This paper probes into some significant problems inherent in the protagonist’s search for the Self, the Author, and the Fool in Ann-Marie MacDonald’s Goodnight Desdemona(Good Morning Juliet). Most critics don’t object that Constance Ledbelly is successful in her self-discovery. This paper will try to prove that there are some problems regarding the accomplishment of Constance’s three missions and that these problems make MacDonald’s objective to criticize scathingly the patriarchal Canadian academia less effective. As for the search for the Self, Constance succeeds in correcting and accepting belligerent Desdemona and lustful Juliet who represent her two repressed archetypes in the unconscious. However, she fails to overcome the tragic affair with Professor Claude Night and to realize clearly her own sexual identity. As for the search for the Author, Constance realizes that she is the Author of the inner play－in fact, MacDonald’s comic adaptation of Shakespearean tragedies, Othello and Romeo and Juliet. But the coexistence of the comical characters and the dangerous ones in the inner play makes her search for the Author problematic because it is contradictory to her conviction that the sources of the two Shakespearean tragedies are comedies. As for the search for the Fool, she grows conscious that she is the Fool of the inner play by preventing the catastrophes and making serious situations comical. However, the comical atmosphere made by Constance can be at any time transformed into the tragic one because of villainous Iago and hot-tempered Tybalt. In conclusion, Ann-Marie MacDonald succeeds in twisting the two Shakespearean tragedies comically, but fails to criticize severely the authoritative male-centered Canadian academia by making the protagonist's three missions problematic.

This paper probes into some significant problems inherent in the protagonist’s search for the Self, the Author, and the Fool in Ann-Marie MacDonald’s Goodnight Desdemona(Good Morning Juliet). Most critics don’t object that Constance Ledbelly is successful in her self-discovery. This paper will try to prove that there are some problems regarding the accomplishment of Constance’s three missions and that these problems make MacDonald’s objective to criticize scathingly the patriarchal Canadian academia less effective. As for the search for the Self, Constance succeeds in correcting and accepting belligerent Desdemona and lustful Juliet who represent her two repressed archetypes in the unconscious. However, she fails to overcome the tragic affair with Professor Claude Night and to realize clearly her own sexual identity. As for the search for the Author, Constance realizes that she is the Author of the inner play－in fact, MacDonald’s comic adaptation of Shakespearean tragedies, Othello and Romeo and Juliet. But the coexistence of the comical characters and the dangerous ones in the inner play makes her search for the Author problematic because it is contradictory to her conviction that the sources of the two Shakespearean tragedies are comedies. As for the search for the Fool, she grows conscious that she is the Fool of the inner play by preventing the catastrophes and making serious situations comical. However, the comical atmosphere made by Constance can be at any time transformed into the tragic one because of villainous Iago and hot-tempered Tybalt. In conclusion, Ann-Marie MacDonald succeeds in twisting the two Shakespearean tragedies comically, but fails to criticize severely the authoritative male-centered Canadian academia by making the protagonist's three missions problematic.

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journey into the unconscious, Constance, Desdemona, Juliet, the search for the Self, the search for the Author, the search for the Fool