The Indochina War ended in 1954, and in 1960, when the action of the play begins, American military forces are preparing to send thousands of troops into Vietnam and seize control of the country in France’s place - this invasion is an early initiative in what Americans will come to know as the Vietnam War. Other Western nations, including the United States, refused to intervene to help France hold onto their colonies, and so the war was lost. The Vietnamese forces that led the resistance against France were aided by the Communist government in neighboring China, who supplied modern weapons from the Soviet Union that helped the Vietnamese to match and eventually defeat what might otherwise have been overwhelming French forces. Butterfly, which begins in 1960, take place shortly after the Indochina War, in which France fought unsuccessfully to maintain control of its colonies in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. The frequent references to “the Revolution” that characters like Song make throughout the play refer to that period of political upheaval. In 1949, a civil war between the Chinese Communist Party and the Nationalist Party, also known as Kuomintang, led to the installation of a Communist government led by Chairman Mao Zedong.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |