How "Passing" is described in "M. Butterfly" (D. H. Hwang) and "Laughing to Keep From Crying" (Langston Hughes)

Seminar paper from the year 2007 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 1,7, Ruhr-University of Bochum, language: English, abstract: 1. M. Butterfly - Introduction to the Text The play M.Butterfly by David Henry Hwang is a post-colonial story, based on a true story of a French diplomat, called Rene Gallimard in the play, who had a twenty-year affair with a Chinese actor and opera singer, namely Song Liling, not realizing that his partner was in fact a man passing as a woman. The diplomat actually became aware of the deception in 1986, when he was charged by the French government with disloyalty; it turned out that his companion had been an agent for the Chinese government, and had passed on sensitive political information that he had acquired from Gallimard.