11. Saint Joan. (1923)
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George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950)
Famous dramatist and critic, G. B. Shaw
was Born on July 26, 1856, in Dublin, Ireland, Shaw survived until November
2,1950.
Archibald Henderson, official
biographer of his subject, entitled his work George Bernard Shaw: Man of the
Century, well before Shaw's death at the age of ninety-four.
His ninetieth birthday in 1946 was the
occasion for an international celebration, the grand old man being presented
with a festschrift, entitled GBS 90, to which many distinguished writers
contributed. A London publishing firm bought space in the Times to voice its
greetings:
Shaw was the third child and only son in a
family which he once described as "shabby but genteel." His father,
George Carr Shaw, was employed as a civil servant and later became a not too
successful merchant. Shaw remembered especially his father's "alcoholic
antics"; the old man was a remorseful, yet an unregenerate drinker. It was
from his father that Shaw inherited his superb comic gift. Lucinda Gurley Shaw,
the mother, was a gifted singer and music teacher; she led her son to develop a
passion for music, particularly operatic music. At an early age, Shaw had
memorized many of the works of Mozart, whose fine workmanship he never ceased
to admire. Somewhat later, he taught himself to play the piano — in the Shavian
manner.
One of the maxims in The Revolutionist's
Handbook, appended to Man and Superman, reads: "He who can, does. He who
cannot, teaches." Shaw, who was to insist that all art should be didactic,
viewed himself as a kind of teacher, yet he himself had little respect for
schoolmasters and formal education. First, his uncle, the Reverend George
Carroll, tutored him. Then at the age of ten, Shaw became a pupil at Wesleyan
Connexional School in Dublin and later attended two other schools for short
periods of time. He hated them all and declared that he had learned absolutely
nothing. But Shaw possessed certain qualities which are not always developed in
a classroom — for example, an inquisitive mind and a boundless capacity for
independent study. Once asked about his early education, he replied: "I
can remember no time at which a page of print was not intelligible to me and
can only suppose I was born literate." He went on to add that by the age
of ten, he had saturated himself in the works of Shakespeare and also in the
Bible.
A depleted family bank account led Shaw to
accept employment as a clerk in a land agency office when he was sixteen. He
was unhappy and, determined to become a professional writer, resigned after
five years of service and joined his mother, who was then teaching music in
London. The year was 1876. During the next three years, he allowed his mother
to support him, and he concentrated largely on trying to support himself as an
author. No less than five novels came from his pen between the years 1879 and
1883, but it was soon evident that Shaw's genius would not be fully revealed as
a novelist, but as a playwright.
In 1879, Shaw was induced to accept employment
in a firm promoting the new Edison telephone, his duties being those of a
right-of-way agent. He detested the task of interviewing residents in the East
End of London and endeavoring to get their permission for the installation of
telephone poles and equipment. A few months of such work was enough for him. In
his own words, this was the last time that he "sinned against his
nature" by seeking to earn an honest living.
The year 1879 had greater significance for
Shaw. He joined the Zetetical Society, a debating club, the members of which
held lengthy discussions on such subjects as economics, science, and religion.
Soon he found himself in demand as a speaker, and thus he became a regular
participant at public meetings. At one such meeting held in September 1882, he
listened spellbound to Henry George, an apostle of Land Nationalization and the
Single Tax. Shaw credits the American lecturer and author with having aroused his
interest in economics and social theory; previously, Shaw had chiefly concerned
himself with the conflict between science and religion. When Shaw was told that
no one could do justice to George's theories without being familiar with the
theories of Karl Marx, Shaw promptly read a French translation of Das Kapital,
no English translation then being available. He was immediately converted to
socialism.
The year 1884 is also a notable one in the
life of Bernard Shaw (as he preferred to be called). After reading a tract
entitled Why Are the Many Poor? and learning that it was published by the
Fabian Society, he appeared at the society's next meeting. The intellectual
temper of this group, which included such distinguished men as Havelock Ellis,
immediately attracted him. He was accepted as a member on September 5 and was
elected to the Executive Committee in January. Among the debaters at Zetetical
Society was Sidney Webb, a man whom Shaw recognized as his "natural
complement." He easily persuaded Webb to become a Fabian. The two, along
with the gifted Mrs. Webb, became the pillars of the society which preached the
gospel of constitutional and evolutionary socialism. Shaw's views, voiced in
public parks and meeting halls, are expounded at length in The Intelligent
Woman's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism (1928); many of his ideas also find a
place in his dramas.
In the next stage of his career, Shaw emerged
as a literary, music, and art critic. Largely because of the influence of
William Archer, the distinguished dramatic critic now best remembered as the
editor and translator of Ibsen, Shaw became a member of the reviewing staff of
the Pall Mall Gazette in 1885. Earlier, he had ghostwritten some music reviews
for G. L. Lee, with whom his mother had long been associated as a singer and as
a music teacher. But this new assignment provided Shaw with his first real experience
as a critic. Not long afterward, and again through the assistance of William
Archer, Shaw added to these duties those of an art critic on the widely
influential World. Archer insisted that Shaw knew very little about art but
realized that Shaw thought that he did — which was what mattered. As for Shaw,
he blandly explained that the way to learn about art was to look at pictures;
he had begun doing so years earlier in the Dublin National Gallery.
Shaw's close association with William Archer
was paramount in his championing the dramas of Henrik Ibsen as new, highly
original dramatic works which represented a complete break with the popular
theater of the day. "When Ibsen came from Norway," Shaw was to write,
"with his characters who thought and discussed as well as acted, the
theatrical heaven rolled up like a scroll." Whereas the general public,
nurtured on "well-made" romantic and melodramatic plays, denounced Ibsen
as a "muck-ferreting dog," Shaw recognized that Ibsen was a great
ethical philosopher and a social critic — a role which recommended itself to
Shaw immediately. On July 18, 1890, Shaw read a paper on Ibsen at a meeting of
the Fabian Society. Amplified, this became The Quintessence of Ibsen (1891).
Sometimes called The Quintessence of Shaw, it sets forth the author's
profoundest views on the function of the dramatist, who, Shaw believed, should
concern himself foremost with how his characters react to various social
forces, and who should concern himself further with a new morality based upon
an examination and challenge of conventional mores.
In view of what Shaw had written about Ibsen
(and about himself) and because of Shaw's dedicated activities as a socialist
exhorter, Widowers' Houses, his first play, may be called characteristic.
Structurally, it represents no departure from the tradition of the well-made
play; that is, the action is plotted so that the key situation is exposed in
the second act, and the third act is devoted to its resolution. But,
thematically, the play was revolutionary in England. It dealt with the evils of
slum-landlordism, a subject hardly calculated to regale the typical Victorian
audience. Produced at J. T. Grein's Independent Theater in London, it became a
sensation because of its "daring" theme, but it was never a
theatrical success. Shaw, however, was not at all discouraged. The furor
delighted him. No one knew better than he the value of attracting attention. He
was already at work on The Philanderer, an amusing but rather slight comedy of
manners.
In 1894, Shaw's Arms and the Man enjoyed a
good run at the Avenue Theater from April 21 to July 7, and it has been revived
from time to time to this very day. At last, the real Shaw had emerged — the
dramatist who united irrepressible gaiety and complete seriousness of purpose.
The play has been described as "a satire on the prevailing bravura
style," and it sets forth the "view of romance as the great heresy to
be swept from art and life."
In the same year, Shaw wrote Mrs. Warren's
Profession, which became a cause célèbre. Shaw himself grouped it with his
so-called "Unpleasant Plays." Dealing with the economic causes of
prostitution and the conflict between the prostitute mother and her daughter,
it created a tumult which was kept alive for several years on both sides of the
Atlantic. It may well be argued that in this play, Shaw was far more the
polemicist than the artist, but the play still has its place among the
provocative dramas of ideas.
The indefatigable Shaw was already at work on
his first unquestionably superior play, Candida. First produced in 1895, it has
been popular ever since and has found its place in anthologies. Notable for
effective character portrayal and the adroit use of inversions, it tells how
Candida and the Reverend Morell, widely in public demand as an advanced
thinker, reached an honest and sound basis for a lasting marriage.
While working with the Fabians, Shaw met the
personable Charlotte Payne-Townshend, an Irish heiress deeply concerned with
the many problems of social justice. He was immediately attracted to her. After
she had helped him through a long illness, the two were married in 1898, and
she became his modest but capable critic and assistant throughout the years of
their marriage.
During this period, there was no surcease of
playwriting on Shaw's part. He completed You Never Can Tell, The Man of
Destiny, and The Devil's Disciple. This last play, an inverted Victorian-type
melodrama was first acted in the United States, where it was an immediate
success, financially and otherwise. By the turn of the century, Shaw had
written Caesar and Cleopatra and The Admirable Bashville. He was now the
acknowledged major force in the new drama of the twentieth century.
The year 1903 is especially memorable for the
completion and publication of Man and Superman. It was first acted (without the
Don Juan In Hell intermezzo, which constitutes Act III) in 1905. Then, some
twenty-three other plays were added to the Shavian canon as the century
advanced toward the halfway mark. Best known among these are Major Barbara
(1905), Androcles and the Lion (1912), Pygmalion (1913), Heartbreak House
(1919), Back to Methuselah (1920), and Saint Joan (1923). During the years
1930-32, the Ayot St. Lawrence Edition of his collected plays was published.
Shaw's literary preeminence had found world-wide recognition. He refused,
however, to accept either a knighthood or the Order of Merit offered by the
Crown, but in 1926, he did accept the Nobel Prize for Literature. It was quite
typical of him to state that the award was given to him by a grateful public
because he had not published anything during that year.
Shaw persistently rejected offers from
filmmakers. According to one story, when importuned by Samuel Goldwyn, the
well-known Hollywood producer, he replied: "The difficulty, Mr. Goldwyn,
is that you are an artist and I am a businessman." Later, however, the
ardor and ability of Gabriel Pascal impressed him, and Shaw agreed to prepare
the scenario of Pygmalion for production. The film, released in 1938, was a
notable success. Major Barbara and Androcles and the Lion followed, and the
Irish-born dramatist had now won a much larger audience. My Fair Lady, a
musical adapted from Pygmalion, opened in New Haven, Connecticut, on February
4, 1956, starring Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews, and it was and remains a
spectacular success. A film version won an Academy Award in 1964 as Best
Picture.
Discussing Macbeth, Shaw once wrote: "I
want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I
live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no 'brief candle' for me. It
is a sort of splendid torch, which I have got hold of for the moment; and I
want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future
generations." Life indeed was a bright torch which burned long for Bernard
Shaw. Almost to the very end, although he was bedridden with a broken hip, he
lived up to his credo. He was ninety-two years old in 1949, when Buoyant
Billions was produced at the Malvern Festival. In the same year, his highly
readable Sixteen Self Sketches was published. He was planning on writing still
another play when he died on November 2, 1950.
George Bernard Shaw: (1856-1950)- Anti-Romantic,
Critic and playwright. Born in Dublin, Ireland. “I
write plays with the deliberate purpose to convert the nation to my opinion.” Began
his career by writing novels, but all 5 of his novels proved unsuccessful.
He became the
first person to have been awarded both a Nobel Prize (1925) and an Oscar.
Shaw was the only winner of both awards until
2016, when the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to Bob Dylan.
Dylan had previously won an Oscar in 2001 for Best Original Song - his song
‘Things have Changed’ featured in the film ‘The Wonder Boys’.
He wrote more
than sixty plays. His plays are known as “Shavian Plays”. It is
a play by G. B. Shaw (or) with characteristics of writings of GB Shaw. It has smart, quick, witty, funny and
sharp dialogues. His plays are of ideas, debate and discussion rather than
dramas of character, action and passion. Drama
of Ideas is a type of discussion play in which clash of ideas, reveals the most
acute problems of social, personal morality.
He generally
writes long prologues to his plays. Shaw’s plays employs surprise endings. His
characters are laughable, provincial, bucolic, and ridiculous, don't have
politeness. The situation of the story is accentuated by references to
classics. He uses humour to make serious arguments about social issues.
"Life force - Concept" women must
choose better mate for better children
He became
vegetarian at the age of 25 and claimed “a man
of my spiritual intensity does not eat corpses”. Apart from shunning
meat, he didn’t drink alcohol or smoke, and he drank neither tea nor coffee!
The term “Bardolatry” (=worship of
Shakespeare) derived from Shakespeare's sobriquet (=nickname)
"the Bard of Avon" and the Greek word latria "worship", was
coined by G. B. Shaw in the preface to his collection Three Plays for
Puritans (1901). Shaw disliked Shakespeare as a thinker and philosopher
because Shaw believed that Shakespeare did not engage with social problems as
Shaw did in his own plays.
1. Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant 1898 –collection of 4 pleasant and 3 unpleasant
plays.
The Pleasant Plays:
a. Arms and the Man 1894- Deals with war,
first commercial success - title comes from
the opening words of Virgil's Aeneid, in Latin: Arma virumque cano ("Of arms and the man I sing") – humorous play deals with war
b. Candida 18978 - about woman’s choice between two men. - feminist rights,
women equality.
c. You Can Never Tell 1897- four-act play, about social relations.
d. The Man of Destiny 1895- short play about Napolean
The Unpleasant Plays:
a. Widower’s Houses 1892- attack on slum landlords- New Woman concept
b. Mrs. Warren’s Profession 1893- about Prostitution-(banned), The story centres
on the relationship between Mrs Kitty Warren (former prostitute and current
brothel owner) and her daughter, Vivie (intelligent and pragmatic young woman
who has just graduated from university). The play focuses on how their
relationship changes when Vivie learns what her mother does for a living. It
explains why Mrs. Warren became a prostitute, condemns the hypocrisies relating
to prostitution, and criticizes the limited employment opportunities available
for women in Victorian Britain.
c. The Philanderer 1898- concept of New Woman (Julia). The play gives Reference to Ibsen.
2.
Three Plays for
Puritans (1900)- collection of 3 plays- with a long
preface by Shaw in three parts in which he expounds many of his thoughts on
drama.
a. The Devil's Disciple (1897)-
b. Caesar and Cleopatra (1898)- Cleopatra is depicted as a spoiled and vicious 16-year-old child rather
than the 38-year-old temptress of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra
c. Captain Brassbound's Conversion (1900)-
3. The Devil’s Walk
4. Man and Superman 1903- first performed in 1905- concept of Life force. Women must choose better mate for better children. It is a comedy in which Ann is referred to as "the Life Force" and
represents Shaw's view that in every culture, it is the women who force the men
to marry them rather than the men who take the initiative.
5. Major Barbara 1905- The story concerns an idealistic young woman, Barbara Undershaft, who
is engaged in helping the poor as a Major in the Salvation Army in London.
The play script
displays typical Shavian techniques in the omission of apostrophes from
contractions and other punctuation, the inclusion of a didactic introductory
essay explaining the play's themes, and the phonetic spelling of dialect
English.
6. The Doctor’s Dilemma 1904- first staged in 1906- satire upon the medical profession. a dilemma faced by a talented
doctor, Sir Colenso Ridgeon, who has developed a revolutionary treatment for tuberculosis but has
limited resources so, he must decide whom to save, leading to ethical and moral
conflicts.
7. Pygmalion (1913)- Based on Greek Myth Pygmalion, King of Cyprus, who fell in love with his
own sculpture Galatea. Story of a cockney
flower girl Eliza Doolittle’s transformation into a duchess by the phonetician Professor Henry Higgins, in order to win a bet with Colonel Pickering, a rich man. In Pygmalion, contrary to our expectation,
love between the flower girl and professor doesn’t happen. He used the change
of language as a means to rise to the upper-class. Higgins treats her as an
object in the process of making Eliza an Upper-class woman, but she rebels
against his dictatorial and thoughtless behaviour.
After the surest of his experiment Higgins suggests her 2 options: To marry based on her beauty or to run a
flower shop. But she rejects these two
and wanted to marry Freddy, a poor man
8. Heartbreak House: A Fantasia in the Russian
Manner on English Themes (1919) -Decline of Britain as power.
9. Back to Methuselah 1922- collection of 5 plays
10. St. Joan- 1923- historical play with 6 acts and an epilogue, set in 1429 - story
of Joan of Arc, a French peasant girl who claimed divine guidance and led the
French army to several victories during the Hundred Years' War. Joan faces
opposition from both the English invaders and the political leaders of her own
country. Despite her heroic actions, Joan is ultimately captured, tried for
heresy, and burned at the stake.
11. The Apple Cart 1928- sub title ‘a political extravaganza’
12. The Quintessence of Ibsenism 1891: famous essay - gave the first great impetus to Ibsen's work
and to the concept of Play of Ideas. Shaw wrote three sets of critical essays on Ibsen: The Quintessence of lbsenism, Our Theatres in
the Nineties, and The Prefaces.
13. The Dark Lady of the Sonnets is a 1910- set in
Fin de siècle -short comedy - in which William Shakespeare, intending to meet the
"Dark Lady", accidentally encounters Queen Elizabeth I and attempts
to persuade her to create a national theatre. The play was written as part of a
campaign to create a "Shakespeare National Theatre" by 1916.
|
Fin de siècle (French term= "end of century”)- It is used to refer the end of
19th century. |
14.
Shakes versus Shav
(1949): Shaw’s late puppet play-10 min performance- a comic argument between Shaw and Shakespeare, with the two
playwrights bickering about who is the better writer. He declared "Nobody
will ever write a better tragedy than Lear". However, he also wrote in a letter to Mrs Patrick Campbell, "Oh, what a damned fool Shakespeare was!"
Shavian
alphabet: Shaw’s ‘Alphabet trust” has created 40 letter new-phonetic alphabet as
he believed that alphabet was a barrier against literacy and therefore a
barrier to the social mobility of the poor (Inconsistencies in English
spelling). Shaw reproduced ‘Androcles and the Lion’ into the new phonetic
alphabet.
15.
Fabian Essays in
Socialism 1889- collection of essays published by Fabian society (founded in 1884),
edited by G B Shaw. Fabian society is aimed to of bring about a socialist society by means of
intellectual debate, the publication of books and pamphlets, and the
"permeation" of socialist ideas into the universities, the press,
government institutions, and political parties.
Problem plays (Drama): The development of the Problem Plays is an
important factor in modern dramatic literature. It deals with the vital
problems of contemporary life and society.
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Background:
The play Saint Joan was written and published
by the Irish writer, Bernard Shaw and is considered as being one of his major
works. The play was published in 1923, shortly after the canonization of Saint
Joan by the Church and two years before Bernard received the Nobel Prize for
Literature.
The play has six scenes and an epilogue, and
follows Joan’s life. The story told in the play follows closely what Shaw found
by studying the transcript of Joan’s trial yet he refuses to accuse anybody,
saying in the preface that he believed that the men in Joan’s trial all acted
in good faith.
The play was criticized after it was
published, many saying that Shaw tried to redeem those who accused Joan and
that he didn’t present the medieval society in which Joan lived accurately.
Despite the criticism it received, the play
was a success and the role of Joan is considered as being very difficult to
play because of the character’s complexity.
The play is written in almost a playful manner
and it contains both dramatic and comic elements.
Plot/Narrative structure:
|
Scene & Setting |
Plot / Narrative Summary |
|
Scene
I – Castle of Vaucouleurs |
Joan
persuades Robert de Baudricourt to let her go to the Dauphin. She claims
divine guidance to save France. Though skeptical at first, Robert is moved by
her confidence and agrees. |
|
Scene
II – Castle of Chinon |
Joan
meets Charles, the Dauphin. She convinces him of her divine mission to
liberate France. He grants her command of the army. |
|
Scene
III – Military camp near Orléans |
Joan
leads the French troops to victory over the English. Her strategic insight
surprises the commanders and bolsters French morale. |
|
Scene
IV – Cathedral at Reims |
Charles
is crowned king, fulfilling Joan's mission. However, political and religious
figures begin to see Joan as a threat to the established order. |
|
Scene
V – Archbishop's palace |
Joan
is cautioned by the Church and political leaders. They urge her to be
submissive and stop acting independently. Joan insists on following God’s
command, not the Church or monarchy. |
|
Scene
VI – Trial chamber in Rouen |
Joan
is tried for heresy. She defends her visions and her choice to dress as a
soldier. She refuses to fully recant, even under threat of execution. |
|
Epilogue
– Charles VII’s bedroom (25 years later) |
Charles
learns Joan has been declared innocent posthumously. Joan’s ghost appears
with other historical figures. Though she is now revered, no one is willing
to accept her while alive. Her legacy remains powerful but unresolved. |
Opening line:
ROBERT. No
eggs! No eggs!! Thousand thunders, man, what do you mean by no eggs?
STEWARD. Sir:
it is not my fault. It is the act of God.
Closing line:
JOAN. O God
that madest this beautiful earth, when will it be ready to receive Thy saints?
How long, O Lord, how long?
Saint Joan Summary
The play starts with Robert de Baudricourt
talking with his steward about the fact that the hens stopped laying eggs.
Robert accuses his steward of stealing them but he assures his lord that he had
nothing to do with them. The steward then tells Robert that the girl who came
to see him a few days again was still there and was waiting to be heard. The
steward began to believe what she was telling and he tells Robert that she is
sent from God to raise the siege of Orleans.
Robert finds that the girl convinced some of
his men and two of his noblemen so he called them to him to hear what they have
to say about the girl. They expressed their faith in her and after that, Robert
called the girl to hear what she had to say. Joan told him that she hears
voices from god telling her that she will save France from the Englishmen and
Robert decides to send her to the King.
After Joan leaves, the hens start to lay eggs
and Robert sees this as a sign that she was indeed who she said she was.At the
court, King Charles is exited to hear that an angel wants to speak with him.
despite the archbishop’s protests, the king agrees to speak with Joan and he is
surprised when she knows that he tried to tick her by putting someone else sit
on the throne. He speaks with her and she convinces him to give her command to
his army, to Lord Chamberlain’s displeasure.Joan arrives to the battlefield and
there she encounters Dunois. As soon as Joan arrives, the wind changes and
Dunois sees this as a sign that they can beat the Frenchmen so he gives the
command of the army to Joan.
The Englishmen plan to have Joan killed after
they suffer defeats lead by her and believe that if they offer the right price,
she will be sold to them by her own country and then they will accuse her of
heresy. This comes to pass as Joan is sold after the coronation and then is
judged as a heretic. It is decided that she must be burnt as a witch but her
heart refused to burn.The play ends with an epilogue, in which king Charles is
visited by Ladvenu who tells him about what happened with Joan and that after
25 years, her name has been cleared. Charles dreams about Joan and tells her
about the new trial but she concludes sadly that the trial won’t bring her
back.
Saint Joan Themes
Pride
Something that we find to be common in almost
every character in this book is an excessive sense of pride. Even the main
character, the pious and pure Joan, is accused of being too proud and this
proves to be almost a capital sin for her as it eventually proves to lead to
her downfall. The reason why pride is presented as a major sin is because the
play is supposed to take place in the medieval times when the major power in a
country was represented by the church. If we look at other pieces of literature
written in that time or whose plot is set in those centuries, we discover that
almost all character who manifest a sense of excessive pride are in the end
punished.
