Desdemona and Juliet Remade

    William Shakespeare’s female characters were created as submissive, weak woman who are victimised by thee people around them, especially the men.  Desdemona was smothered to death with a pillow by her own husband, Othello, because he thought she was cheating on him.  Juliet was seen as weak because she killed herself in order to be with Romeo.  Ann-Marie MacDonald plays on this and turns the characters around by making them strong feminist women with feelings but with faults as well.  She recreated Desdemona to be a strong woman who would stand up for her self.  As for Juliet, she was recreated as a woman who loved her sexuality and womanhood.

    During William Shakespeare’s time women were meant to be subordinate and obey their men’s every whim.  If their fathers wanted them to do something they would do it.  If their husbands wanted them to do something they would do it for them as well.  Not only that but women were meant to be all innocent and not think about sexuality at all because for women it did not exist.  That was the norm of William Shakespeare time so that is how he portrayed his female characters.

    Desdemona is a good example of this.  She married Othello moved to an army base with him because he said so and lovingly tended to his needs.  When it got into his mind that she was having an affair he needed her to die and she willingly complied.  “Nobody, I myself, farewell:  commend me to my kind lord, O, farewell!” (Shakespeare, Act V, Scene II, 185).

    Shakespeare has Desdemona and Emilia be the scape goats for Iago’s anger.  With Desdemona he uses her in order to have control over Othello.  He does this by getting Othello to murder his wife, Desdemona.  “‘Get me some poison, Iago, this night; I’ll not expostulate with her, lest her body and beauty unprovide my mind again, this night, Iago.’  ‘Do it not with poison, strangle her in her bed, even the bed she hath contaminated.’  ‘Good, good, the justice of it pleases, very good’” (Shakespeare, Act IV, Scene I, 146).

    With Emilia, Iago is mean and uses her to do his dirty work.  He gets her to steal the handkerchief which causes the whole mess.  Not only that but he does not even say thank you for doing it for him but instead he calls her a wench. “‘A good wench, give it me.’  ‘What will you do with it, that you have been so earnest to have me filch it?’  [Snatching it]  “Why, what’s that to you?’”  (Shakespeare, Act III, Scene III, 112).     

    Juliet was also created in the “good” woman image.  She was the image of innocents and purity.  This is shown through her marriage to Romeo which was when she gave up her virginity and not before her marriage.  In the end Juliet also died due to this image because a “good” woman is meant to die for the man she loves.  “Yea, noise?  Then I’ll be brief.  O happy dagger.  This is they sheath.  There rust, and let me die” (Shakespeare, Act V, Scene III, 230).

    Shakespeare has Juliet’s father treat her like she is a thing to be bartered off and acts like he has no love for her at all.  Instead he tells her to marry Paris or live on the streets.  “‘But, and you will not wed, I’ll pardon you!  Graze where you will, you shall not house with me.  Look to’t think on’t, I do not use to jest’” (Shakespeare, Act III, Scene V, 193).  This is not only a good example of how Shakespeare’s female characters are treated but it is also a good example of how the females of his time are treated.

    Ann-Marie MacDonald changes these characters around and gives them a more strong feminist characteristic.  She turns them around and has them stand up for themselves.  “The full virtuosity and complexity of a post modern work such as Ann-Marie MacDonald’s play Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet)- which not only revisits two Renaissance narratives, but appropriates them, revises them, and subverts their original genres by defusing the tragic elements and substituting them with comical ones can be fully appreciated only through an approach based on a literary theory that clearly delineates the characteristics of and boundaries between the genres (Djordjevic, 2).  Although they are given strengths MacDonald also gave them faults as well.

    Ann-Marie MacDonald recreates Desdemona to be a loud, ragging woman who is willing to stand up for herself.  “MacDonald completely reinvents Desdemona and her character is virtually everything Shakespeare’s heroine is not.  She is loud, tempestuous, violent, and generally unafraid of anyone or anything” (Djordjevic, 7).  Desdemona even stands up to Constance when she thinks that Constance is having an affair with Othello.  “The pedant hath by magic disappeared/ to fly unto her evil genius, Brown Owl./  When she returns with fresh enchantments here,/ then must the cause of justice claim her life” (MacDonald, Act iii, Scene I, 49). 

    With Juliet you have innocents gone astray.  She is one with her sexuality and is anything but innocent.  “This Juliet, we quickly gather, is randy and adventurous, hardly the emblem of purity and innocence we’re accustomed to” (Porter, 368).  Ironically Juliet is a little to sexual and rambunctious almost getting to be a nymphomaniac.  “She seizes upon hints of Juliet’s predisposition for histrionics in the source play, couples them with a “realistic” or psychological interpretation of her character as passionate and bordering on nymphomania based on the speed of her relationship with Romeo, and adds a touch of suicidal angst to create a character that is at once a parody of Shakespeare’s heroine and of the late-twentieth-century teenagers overwhelmed by their hormones” (Djordjevic, 7).

