Key points in Scene 2

The Dauphin calls La Tremouille’s threatening behaviour ‘high treason’ (pg 66). The terminology, which has more relevance to modern nations than to feudal Europe, would have been particularly meaningful to audiences at the end of the First World War, when treason was an emotive issue. For George Bernard Shaw, it had additional significance following recent trials in Ireland. Joan is found guilty not of treason but, tried by an ecclesiastical court, of heresy.


Joan’s accent and colloquial idiom contrast boldly with the speech of the Court. She cannot match the nobility in sophistication, but the intensity of her energy makes them appear dull. The test of her insight staged by de Rais is particularly unimaginative, and discloses an inclination to triviality and inconsequentiality. It is an important part of George Bernard Shaw’s characterization that Joan should not really be aware of the disruption she causes. Her actions have historical implications far beyond the limted scope of her comprehension.


The archbishop speaks of the dawning of a new age, which with the benefit of hindsight we can identify as the Renaissance. He accurately predicts that during this epoch the wisdom of pre-Christian thinkers, such as Aristotle and Pythagoras, will assume far greater importance than faith in saints and miracles. He comments that miracles are often, if not always, ‘contrivances by which the priest fortifies the faint of his flock’ (pg 71). Such a remark indicates that he is himself a transitional figure, his faith balanced by attachment to rationality in a manner that became the characteristic Renaissance orientation.


Joan may appear in her Christian zeal to be a figure belonging squarely to the earlier epoch, but her foreshadowing of Protestantism and nationalism arguably makes her more closely attuned to practical changes soon to occur in human social organization than the archbishop is, despite his learning and his skepticism. But she is more single-minded in her religious faith than he is, and it is her ability to believe without a trace of skepticism that transforms her into a positive force.



Taken from York Notes on "Saint Joan" by George Bernard Shaw.