Power
The whole play presents the struggle for power
and the fight between the French and the Englishmen. But aside from the most
obvious conflict, and that is the military one, we find that inside the country
too there is a struggle for power. We are presented with the King, naïve and
manipulated by those who have more money than him and then we see Joan, a
peasant girl, a woman in a society that gave women no rights who somehow became
the most feared and powerful character because she had not political power behind
her but rather divine power.
Feminism
Joan is a very strange character for her age.
She is a woman yet she acts like she is a soldier and refuses to do the things
that are expected from her such as to get married and listen to what men say to
her. Instead, she rebels against the conventions of her time and chooses to
pick her own path and do what she thinks that is right. From this point of
view, Joan is powerful because she has the courage to stand for herself and be
different in a male dominated society.
Quotes
‘’No sir: we are afraid of you: but she puts
courage into us.’’ -Scene 1, The
steward
Since from the first scene, we find that this
idea becomes a recurrent motif throughout the play. Joan is seen as a
courageous girl, almost excessively courageous, who somehow manages to
influence the others around her and make them feel courage too. Her bravery
comes from her belief in God while the others take their strength by believing
in her and in her being sent by God and by other saints.
‘’You must not think about your duty to your
feudal lord, but about your duty to God.’’ -Joan
Here we see that even if Joan may fear war,
she believes that it is more important to listen to God than to listen to what
the others have to say. This idea is actually taken from the Holy Bible where
it is stressed the importance of being loyal to God instead of listening to
other people or Public institutions if what the public institutions or what
those people say goes against God’s will. It seems that Joan listens to this
advice completely as she constantly seems to go against what she is told to do
by her superiors and chooses to listen to what God and the voices tell her to
do.
‘’Our soldiers are always beaten because they
are fighting only to save their skins: and the shortest way to save your skin
is to run away.’’ --Joan
Here Joan identifies the main problem
regarding why the French always seem to lose and that is because they are
fighting motivated by the desire to survive individually and not as a nation.
The soldiers only cared about their own life or the profit they will get so
they didn’t fought with all they had. This is in Joan’s mind the main reason
why the French always lost to the Englishmen.
Saint Joan Symbols, Allegory and
Motifs
Talking with God
A recurrent motif that appears in every scene
is the link Joan has with divinity through the voices she hears and her belief
that they are from God. There is a pattern regarding how this idea is received
by the other: at first, they refuse to believe her, thinking that everything is
a result of her imagination but after a short time, they acknowledge that she
may be who she says she is and then the other characters trust her completely.
Pride
Another motif is pride. Almost every character
in the book who holds some degree of authority has an excessive pride and it
seems that despite her holiness, Joan is the character who exhibits this sin
the most.
Signs
The majority of the characters in the book
believe in Joan only after some type of miracle happens. In Robert’s case, he
starts trusting Joan after the hens starts laying eggs again and Dunois believe
in her only after the wind changes in their favor.
Influence
What becomes obvious quite early is that Joan
can easily influence those around her. Weather this is a gift from God or her
own charm, Joan can easily control those around her.
West wind
The idea of bad omens is what stops the French
from attacking and the west wind is one of them. Since the first scene, it
becomes clear that the French will start their attack only when the wind will
be in their favor.
Saint Joan Metaphors and Similes
West wind
In the play, the west wind is used as a symbol
for the unfavorable situations which kept the French from winning the war
against the English. The French were unable to act against the English because
of the west wind that prevented them from getting the help they needed. When
Joan appeared, the west wind changed and thus the French started fighting
against the English.
Throne
The throne it is usually a symbol for regal
power used in literature. In Saint Joan however, King Charles admits that even
though he sits on the throne, others rule in his place. For Charles, his throne
is not a visible symbol of the absolute power he is supposed to have, but of
his incapacity of being a true king.
False faith
Milton uses the Archbishop to symbolize those
who have a false faith. The archbishop was supposed to be the most pious man
but yet he refuses to believe in Joan and in her powers. He questions how true
the miracles that happen in her presence are and says that she is a fraud,
nothing more than a talented woman who can influence the others.
Unworthy king
King Charles is the type of king who got his
position only because he had the right blood and nothing more. He is inadequate
to be a king and those around him see this but they are unable to do anything
about it. King Charles can be considered as a symbol of all those kings who
ended up doing nothing good but continued to rule all their life only because
they were born in the royal family.
Perfect model
Joan is more than just a girl: she is a model,
the perfect mold and example of how faith should work in a person. She is a
saint and probably she doesn’t know it. Joan is used to symbolize the pure
faith and how powerful God can be, Joan proving that with God’s help,
everything is possible.
Saint Joan Imagery
The most incompetent servant
In the beginning of the play, Robert describes
his steward as being the most incompetent type of person, unable to perform
what he was asked to do. This image only amplifies as the play continues and we
are presented with the complete image of the steward, despised by his master.
Cowards
When Joan talks about the French army and why
they always lose, she creates a dismal image of an army that is disorganized
and loyal only to them. We are presented with the image of coward soldiers, who
only care about their own skin and who care only about profit.
Incompetent King
When King Charles appears for the first time
in the play, we are described a child rather than a King. He hides behind the
archbishop and fears Bluebeard and is treated as a child. Instead of portraying
him as a powerful king, Charles is presented as the most incompetent king who
could rule over France.
Uncomfortable clothes
The image of the incompetent king only gets
more accentuated at the end of the play, when the King is coronated. Instead of
feeling confident and powerful, he detests the cloths he was forced to wear in
order to look like a king and we are left to know that even if Charles looks
like a king, it is just a false image and he is still the child-like man
presented in the beginning of the play.
