Saint Joan

Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1923

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Summary

Background

Scene Summaries & Analyses

Preface

Scene 1

Scene 2

Scene 3

Scene 4

Scene 5

Scene 6

Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Scene 6Scene Summaries & Analyses

Scene 6 Summary

Content Warning: This scene contains threats of torture, sexual assault, and suicide.

The final scene of the play occurs in 1431 at Joan’s trial by the Inquisition, after she has been captured by the Burgundian army during her attack on Compiègne and ransomed to the English. Warwick and Cauchon meet with the Inquisitor and a prosecutor for the trial, a Canon named D’Estivet. Warwick is impatient, worried that the Church will allow Joan to live when he views her death as a political necessity. Cauchon remains adamant that she must have a fair trial and repent if possible, denouncing Warwick’s secular motivations for killing her. Stogumber and his companion, de Courcelles, come to protest that the Inquisitor has thrown out all but 12 of the 64 charges they made against her. The Inquisitor informs Stogumber and Courcelles that they need to focus on the vital charge of heresy rather than the theological quibbles that the churchmen have brought forth.

The Inquisitor gives a speech about how even the most honest and innocent heresies can lead to the crumbling of social order. Even though Joan herself is pious and well-behaved, accepting her beliefs would lead others to commit acts of sin and depravity, and so she must be punished. Cauchon agrees with this view, warning the men at the trial that reformist movements are becoming dangerously popular.

Joan is brought in for her trial and complains that she is being mistreated in prison by the English, asking why she is not being held by the Church instead. D’Estivet reminds her that her attempt to escape Burgundian prison by jumping from a high tower was an act of heresy, although Joan considers this to be nonsense, as any sane person would try to escape if they were being held in prison. The Inquisitor begins the trial by asking Joan to swear to tell the whole truth, but Joan tells him that God will not allow her to do that. Courcelles suggests that she should be tortured. Joan responds that the pain would make her say anything, but she would recant it immediately after, and so the torture would be worthless. Courcelles remains committed to the custom of torture, but Cauchon decides they cannot proceed based on forced confessions.

The trial proceeds, but Joan refuses to accept the authority of the Church over the authority of God, arguing that she will not do anything contrary to God’s commands. While Brother Martin Ladvenu attempts to persuade her that her voices are those of evil spirits, proven so because they tell her to dress as a man, Joan argues that it is only rational to dress in soldier’s clothes while surrounded by soldiers. She claims it would be unreasonable to expect her to live in an English prison wearing dresses because she would be subject to sexual assault.

Cauchon informs Joan that she will be executed by burning unless she renounces her heresy, which finally causes her to doubt in the voices, as they would not lead her to her own death. She decides to renounce her heresy and signs a recantation, reasoning that God would not want her to purposefully die. Warwick and Stogumber are furious. Joan signs the document, and the Inquisitor instead sentences her to perpetual imprisonment instead of burning. Joan immediately tears apart her recantation, indignantly proclaiming that they have misled her, as a life in prison is not truly living. She would be willing to end her career as a soldier, but she refuses to live without access to nature and therefore she renews her faith in the voices. She decides that God must want her to go through the fire and return to him, and so she is taken to be executed by burning.

The English immediately take Joan to be burned, upsetting Cauchon and the Inquisitor by violating court procedure. As Warwick waits for the burning to end, Stogumber returns, distraught and crying. After witnessing the horror of Joan’s burning, he has reversed his opinion on her and now fears that he will be damned for his part in condemning her. Stogumber describes how an English soldier gave Joan two sticks tied together when she asked for a cross. He rushes from the room, planning to hang himself like Judas, but Warwick tells Brother Ladvenu to follow and ensure that he does not harm himself. Warwick consults with the executioner and learns that Joan’s heart would not burn, and so has been thrown into the river. He wonders if that will truly be the last of her.

Scene 6 Analysis

Joan’s trial provides the play’s fullest consideration of the theme of Persecution and the Freedom of the Individual, suggesting that society cannot tolerate individuals who follow only their own judgment, even if that judgment is good, reasonable, and honest. The Inquisitor, Cauchon, and Ladvenu are not portrayed as corrupt or unmerciful men, but they fear the consequences of allowing Joan to openly defy their authority. The Inquisitor considers Joan’s reasons for wearing male attire to be innocent, but he speculates that it will lead other women to renounce their duty to marry, causing men to commit sins like polygamy and incest. Cauchon admits that Joan’s form of heresy does not cause her to live a sinful life, yet it might still cause others to sin: “[I]t is neither discredited by fantastic extremes nor corrupted by the common lusts of the flesh; but it, too, sets up the private judgment of a single erring mortal against the considered wisdom and experience of the Church” (151). Therefore, Joan’s excommunication is not because she has failed to live an upstanding Christian life, but because others might seek to follow her example and therefore disrupt the hierarchy of medieval society.

In the preface, Shaw argues that “we must face the fact that society is founded on intolerance” (51), suggesting that all legal systems must persecute those who challenge the stability of the system even when the individuals themselves are virtuous people. This perspective informs his portrayal of Joan’s trial. As the Inquisitor goes to see Joan being burned alive, he remarks that he will not be horrified because he is used to seeing “a young and innocent creature crushed between these mighty forces, the Church and the Law” (168). He is not worried or guilty that Joan will die despite her innocence and virtue; he believes that the conviction was necessary for the system to continue to function. Stogumber, on the other hand, is deeply disturbed by Joan’s pious behavior at her burning. He becomes terrified that he will be damned for his role in her execution and contemplates ending his life. Stogumber’s motivations are fundamentally different from those of the Inquisitor and Cauchon: His condemnation of Joan rests on his belief in her personal culpability, and thus crumbles when he sees convincing evidence of her personal virtue. For the Inquisitor and Cauchon, on the other hand, it doesn’t matter how virtuous Joan is—she must die because she is a threat to order and orthodoxy.

Joan’s responses during her trial indicate that she is incapable of understanding the true reasons why she is being persecuted. She gives reasonable and theologically sound answers to the questions that the Inquisition asks, but she is unwilling to compromise on the real issue: her refusal to subsume her individual judgment to the authority of the Church. For example, when asked about her wearing men’s clothes, she responds with a rational justification: “If I were to dress as a woman they would think of me as a woman; and then what would become of me? If I dress as a soldier they think of me as a soldier, and I can live with them as I do at home with my brothers” (160). Ladvenu admits that this explanation has “a grain of worldly sense” (160), but that ultimately does not matter if Joan will not accept that she must obey the commands of the Church even when they are unreasonable.

The only reason she eventually submits and signs her retraction is that she finds it illogical to do something that would lead to her own death. When she realizes they will execute her if she does not obey, her faith is genuinely shaken, and she claims “I have dared and dared; but only a fool will walk into fire” (162). Shaw suggests that Joan would have avoided her martyrdom if possible, and that she eventually chose to die only because she considered perpetual imprisonment to be another form of death. This emphasizes the sense of tragedy, showing that Joan did not want to die, but that her innate honesty would not allow her to lie or manipulate the trial to save herself. She does not die because of her own stubbornness, or the corruption of the court, but because her individual convictions could never align with society’s expectations for a person of her class and her gender.