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Song Liling
A friend from Gallimard’s youth. Marc is unapologetically lascivious and encourages Gallimard to take sexual advantage of the women around him without regard for their feelings or even their consent. Marc represents unfettered masculine sexuality in Gallimard’s mind, and Gallimard thinks of him whenever he struggles with questions of sexual ethics and desire. Marc plays Sharpless, a sensitive American diplomat, in the reenactment of Puccini’s Madame Butterfly.
Marc Quotes in M. Butterfly
The M. Butterfly quotes below are all either spoken by Marc or refer to Marc. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Act 1, Scene 9 Quotes
It’s an old story. It’s in our blood. They fear us, Rene. Their women fear us. And their men — their men hate us. And you know something? They are all correct.
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Act 2, Scene 11 Quotes
This is the ultimate cruelty, isn’t it? That I can talk and talk and to anyone listening, it’s only air — too rich a diet to be swallowed by a mundane world. Why can’t anyone understand? That in China, I once loved, and was loved by, the Perfect Woman.
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Get the entire M. Butterfly LitChart as a printable PDF.
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Marc Character Timeline in M. Butterfly
The timeline below shows where the character Marc appears in M. Butterfly. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Act 1, Scene 3
...opera. Stage directions note that Sharpless should be played by the same actor who plays Marc, a character audiences have not yet met.
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Playing the roles of Pinkerton and Sharpless, Gallimard and Marc paraphrase a conversation from Puccini’s opera. While the opera is written in elegant, early twentieth-century...
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Gallimard, speaking as himself again, introduces the actor playing Sharpless as Marc, his friend from school. In Puccini’s opera, Gallimard notes, Sharpless provides a sensitive and level-headed...
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Act 1, Scene 4
Gallimard flashes back to 1947, when he and Marc were still young men studying at the Ecole Nationale, a French university in Aix-en-Provence. Marc...
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Gallimard tells Marc that making advances toward women always makes him nervous, because he is afraid of being...
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Act 1, Scene 5
Marc reappears, playing the role of Sharpless. He has been sent to tell Butterfly that Pinkerton...
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Act 1, Scene 9
Marc appears in Gallimard’s dreams that night. He is jubilant, toasting Gallimard with expensive wine and...
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Gallimard insists a romance with Song is impossible because he is a foreigner. Marc tells Gallimard that the taboo nature of the relationship will draw Song to him. He...
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Song appears onstage, wearing a sheer robe. Marc says Gallimard has spent his entire life waiting for the love of a beautiful woman....
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Act 1, Scene 11
Marc, dressed as a bureaucrat, appears onstage next to Gallimard. He is holding a stack of...
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Marc asks whether Gallimard remembers a girl named Isabelle. It turns out that this girl was...
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Act 2, Scene 11
Marc appears onstage, holding two drinks. Gallimard begins to tell him about the magnificent life he...
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