Bluebeard
Bluebeard is the type of political man that
would like to sit on the throne instead of King Charles. He offers himself to
pretend to be the King when Joan first came to the court and we are presented
with a cunning man, the perfect image of the ambitious politician who desires
more power than he has.
Saint Joan Literary Elements
Genre Drama
Language English
Setting and Context
The action starts in 1429 AD and it is based
in different locations in France, such as the royal palace, on the River Meuse
and in Robert’s castle.
Narrator and Point of View
Because this is a play, we can’t speak about a
narrator or a sent point of view like in novels. Each individual character says
his or her lines and the narrator is present only through the brief
characterizations he makes regarding the characters.
Tone and Mood Ironic,
tragic
Protagonist and Antagonist
Even if the play is sometimes referred to as a
play without a villain, we could consider Joan as being the protagonist and
those who sentenced her to death the antagonists.
Major Conflict The
major conflict is the war between France and England.
Climax Joan
is accused of being a heretic and sentenced to death.
Foreshadowing
Joan prophesies
her own death when she says that France will get to the point when all the
English will be gone but that she won’t be alive to see it.
Understatement
When Joan says that she will make sure that
only the French will live in her country proves to be a lie as she will die
before that could happen completely.
Allusions
When the Englishman and the bishop talk about
how they could catch Joan, an allusion is made to what her end will be, and
that is burned as a witch.
Imagery
Probably the most predominant image in the
play is that of Joan as a saint, a pure maid capable of doing miracles.
Paradox
The was Joan dies is a paradox in the book in
the sense that she is killed by the institution she loves the most.
Parallelism
There are many similarities between the life
of Saint Catherine of Alexandria who was sending Joan visions and Joan’s own
life. They converted to Christianity at an early age, convinced many to follow
their examples and died as martyrs at about the age of 18.
Personification
I, God forgive me, am a little in love with
war myself, the ugly devil!
Use of Dramatic Devices
There are almost no stage directions in the
play, but the narrator chooses to characterize the characters in a direct
manner at the beginning of every Scene. Through those descriptions, we are
presented with the full picture of a character, including his or her social
status, appearance and personal traits.
St. Joan Summary ( CLIFF NOTES)
In 1429 A.D., a young country girl known
simply as Joan of Arc, or sometimes simply as The Maid, is given an interview
by Robert de Baudricourt since she will not leave until she speaks with him.
She tells him that she needs horses and armor to go to the Dauphin of France
and to raise the siege of Orleans, a city held captive by the English forces.
She knows that a siege would be possible because the voices of Saints Margaret
and Catherine have told her what to do. Upon being convinced by The Maid's simplicity,
Captain de Baudricourt grants her request.
Upon arriving at the Dauphin's castle, The
Maid encounters all sorts of difficulties, especially with the Dauphin, who
wants nothing to do with wars and fighting. When France's military fortunes and
predicament are reviewed, Joan's demands that something be done to improve
France's condition fall on deaf ears, but when she is alone with the Dauphin,
she is able to instill enough courage in him so that he finally consents to let
her lead the army, knowing full well that she can't make France's condition worse.
Joan then goes to the Loire River near
Orleans, where she encounters Dunois, the commander of the French forces; he
explains the necessity of waiting until the wind changes, but Joan is
determined to lead her forces against the English stronghold without waiting;
suddenly, the wind does change favorably, and Dunois pledges his allegiance to
The Maid.
Sometime later, in the English camp, Warwick,
the leader of the English forces, and his chaplain, de Stogumber, are maintaining
that The Maid must be a witch because there is no other way of accounting for
the heavy English losses and defeats except by sorcery.
The Bishop of Beauvais, Peter Cauchon, enters
and discusses the fate of Joan of Arc. Cauchon's principal intellectual concern
is that Joan is setting up her own private conscience in place of the authority
of the Church. Warwick, who is not influenced by the concerns of the Church,
is, instead, concerned that Joan is telling the common people and the serfs to
pledge their allegiance directly to the king, whereas the entire feudal system
is based upon the lower classes pledging their allegiance to their immediate
lords and masters. Joan's simple pleas can possibly destroy the entire feudal
system. Cauchon also adds that Joan is trying to get the common people to
pledge further allegiance to their native countries (France and England)
instead of to the Universal Catholic Church, an act which would further lessen
the power of the Church. Thus, for different reasons, both agree that The Maid
must be put to death.
After more victories, Joan has finally been
able to fulfill her promise to drive the English back and have the Dauphin
crowned king in the Cathedral at Rheims. After the ceremony, Joan is anxious to
move on and capture Paris and drive the English from the city. The Dauphin,
however, is content now with what he has recaptured, Commander Dunois is
hesitant to start another campaign after all of the recent successes, and the
Archbishop is beginning to find Joan to be too proud and defiant. Joan then
realizes that she must stand alone in the same way that "saints have
always stood alone," and in spite of the warning that if she falls into
the enemy's hands, neither the military, nor the state, nor the Church will
lift a hand to rescue her.
Some nine months later, Joan is standing trial
for heresy. She has been imprisoned and in chains for these nine months and has
been questioned many times about the validity of her "voices." After
many complicated theological questions, her accusers force Joan to admit that
her voices were not heavenly sent voices but, instead, came from Satan. After
her recantation of the voices, her judges then sentence her to perpetual
imprisonment and isolation, living off only bread and water. Joan rejects this
horrid punishment and tears up her recantation. She is immediately carried to
the stake and burnt as a witch; afterward, the Executioner enters and announces
that Joan's heart would not burn.
Some twenty-five years later, in an Epilogue,
Joan reappears before the king (the former Dauphin) and her chief accusers, who
have now been condemned by a subsequent court, which has pronounced Joan
innocent of all charges and her judges guilty of all sorts of crimes.
The time then moves to 1920, when Joan is
declared to be a saint by the Church. As such, she now has the power to return
as a living woman, and she asks everyone present if she should return. This is
a horrifying prospect for them all, and they all confess that they wish her to
remain dead. Joan then asks of God, "O Lord, how long before the world
will be ready to accept its saints?"
