(To Sharpless) She still fancies herself married to the young officer. If your Excellency would explain . . .
Madame Butterfly: (To Sharpless) Sa-ey, when some one gettin’ married in America, don’ he stay marry?
Sharpless: Usually—yes.
Madame Butterfly: Well, tha’s all right. I’m marry to Lef-ten-ant B.F. Pik-ker-ton.
Yamadori: Yes, but a Japanese marriage!
Sharpless: Matrimony is a serious thing in America, not a temporary affair as it often is here.63
This exchange demonstrates the proper orientation of a national subject, which is embodied by the two men. The thoroughly Japanese Yamadori knows “the laws of [his] own country,” and the unflinchingly US American Sharpless knows the laws of his. That proper subjectivity is tied to gender is amplified by the fact that unlike Cho-Cho-San, Yamadori speaks impeccable English. Furthermore, Belasco hierarchically organizes Japanese marital legal conventions as inferior, lacking the “serious” nature of marriage in the United States. We also encounter an implicit critique of US imperialism as Sharpless suggests that marriage is “a serious thing” in the United States (effectively condemning the behaviors of his colleague Pinkerton, who has behaved as if it were not). This is less a critique of US imperialism than of its execution by irresponsible agents like Pinkerton. Sharpless stands in as the ideal model of how US empire should function; he is a stable and responsible moral authority. What is without a doubt, however, is that Cho-Cho-San is confused with regard to both, applying what she understands of US law to herself. Adopting the laws of her “husban’s country,” Cho-Cho-San disavows the laws of Japan, while failing to recognize that she would be completely illegible in the theater of US law.
Scene 2. The Scene of Exception in Puccini’s Opera
The heroine’s crisis is that from a legal and a cultural perspective, she makes no sense. She is neither Japanese nor US American, and within the rigidly segregated logic of the turn of the century, this makes her altogether impossible. This impossibility is temporarily negotiated by the heroine as she shuttles between subjecthood and an objecthood that Long describes as an Oriental curio: “After all, she was quite an impossible little thing, outside of lacquer and paint.”64 Her disavowal of her legal status as a Japanese subject and insistence on her impossible status as a US subject is even more explicit in the same scene in Puccini’s 1907 opera.
In Minghella’s 2006 production of Madama Butterfly, the “serious” nature of US law is counterpoised against the childlike and silly nature of Japanese law. In this scene, the characters inhabit a primarily empty stage, save a wall of white shoji screens behind them. Cio-Cio-San is clad in a preposterous kimono of shocking pink and neon green, and the other Japanese characters wear equally ridiculous colors and towering hats and flap fans as if they were chicken wings. Sharpless grounds the scene with the sobriety of a staid diplomat, wearing a professional, earth-toned suit, sitting patiently on a Western-style chair, as the Japanese characters argue over Cio-Cio-San’s legal status:
Gobo: But the law says.
Butterfly: (interrupting him) I know it not.
Gobo: (continuing) For the wife, desertion
Gives the right of divorce.
Butterfly: (shaking her head) That may be Japanese law,
But not in my country.
Gobo: Which one?
Butterfly: (with emphasis) The United States.
Sharpless: (Poor little creature!)65
The heroine’s confused legal status is emphasized as the “Star Spangled Banner” makes an appearance, flowing under her lilting glissando. Here, the lyric—“La legge giapponese . . . [The Japanese Law . . .]”—and the anthem are placed in counterpoint against each other, suggesting their incompatibility. Then, as she sings, “non gia del mio paese [is not the law of my country],” the anthem meets her melody, and they join together for a brief moment as she sings this lyric in place of the phrase “by the dawn’s early light.”66 The anthem abandons her immediately after Gobo asks, “Which one?” She responds, “The United States,” and the strings cascade into a lower register that broaches an ominous minor-key tonality, setting up Sharpless’s hushed utterance, “Poor little creature!” This statement, rendered as an aside, emphasizes the fact that this is the tragedy of Cio-Cio-San’s situation (from the opera’s point of view): because she is incapable of grasping the concept of territorial jurisdiction, and her exclusion from the United States, she is incapable of properly situating herself as a Japanese legal subject/object.
Cio-Cio-San’s problem is that she has attached herself to an improper and impossible love object (Pinkerton and, by extension, the United States). The Asian-immigrant and Asian American subject’s desire for a place in the United States is thus figured as an inappropriate amorous attachment. This narrative trope was a convenient way of affirming the myth of US exceptionalism (as a place that all people purportedly desire to be a part of), while maintaining firm boundaries regulated by the practice of exclusion. In the New York Times’s coverage of Chae Chan Ping’s deportation, his relationship to the United States is similarly described as an illicit, forbidden, and ultimately one-sided love affair: “Ping’s love of country is confined to this country.”67 Like Cio-Cio-San, his relationship to the state is discursively staged as a failed marriage: “He was . . . wedded to the fascinations of Chinatown, and remained there until the indignant howl of an ever vigilant press awakened the authorities to a realization of the fact that Ping had brought his knitting and intended to stay.”68 Pitiable as Chae Chan Ping or Cio-Cio-San’s romantic national convictions may be, the final solution is unmistakable: negation through exclusion (or death). Locked in a one-way romance, both appealed to the majesty of US justice in the hopes that the state would ultimately recognize their marriage to the United States. Unsurprisingly, both lose their case.
Cio-Cio-San invokes rights that she imagines she has gained through marriage. In all three versions of Madame Butterfly, an exchange occurs in which she paints a detailed portrait of the scene of justice. She describes the ritual of going before a US judge in order to appeal for relief from the injustice of Pinkerton’s abandonment. In each case, she assumes that the judge will perceive her as a subject of US law and protect her accordingly. In the opera, this sequence directly follows the previously discussed scene. After Cio-Cio-San declares herself subject to the laws of the United States, the strings slide into a playful lilt. This is accompanied by tremolos in the wind section that give the scene an air of childlike playfulness. Like the dialect in Long’s and Belasco’s versions of the story, Puccini’s orchestration frames Cio-Cio-San as naïve, foolish, and infantile.69 This is particularly acute when she flutters around the stage with an enthusiastic euphoria as she earnestly lectures Gobo on the nature of US law and her assumed place within it. She complains about the tenuous nature of Japanese marriage, calling on Sharpless to authenticate her critique: “But in America, that cannot be done. (to Sharpless) Say so!”70 Sharpless attempts to interject, “(embarrassed) Yes, yes—but-yet,” and we can assume that he would continue to explain that Cio-Cio-San cannot claim the protections of US law. She will not permit him to continue, however, and sings with august sincerity:
Madame Butterfly: There, a true, honest
And unbiased judge
Says to the husband:
“You wish to free yourself?
“Let us hear why?—
“I am sick and tired
“Of conjugal fetters!”
Then the good judge says:
“Ah, wicked scoundrel,
“Clap him in prison!”71
On the one hand, because Butterfly is clearly wrong, we can interpret the scene as a critique of the bias of the judicial system in the United States.