Dramatic Device of Fateful Tragedy in Goodnight

Dramatic device of fateful tragedy in Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) but in a comic end. And comparison of mistake to Othello.

There are a series of parallels between Ann-Marie MacDonald's play Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) and William Shakespeare's plays Othello and Romeo and Juliet. MacDonald largely focused on taking a series of elements from Shakespeare's plays and using them in a way that contradicts their original purpose. The central character of MacDonald's play, Constance Ledbelly, attempts to demonstrate how Shakespere's plays were initially comedies that the playwright altered with the purpose of having them better fit a dramatic line of thoughts (Flaherty 55).

MacDonald's play goes further than to simply address the nature of Shakespeare's plays, as the writer uses the central character in an attempt to bring comedy to the English playwright's works. "By turning tragedy into comedy, MacDonald's text allows the doomed heroines Desdemona and Juliet to escape the prisons of their storylines and take an active role in their own fates." (Flaherty 19) The play practically shows a Romeo and Juliet that are far more adolescent-like in comparison to the original characters and a Desdemona that is much more suspicious with regard to events occurring around her.

Constance's way of intervening is comedic as a consequence of its awkwardness. "Um . . . You're about to make a terrible mistake . . . m'Lord." (MacDonald 24) Moments such as this one turn Shakespeare's plays into comedies rather than into tragedies, taking into account that MacDonald attempted to take the audience's mind away from the traditional version of the play and to provide it with the opportunity to consider a completely new line of ideas -- one in which seemingly tragic elements are actually ironic when considering the way that they enable characters to act more on account of logics instead of acting on account of their absurd emotions.

MacDonald practically takes concepts that were perfectly normal during Shakespeare's days and attempts to create parallels to ideas in the contemporary society. For example, she takes Desdemona's character and emphasizes how she deals with passivity in a modern way (Flaherty 10). "My sole regret -- that heaven had not made me such a man; but next in honour is to be his wife." (MacDonald 27) Desdemona acknowledges the fact that the greatest honor that she can possibly think of would be to be a man similar to Othello -- a person who was remarkable as a result of his life experiences and that was, above all, a man. It seems difficult for her not to highlight the detriments coming along with being a woman (Flaherty 25).

MacDonald's characters seem better acquainted with attitudes they need to take on in order to experience success and gradually come to realize errors they are about to perform. As a consequence, they get actively involved in changing their behaviors in an attempt to channel their energy toward actually improving their lives (MacDonald 44).