Character List
Joan
of Arc- often referred to as The Maid Joan is, of course, the central character of the play.
Based upon the historical character, Shaw presents her as a simple country girl
who is uneducated but not unintelligent. For the public, Joan, according to
Shaw's Preface, offers her brilliant ideas in terms of voices from heaven which
speak to her. Early in the play, she establishes her superiority in terms of
military tactics and strategy, always knowing where to place the cannons and
other artillery. Until her capture, she proves that her military strategy is
flawless. Throughout the play, in all sorts of situations, Joan's basic honesty
and her innocence shine through all of the hypocrisy of the others, and when
her judges use complicated ecclesiastical terms to trap her, her basic common
sense makes them look stupid. She is, however, inexperienced in the ways of the
medieval society and ignorant of the jealousies of the feudal system. Her
belief in the rightness of her own conscience and her refusal to yield to the
authority of the Church have caused Shaw and others to refer to her as the
first Protestant to be martyred by the Catholic Church.
Robert
de Baudricourt- A gentlemanly squire from Joan's district,
Lorraine; he is the first person of position or rank to back The Maid's plans.
Through him, Joan is able to obtain her first armor and her first chance to
show her military skills.
Bertrand
de Poulengey (Polly)- One of Joan's first converts, he
aids Joan in getting an audience with Robert de Baudricourt, and he later rides
with her in the Battle of Orleans.
The
Archbishop of Rheims- The churchman who, at first, sees Joan
as a pious and innocent girl, one who is in close service with God. As Joan
proves to be constantly right, however, and, later, when Joan is responsible
for crowning the Dauphin king, the Archbishop becomes disheartened with The
Maid and, ultimately, sides against her.
Monseigneur
de la Trémouille- The Lord Chamberlain in the court of
the Dauphin and also the "commander-in-chief" of the French forces.
He has been accustomed to bullying the Dauphin, and, therefore, he deeply
resents Joan when she is given command of the French forces.
Gilles
de Rais (Bluebeard)- A captain in the army and a devoted
follower of The Maid even though he is not a religious person.
The
Dauphin- Later to be crowned Charles VII in the Rheims
cathedral, the Dauphin is portrayed as weak, sniveling, and unconcerned about
matters of the court or of the country. He is forced by The Maid to become more
manly and to assume an authority that he does not want.
Dunois
(The Bastard)- The young, popular, and efficient leader of
the French forces who recognizes Joan's military genius but in the final battle
is not convinced that she should be saved.
The
Earl of Warwick- The English earl in charge of the
English forces and Joan's most bitter and avid secular opponent. He sees Joan's
simple opinions that the people should give their allegiance directly to the
king as being a threat to the loyalty that the feudal lords demand from their
serfs. He demands Joan's death as a way of retaining the status quo of the
feudal system.
John
de Stogumber- The
Earl of Warwick's chaplain. At first, he is seen as a vicious and ferocious
accuser of Joan's. He sees her in the most simplistic terms as a witch who
should be burned without delay. He does not understand either the most
complicated or the most subtle arguments concerning Joan's threat to the Church
and to the aristocracy. However, the most dramatic change of the entire drama
occurs in the person of de Stogumber; after he has witnessed the burning of The
Maid, he becomes a weak, broken man who spends the rest of his life trying to
do good deeds for others in order to alleviate his guilt for his vicious
attacks against The Maid.
Peter
Cauchon- The academic theologian who represents the
"considered wisdom of the Church." For him, Joan represents a direct
threat to the historical power invested in the Church, and he is proud that he
has never asserted his own individuality and has always yielded to the opinion
of the Church. For Joan to assert her own private conscience, to rely upon her
own judgments, and to commune directly with God without the intervention of the
Church is, to Cauchon, heresy in its highest form.
The
Inquisitor- Physically, the Inquisitor should look like a
kindly and sweet elderly gentleman. However, he represents the institutions of
the Church in their most iron-clad disciplines. He believes strongly in the
rightness of these institutions and in the collected wisdom of the Church. The
individual conscience must be subjected to the authority of the Church, not
just in this particular instance but throughout all time. His long rambling
speech on heresy shows him to be a defender of these institutions and one who
rejects any type of individualism.
D'Estivet- The
prosecutor against Joan; he is often impatient with the subtle questions of the
court, and his case is based on pure legalism.
Courcelles- A
young priest who has been of help in compiling some sixty-four charges against
The Maid; he is incensed that many of the charges ("She stole the Bishop's
horse") have been dismissed by the court.
Brother
Martin Ladvenu- A sympathetic young priest who wants to save
Joan's life and who is seemingly deeply concerned about Joan's inability to
intellectually distinguish or understand the charges made against her. He feels
her only sin is her ignorance, but once she is sentenced, he declares her
imprisonment to be just. However, he holds up the cross for Joan to see while
she is on her funeral stake, and he is instrumental in Joan's rehabilitation.
The
Executioner- He represents the horrors of the stake. His
other importance is that he reports that The Maid's heart would not burn.
An
English Soldier He is the common soldier who makes a cross
out of two sticks and gives it to Joan. For this deed, he receives one day a
year out of Hell.
Summary and Analysis The Preface
Shaw often writes a lengthy preface to
his plays for his readers in which he will comment on matters in the play or
matters relevant to it. The Preface to Saint Joan is one of Shaw's longer ones
and presents again many of his views of the personage of Joan from a more
objective point of view. The Preface is divided into forty-one sub-sections,
which could be loosely divided into the following categories for discussion:
(A) Sections 1-16: Various Views of the
Historical Joan: Shaw sees Joan, ironically, as one of
the first Protestant martyrs and as a forerunner of equality for women; Joan
was burned as a heretic, thus martyred, for two primary reasons: (1) even
though Joan never denied the Church and she was, in essence, the "first
Protestant" because she listened to the dictates of her own conscience and
her own reasoning rather than to the authority of the Church; (2) she was
"the pioneer of rational dressing for women," yet for this so-called
unwomanly and, thus, unnatural act, she was burnt at the stake.
