A Parody In Othello

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According to The Merriam-Webster dictionary, a parody is defined as “a piece of writing, music, etc., that imitates the style of someone or something else in an amusing way”. Despite this, a parody can also be used as recognition towards the original writer to appreciate a piece of work. Incorporated into Ann-Marie MacDonald’s modern drama “Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet), are two of Shakespeare’s remarkable tragedies “Othello” and “Romeo and Juliet”. MacDonald uses the two tragedies to create her modern play “Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet)”, that portrays itself as being a parody and also a tribute to Shakespeare’s work that is reinforced with the changing of the original tragedies, the characters involved in the plays, and also both MacDonald and Shakespeare’s outstanding writing style.

In the modern play “Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet)”, MacDonald uses her own rare ideas and style that allows her to take a different approach to the central event of the Othello, and Romeo and Juliet. In the original plays, the tragic event is what caused the downfall of the main characters. By the appearance of MacDonald’s character Constance at very crucial parts of the plays causes them to take plot twist. MacDonald thinks that by interrupting important parts of the play with her character Constance, it will allow the characters such as Desdemona, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, to escape their downfalls. For instance, in the original play “Othello” we see Othello’s downfall when he starts believing Iago’s plan. But, in MacDonalds play she introduces her character Constance that intelligently interrupts Othello and Iago’s conversation, which in turn changes the plot of the play:

IAGO: D...

... middle of paper ...

...it!”

(37.Act 2. Scene 2)

These speeches create a sense of humor within them while still being wrote in iambic pentameter. Macdonald also integrates many knows aspects of other Shakespeare plays into her parody. In Act three scene 4, a ghost appears into the parody such as the ghost in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” that comes to tell the truth about who murdered King Hamlet. In MacDonald’s case, the ghost appears to tell Constance the truth about the author who Constance is looking for.

In conclusion, Ann-Marie MacDonald successfully creates her own humorous parody of Shakespeare’s tragedies “Othello” and “Romeo and Juliet”. MacDonald does this as a tribute to Shakespeare as she provides many comparisons between her play and Shakespeare’s play, she even uses some lines from both “Othello” and “Romeo and Juliet” in her work.

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