Analyze for Madame Butterfly

     The ten-minute animation is best look at as a short to the point animated preview of the original “Madame Butterfly” opera written by Giacomo Puccini. The animation was made by Pjotr Sapegin. From what we can see a Japanese Geisha falls in love with a blond man in uniform. They conceived a child together and the man goes away for a brief time during the animation. She gives birth to a daughter which is first represented by a fish before it transforms into a small girl. Time pasts and the man comes back with a new wife. The man forcibly takes the child away leaving a distraught woman. The woman transforms into a skeleton as she descends into madness before transforming into the butterfly seen in the first shot of the animation.

            I was a bit confused about what the fish baby might have represented. I remember from my medieval arts studies that a fish represents Christianity. It so happens that the man’s religion in the original opera was Christianity, though one might not realize it if they did not watch the opera. The umbilical cord represents the connection between mother and child. When the man yanks the umbilical cord, it breaks the connection between the two. It can also represent that the geisha disconnection from her family, religion, and past life. I loved the fact that at the end the man and his new wife rode up with children of different. I wondered how many times he has done this before stopping on the Geisha. How many families did he displaced with his sexual fantasies?

            A main part of the symbolism of the animation and the original opera is the butterfly. The geisha’s name is Madame Butterfly. According to, Animal Motifs in Asian Art by Katherine Ball, the butterfly is thought of someone’s “immortal soul on account of the metamorphosis from a caterpillar.” (XXXIV. The Bat And The Butterfly)Which could mean the rebirth of the young geisha at the end of the animation. In the start and end of the animation, the butterfly is seen on top of the Geisha’s head. This completes the circle of her life. You can see the metamorphose when she strips her skin and body parts to an endoskeleton in the animation. The cocoon of the caterpillar is representative of the endoskeleton. The endoskeleton turns into the butterfly. I feel that this is more visually pleasing than what really happen in the opera. In the opera, Madame butterfly kills herself with a sword after the man left and the new wife forced Madam Butterfly to give them her only child.

The confusing part of Madame Butterfly is that her real name is Cio-Cio-San. I researched the meaning of her name in Japan. Cio-Cio is short for chouchou(蝶) meaning butterfly in Japanese. (image-of-japanese-kanji-for-butterfly-710). San is an honorific that equates to Ms. Miss. or Mr. She was probably named Cio-Cio to make it easier for Italian opera actors to pronounce as it looks like an Italian phase.

The hill that the geisha stands on during the animation stands for the house that the couple lived in. In the opera, the couple lives on a hill in Nagasaki, Japan. The music box breaking occasionally, represents the love the man had for her was breaking within a period. The song that plays is the same song that Madame Butterfly sings in the original opera. It could be representative of her not being sure if he is coming back or not. The breaking of the music box could also represent the warnings of Madame Butterfly’s maid gave to her regarding the man’s intentions.

            I want to note that it took a few hours before I started writing. I needed to view cute animal videos to combat the immense sadness I felt after watching the animation and the original opera story. I watched the 1995 movie version that was directed by Frédéric Mitterrand and stared Ying Huang and Richard Troxell.   I was trying to find some redeeming factor for the man. I only got two—he served his country and he felt some remorse---the former being seen in the animation. I honestly don’t think he had remorse. In the original opera, he goes on about being able to get out on the marriage and the housing contract that was supposed to last 999 years. He did not think to divorce the woman before taking in another wife. Also, he did not have the confidence to tell the Geisha himself that he was leaving her. The man ran away and his new wife orders the Geisha’s maid to tell her what happen. I wondered how or if his new wife was okay with this.

            I felt sympathy to the Geisha. In the animation, it did not give any sign of age of them. So, it just seems like a regular case of a guy having an affair while married or in a relationship. The original opera tells us that the Geisha was only fifteen years old. That’s right, she was only fifteen years old at the start of the opera-roughly four years older than Romeo and Juliet. I point this out because while Romeo and Juliet was about the same age as each other, the geisha was a bunch of years younger than the man. I reference the play because both couples fall in love and marry immediately after they see each for the first time, and both happen in death. The man must be 18 or older considering he is in some sort of marine service. Also, it seems that his marriage is an arrange marriage situation. He literally picks a girl from a photobook and pays lots of money to marry said girl without even getting to know her. He is just fascinated with Japanese women. I think that is just the extent to why he wanted to marry the Geisha. He tells his friend that he wishes to marry a real American woman.

            Since she was only 15 years old, she was extremely naïve. She believed that the love she had would stay forever. She converted to the man’s religion and broke contact with her family. This caused her entire family to dishonor her. The only think she has is the husband that betrays her and leaves her with a son. It is extremely heartbreaking to watch her maid warn her of this betrayal when the geisha ignores the warning trusting that he would return.

            If I was this man I would not have treated his wife like this. I would have come back and allowed her to come to America with me. I would have her a better life than the one that she had. Also, I would have continued to pay the mortgage while I was away. I would have never remarried. I understand the culture differences in the earlier 1900’s might have been different than the culture we have now. I would not have made her hopes high. I would allow her to keep her religion and family. 

Works Cited

image-of-japanese-kanji-for-butterfly-710. n.d. 17 09 2017. <http://www.japanesewordswriting.com/image-of-japanese-kanji-for-butterfly-710/>.

"XXXIV. The Bat And The Butterfly." Ball, Katherine M. Animal Motifs in Asian Art: An illustrated Guide to Their Meanings and Aesthetics. Mineola: Dover Publications, Inc, 2004. 398-409.