Joan was innocent in all things. She was like
Socrates in that she was able to humiliate, without intending to do so, all
kinds of people in high authority. It is extremely dangerous to publicly expose
the ignorance of people in authority, and, for this, Joan and Socrates were put
to death.
(B) Sections 17-21: Misrepresentations of Joan
in Literature and in Relation to Medieval Society and the Medieval Church: Joan
has inspired others to write about her and to ascribe to her all sorts of
qualities which are not always historically true, and also to interpret her
actions in various ways throughout the centuries. From Shakespeare through
Voltaire, from Schiller to Mark Twain, and from Anatole France and others, Joan
and her trials have been the source for writers to interpret her fate,
according to the age in which the writer lived. None, however, have depicted
her accurately; all writers are victims of their own prejudices as Shaw says:
"… to see her in her proper perspective, you must understand Christendom
and the Catholic Church, the Holy Roman Empire, and the Feudal System as they
existed and were understood in the Middle Ages."
(C) Sections 22-34: The Nature of Joan's Death
in Relation to Modern Acts of Inhumanity: Joan's
burning at the stake was "just as dozens of less interesting heretics were
burnt in her time." Shaw then cites several examples of inhumane and cruel
punishments being practiced today. The world today is no closer to accepting a
genius — or a saint — than was Joan's world.
(D) Sections 35-41: The Nature of Historical
Drama and Saint Joan viewed as a Tragedy: The
problems and the "stage limits" of writing a historical play and
compares Shakespeare's historical dramas with his own. Actually, Shakespeare
never attempted to deal with the larger forces of the law and religion and
patriotism that cause people to act as they do. Shaw has one advantage over
other, earlier writers: He is, chronologically, further away and, therefore, is
able to have a more complete view of the Middle Ages. Shaw also maintains that
his play is a tragedy, not a melodrama; there
are no villains in Saint Joan, only characters caught in their
historical period. If the play showed Joan burned at the stake, then an
Epilogue is needed to show her canonized.
Act wise/scene wise Summary
Scene I
The scene takes place in the spring of
the year 1429 A.D. in the castle of Captain Robert de Baudricourt, a "handsome and physically energetic" man with
"no will of his own." Sir Robert is blustering about
because there are no eggs. His steward maintains that it is an "act of
God" and that the hens will not lay because "there is a spell on us:
we are bewitched . . . as long as The Maid is at the door." Sir Robert is
thunderstruck that The Maid from Lorraine is still outside because he dismissed
her two days ago, but we hear that she will not leave until Sir Robert grants
her an interview. In a blustering manner, he goes to the window and orders her
to come up.
When Joan enters, she is seen to be a
sixteen- or seventeen-year-old able-bodied country girl. She immediately
informs Sir Robert that he is ordered to give her a horse, armor, and some
soldiers, and that he must send her to the Dauphin. Sir Robert is offended that
anyone would dare to give him orders, and he is astonished to find out that the
"lord" who sent the orders is the "Lord of Heaven."
He immediately assumes that the girl
is mad. She then tells him exactly the costs of the armor and the horses and
that she will not need many soldiers because the Dauphin will provide her with
enough soldiers to "raise the siege of Orleans." The voices of Saints Catherine and Margaret have spoken to
her and told her that this is to be so. Furthermore, she lets Sir Robert know
that some of his noblemen, such as Bertrand de Poulengey (Polly) is anxious to
go with her. Hearing this, Sir Robert dismisses The Maid and sends for
"Polly."
Sir Robert first chastises Polly about
a possible sexual liaison, but he is completely assured that nothing of the
sort exists. Nevertheless, The Maid, states Sir Robert, is a "country
girl," a "bourgeoise," and is apparently mad. Poulengey,
however, reviews the military position: The English (along with their French
allies, the Burgundians) hold over half of France; the Dauphin is trapped
"like a rat in a corner"
and does nothing; even The Bastard (Dunois) cannot save Orleans; thus, what is
needed is a miracle: As Poulengey says, "We
want a few mad people now. See where the sane ones have landed us!"
When Poulengey volunteers to pay for the horse, Sir Robert begins to waver and
thus sends once more for The Maid.
Robert is skeptical about her voices:
JOAN: …you must
not talk to me about my voices.
ROBERT: …How do
you mean? Voices?
JOAN: I hear
voices telling me what to do. They come from God.
ROBERT: They come
from your imagination.
When questioned, Joan maintains that
she is following the instructions of her "voices"which tell her that
the English "are only men" and that they must be forced to return to
"their own country and their own
language." She asserts that Sir Robert will live to see the
day "when there will not be an English
soldier on the soil of France" and when there will be one
king — "God's French one."
Sir Robert is finally convinced; he
believes that the troops and, ultimately, the Dauphin "might swallow"
Joan's conviction and her dedication; maybe even the Dauphin might take courage
from Joan's determination. At least, it is worth a try. He thus orders Joan to
go to Chinon under Poulengey's escort; she is given a soldier's armor, and she
dashes off ecstatically. Sir Robert then admits that "There is something about her." The scene
ends with the ”hens laying like mad."
Scene II
The scene is set in the antechamber of
the throne room of the Dauphin's castle in Chinon. The Archbishop of Rheims and
la Trémouille are discussing the huge sums of money that the Dauphin has
borrowed from them, and yet the Dauphin is still on the verge of poverty when
young Gilles de Rais, better known as Bluebeard, enters and reports that The
Maid has had a tremendous effect on the common soldiers; this is confirmed by
Captain La Hire, who believes that Joan must be "an angel dressed as a soldier,"
especially since she has overcome impossible odds even to get to Chinon.
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