Puccini’s opera Madame Butterfly is a master class in the masochism and melancholy mobilized in the sacrificial behaviors that underlie confinement in adolescence. The authors show how, behind the figure of the naive and passive woman there is the active Madame Butterfly position that fights against separation. Melancholic identifications with the fallen father who committed suicide make it impossible to give up the lost object and obtain freedom in other way except by attacking oneself.

Adolescence, 2023, 41, 1, 63-79.