand many things–unfaithfulness, loss, even abandonment. But how can it face the one sin that implies all others? The devastating knowledge that, underneath it all, the object of her love was nothing more, nothing less than…a man.”
While this quote does most directly depict Gallimard’s transformation into Butterfly but killing himself due to, for simplicity’s sake, abandonment just as Butterfly in Madame Butterfly ends up doing, I think more than that he kills himself out of complete humiliation and loss. Rather than being so noble and living out his fantasy by killing himself, I feel like the shock of realizing his fantasy was nothing more than a fantasy instead of the reality he thought it was also drives him to kill himself. I also think we see a lot of shame from him when he says that death with honor is better than life with dishonor. He sees Song as having made a fool of out him. Today in class we discussed a lot about the idea of this moment being one of power for Gallimard because he gets to live out his fantasy and escape reality but I want to also consider the idea of this scene being one of Gallimard’s weakness. Throughout the book the woman is portrayed as being weak and submissive and in this scene I think Gallimard can be interpreted as submitting to his loss and humiliation through death as an escape. Do you guys think Gallimard’s speech before his suicide represents his strength or weakness?
Ashley
April272012
We discussed a lot in class today about the idea of weakness and what constitutes weakness. I think an interesting point that came up which spawned from this was that of there being two different ideas of weakness in the book. From an outside perspective the reader can see that Okonkwo internalizing all his emotions can’t possibly end up positively. I would argue that in the way he lashes out at his wives and even beats them is a demonstration of how he expresses all of his suppressed emotions. Okonkwo’s desire to suppress his emotions also comes from his fear of weakness, and that definition of weakness is based on everything that his father, Unoka, was. But driven by this fear of weakness, Okonkwo seems to have developed an obsession with stereotypical masculinity: strong and a leader of his house. What Okonkwo fails to realize, however, is that sometimes emotion can be seen as strength. For example, no one would’ve judged him if he had stayed home and not gone into the forest for when Ikemefuna was being killed. But no, he had to be all masculine so instead in a frenzied moment of showing his “strength” and ends up giving Ikemefuna the last blow instead. In that moment he had to chose between acting out of his love for Ikemefuna and his fear of appearing weak and he acted out of fear. To me, there is nothing weaker than basing one’s actions on fear rather than on rational moral principles. Another example where Okonkwo’s refusal to show emotion comes up is when he fails to admit the guilt he felt at breaking peace week after visiting the Oracle. As a result, people didn’t think as highly of him because they thought he disrespected the Gods. Supressing one’s emotions and acting out of a fear for appearing weak do nothing to reveal that Okonkwo is truly strong, they instead suggest the exact opposite. Thus, although Okonkwo tries so hard to appear strong, to the readers he appears quite weak and even pathetic.
-Ashley
