One is Hosseini, Two is Hwang, Three is Shelley

#1: A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

Khaled Hosseini's second novel tells the heart-wrenching tale of two Afghan women in two cities, and ultimately, in a society that only values women for reproduction.  Despite having different upbringings and life experiences, Mariam and Laila end up married to the same abusive husband. For both of them, marriage is a prison, in which they will both die if they do not escape.  As their husband grow increasingly violent and unpredictable, the women, who faced off initially as rivals, become allies, and then even more preciously, friends.

Laila looks at Mariam, and "For the first time, it was not an adversary's face Laila saw but a face of grievances unspoken, burdens gone unprotested, a destiny submitted to and endured.  If she stayed, would this be her own face, Laila wondered?"

#2: M Butterfly by David Henry Hwang

Is it possible to be in love with a man for 20 years, and believe that he is a woman the whole time? TRUE STORY.  The french diplomat Bernard Boursicot enjoyed a romantic/sexual relationship with Shi Pei Pu, a male Peking opera singer (a Chinese spy to boot!), believing that he was in love with a woman for the entire time.  They even had a child, a boy named Shi Du Du.

David Henry Hwang's play M Butterfly is loosely based on this affair.  Inspired by Giacomo Puccini's opera Madama Butterfly, Hwang's play suggests an explanation for this whole fiasco.  Rene Gallimard/Bernard Bousicot did not know because he did not want to know.  He desperately wanted to believe with all his heart that he had found the butterfly of his dreams, his submissive Asian woman.

#3: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus

People need to realize that Frankenstein is the name of the scientist, not the monster/creature.  

According to Goodreads, this novel is at once a "gothic horror", a "passionate romance" and a "cautionary tale about science".  English Explorer Robert Walton recounts a tale from his travels, where he rescues a scientist by the name of Victor Frankenstein, only to hear a most horrifying tale.

The desire for forbidden knowledge is what drives Frankenstein to assemble a creature from stolen body parts and brings it to live.  But upon this scientific birth, he recoils in horror at its hideousness and regrets having transgressed natural boundaries.  Tormented by isolation and loneliness, the creature vows to destroy Frankenstein, the creator who abandoned him.  He begins his murderous campaign, killing Frankenstein's loved ones until Frankenstein himself sets out to undo his dastardly creation.

Choice of suitable 'O' Level text: M Butterfly by David Henry Hwang

Despite being a short play, M Butterfly is a fascinating comment on the Orientalist discourses surfaced in dialogues between the constructed binaries of 'West' and 'East'; Gallimard's imperialist fantasy - that the Oriental woman is always waiting for and will willingly sacrifice her life for the cruel white man.  Stereotypes abound in the book, which should make for much entertaining and meaningful unpacking in classrooms.  Following heterosexual normativity, every relationship must consist of one male and one female, one man and a woman.  If the supposed woman is no longer the female, does the supposed man then become the prerequisite female?  Hwang's play brings up all sorts of intriguing questions about sexuality - an allusion to the power relations between the 'West' and 'East'.  I can foresee interesting textual dissection in the Singaporean (East?) classroom.