SOURCE: Hawthorne, Melanie C. “‘Du Du That Voodoo’¹: M. Vénus and M. Butterfly.” L'Esprit Createur 37, no. 4 (winter 1997): 58-66.

In the following essay, Hawthorne uncovers the layers of sexual ambiguity and imperialist manifestations in Hwang's M. Butterfly and draws correlations between the play and the novel Monsieur Venus. by Rachilde (Marguerite Eymery Vallette).

Lately, I have found myself referring to Rachilde's 1884 novel Monsieur Vénus as “M. Venus” in both writing and speech. In writing, of course, the abbreviation “M.” is the accepted French abbreviation for “Monsieur,” so in a way this alternative name is just a shortened form of the full title (an abbreviation already in use among Rachilde's contemporaries). But, whereas the abbreviation “M” is read aloud as “monsieur,” in choosing to read the title as “Em Venus,” I realize that I am invoking David Henry Hwang's play M. Butterfly.² These two fin-de-siècle texts—Rachilde's...