You likely have heard of Madame Butterfly, the main character in one of the most famous operas ever composed: Madame Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini with his librettists Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. Opera goers often make sure they have tissues or handkerchiefs with them, and they sigh softly in their seats as the music soars to a dramatic crescendo and the story moves to its tragic end.

It takes place in Nagasaki, Japan, in the early twentieth century, when a naval officer named Pinkerton arrives in the port on an American ship. He’s a self-admitted player who hooks up with a woman at every stop. This time, a Japanese marriage broker arranges for him to wed a beautiful, young Japanese woman. The contract is as easy to break as it is to sign, and he sings about maybe falling in love but definitely falling in lust with his new young bride, and knowing that his real marriage will one day be to an American woman.

The bride, Cio-Cio San, aka Madame Butterfly, is reluctant to marry Pinkerton because she has heard that American men exploit Japanese women, marry them for convenience, and abandon them, which is legally considered a divorce. But she is smitten with Pinkerton and believes she will be different. She embraces Pinkerton’s American culture, and secretly converts to his Christian religion.

Once she has abandoned the Japanese gods and religion, her relative all turn against her and abandon her. All she has left in the world is Pinkerton and when duty calls, he leaves, promising that he be back soon. Three years pass, and he doesn’t return. Butterfly is impoverished, and may have to go back to being a geisha, singing in the street to entertain........

© Psychology Today