Dramatic And Thematic Purposes In Othello English Literature Essay

In this scene of Goodnight Desdemona, Iago enering two buckets of filth. That’s from this plot, Iago stirs jealousy in Desdemona, and then Desdemona believes Iago’s words that Constance is an evil woman who is pursuing her husband’s heart, therefore, later, Desdemona decides to kill Constance. Hence, dramatically, this behavior of Iago has put forward the plot’s development. Without this part, the following story would not develop. Because this plot that Iago’s carrying filth just symbols that all the evil things being brought to the main characters by Iago. That reveals Iago is the key role who promotes development of the plot. The word “filth” originally means something dirty or not clean, which erveyone may not like it. Here in the play, the image “filth” symbols the evil and dirty convictions carried on Iago, with the dirty idea and conviction, Iago wants to dirty people he hates. In the play, it is specified as the plot that Desdemona has easily believed his evil trick and wants to kill the intimate person around her, just as her husband Othello did in the original Shakespeare’s play Othello. This is also the thematic meaning of this behavior of Iago in the play. In this play, the author MacDonald has successfully used the writing device of parody to make her plot construction. MacDonald has just made the same thing happened to original Othello happened now to the female character Desdemona this time, with which construction device, the woman character has become the decision maker and the person who has got the right to say yes or no. It is a kind of reflection of the author’s feminism perspective. The author just wants to make the protagonist Constance find truth self from this kind of device in the story.

Part B

In both Othello and in Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare uses the device of fateful mistakes to develop the tragic action. Can similar kinds of mistakes be said to happen in Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet), but to comic ends instead? Compare MacDonald’s use of this device with one of the “mistakes” in Othello.

The Doomed Ending Can not be Changed

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In Othello, Shakespeare has used the device of fateful mistakes to develop the tragic action, which leads to the tragic ending of main characters. One’s character decides his/her fate. Therefore, even if similar kinds of mistakes have happened in Goodnight Desdemona, we can not consider they lead to the “comic” end of the story.

There are fateful mistakes on the main character’s personalities, having helped put forward and decided the development of plot, and then led to the eventual ending of the characters.

Firstly, in Othello of Shakespeare, there are some important fateful mistakes. One of them is the fateful mistake on Othello’s personality of conflicting. For the protagonist Othello, he is a person who has a personality of conflict. On the one hand, he is a brave and powerful general who receives respect from people around him. While, on the other hand, he is so easy prey to insecurities such as insidious Iago. He just does not trust his wife enough, and so easily get influenced by others. In this way, on the one hand, Othello heartfully loves his wife, considering her as his little honey, however, On the other hand, his trust to his wife is so weak and vulnerable, that just some words from other people, the so called sincere love and trust is ruined. This is the fateful mistake used by Shakespeare on Othello’s construction.

Comparatively speaking, the wit of the great playwright lies that Othello’s tragic and fateful personality does not exist alone. On the other two main characters, readers could also find this kind of device. As for Desdemona, deeply shadowed by the patriarchy society, she is a traditional woman of her time, who is just too obedient and meek to her husband after her marriage. She absolutely believe and trust her husband, putting her husband and their love as everything. And for Iago, the strong factor on Othello’s way to his tragic ending, he is an evil, hypocritical, and selfish person. All these have doomed the tragic ending of the story.

Secondly, in Goodnight Desdemona, there are similar “fateful mistakes”, however, once there are the steady personalities on the main characters, the ending would still the same as the original, not the comic one.

There are two parts in Goodnight Desdemona’s story: the “Othello” part, and the “Romeo and Juliet” part. As this play is an interesting parody on Shakespeare’s two great works: Othello, and Romeo and Juliet, so that, the whole plot construction is built based on the original stories, including personalities of main characters. Comparing the “fateful mistakes” in Goodnight Desdemona’s “Othello” part with the original “Othello”, we could easily find that there’s just a transfer of characteristics on protagonists. In the original work, Othello is a person who is easy prey to insecurities, and Desdemona is a meek and obedient woman to her husband. Dramatically, in the new version, after the author MacDonald’s “transfer”, the new “Desdemona” is a person who is upright and straightforward, while, at the same time, who is narrow-minded, and biased, what’s more, she advocates violence, and appreciates bloody scenes. This new Desdemona is not shy and meek any more, instead, she plays the role of foolish Othello this time. The characteristic of original Othello has just been transferred to Desdemona, while things apart from this point have been kept just the same as the original Othello. Therefore, the fateful ending can not be changed, if any, just the one that trigger the events changes. Originally, its Othello’s easily believing villain Iago triggered everything, and this time, its Desdemona, that’s the only difference.