    Though Ann-Marie MacDonald gives these characters the strength of the real woman and more, she also gives them weaknesses.  These weaknesses may be weaknesses but they do not take away these women’s femininity.  But instead what they do is give Desdemona and Juliet the depth and emotion that Shakespeare never could or even comprehend.  These emotions that MacDonald gives them are strong and vibrate that the reader can almost feel them.

    Desdemona is remade to be a strong and solid woman who is willing to stand up to people.  She does have a weakness and that weakness is that she likes to see people getting killed.  MacDonald had recreated Desdemona with such a blood thirst that it makes the reader to want to make her go see a shrink.  Even Constance remarks on this. “Desdemona, I thought you were different; I thought you were my friend, I worshiped you.  But you’re just like Othello- gullible and violent” (MacDonald, Act iii, Scene ix, 86).

    Juliet unlike Desdemona is remade to be able to embrace her sexuality.  Unfortunately MacDonald left her love for dieing that Shakespeare had bestowed upon her.  It is all that Juliet can think about, killing herself for love.  This thirst for suicide was so strong the Constance could not help but notice.  “Juliet, if you really loved me, you wouldn’t want me to die.  But you were more in love with death, ‘cause death is easier to love” (MacDonald, Act iii, Scene ix, 86).
Another thing that MacDonald does is put a new character in to these Shakespearean plays.  MacDonald introduces us to Constance Ledbellly.  MacDonald created Constance in order to make these stories different from the originals while Constance tries to find out who she really is.  In which she does in the end.

    At the beginning of the play Constance Ledbelly is just that a “Ledbelly”.  She was a shy, meek person who had people stepping all over her and using her.  “‘I am, pet.  I’ve decided to take that lecturing post at Oxford myself.  Even if it does fall somewhat short of  a challenge.’  ‘Oh.  I thought you might recommend someone less distinguished, say an Assistant Professor, for that job’” (MacDonald, Act I, Scene I, 19).  Even Constance points out how shy and meek she is.  “‘Next to her I’m just a little wimp.  A rodent.  Road-kill.  Furry tragedy all squished and streaming on the 401 with “Michelin” stamped all over me.  It’s true: people’ve always made a fool of me without my knowing.  Gullible.  That’s me.  Old Connie.  Good sport.  Big joke.  Ha’” (MacDonald, Act ii, Scene ii, 45). 
As we go further into the plot we see that Constance is  starting to change as a person.  She starts out as  I have mentioned as a shy, meek thing of a woman.  She starts to show a bit of nerve when she shows Othello, Iago’s plot and in the process changes Shakespeare’s play.  “
“‘No!’ [Both Othello and Iago turn and stare at her, amazed]  ‘Um… you’re about to make a terrible mistake… m’ Lord.’  [Shocked, and at a loss for words to explain her statement, Constance gathers her courage and timidly approaches Iago]  ‘Excuse me please.’  [She plucks the handkerchief from Iago’s hose and gives it to Othello]” (MacDonald, Act ii, Scene I, 24).  This proves that Constance does have the strength to stand up to people she just has to learn how to nurture this strength.

    As the play progresses Constance gets more confident and stands up to people.  A good example of this would be when she tackled the Capulet’s servant.  “I suppose I could just ask him…no: ‘When in Verona-’ [Constance pounces on him and pins him down] ‘Name the Author, thou elusive Fool!  What fiendish hack is he that scribbled thee and these [Scrolls] and this [This world] unto the light of day?!’  ‘Don’t hurt me sir pray hurt me not and I will talk.’  ‘I’m listening’” (MacDonald, Act iii, Scene iv, 58-59).  By the end she is standing up to both Desdemona and Juliet.  “‘Nay nay!!- Nay.  Just…nay…both of you.  I’ve had it with all the tragic tunnel vision around here.  You have no idea what-life is a hell of a lot more complicated then you think!  Life- real life-is a big mess.  Thank goodness’” (MacDonald, Act iii, Scene ix, 86). 

    The reason for this transformation from being shy and meek to someone who stands up for herself is because Constance was put on a quest.  Constance was on a quest to find the author of the plot that she was in, to find herself and to understand the manuscript.  “‘You who possess the eyes to see/ this strange and wondrous alchemy, / where words transform to vision’ry, / where one plus two makes one, not three; / open this book if you agree/ to be illusion’s refugee, / and of return no guarantee-/ unless you find your true identity. / And discover who the Author be’” (MacDonald, Act ii, Scene I, 21-22).  In the end Constance discovers that she was the author of that plot.  She also discovers who she is and that she is one and that Desdemona and Juliet are two which means that they were all one and the same.

    During Shakespeare’s time women were forced to do what they were told and that comes across in his work.  Not only that but women were considered to be weak and narrow minded.  But MacDonald changes that for two of his characters Desdemona and Juliet and gives them depth and emotion.  She has Desdemona stand up for herself and has Juliet embrace her sexuality.  Unfortunately where there is a positive there is a negative.  Desdemona ends up being blood thirsty and Juliet is in love with dieing.  But these just make these women more realistic then what Shakespeare could ever do to his female characters.  She also adds in Constance who starts out as this scared, meek, child like woman but in the end she finds courage.  She also discovers that she, Desdemona and Juliet are all one and the same person.