Page 277 - DENG403_BRITISH_DRAMA

Unit 22: G. B. Shaw: Saint Joan— Introduction to the Author and the Text

the Archbishop, and Dunois to press on and liberate the capital city. When they refuse she says Notes
she’ll just do it without them. They tell her that, if she gets captured, they’ll do nothing to help her
escape.
Joan gets captured and put on trial for heresy. Sure enough, her “friends” do nothing to rescue her.
The Bishop Cauchon, true to his word, does everything he can to try and save her. He’s helped in
this effort by the Inquisitor. It proves to be impossible, though, because Joan’s personal beliefs just
don’t jive with the Church’s. She thinks God’s messengers speak to her directly. They think God’s
voice on Earth is the Church and the Church alone; meaning the voices she hears must be demons.
They also just can’t handle with her wearing men’s clothes. She absolutely refuses to dress like a
woman as long as she’s a soldier. In the end, they’re forced to condemn her to death.
Twenty-five years later King Charles has a dream, in which Joan and good number of the other
characters show up to have a chat in his royal bedroom. We learn the fate of everybody and, more
importantly, we learn of Joan’s legacy. King Charles now rules all of France. He set up a hearing to
have her name cleared. We also learn from a time-traveling cleric that, many years afterward, Joan
was made a saint by the Catholic Church. Everybody tells Joan how awesome she is and how they’re
sorry that they sold her out. Joan says, great, now can I come back to Earth as living person again?
No way, says everybody and they all make excuses to exit the dream.
At the end of the play, Joan is left alone in a pool of light. She asks God when the world will be
ready to accept saints like her.

Self Assessment
Multiple Choice Questions:
7. George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan was first produced in New York City in 1923 and in London
in 1924. Shaw published it with
(a) a long preface (b) a long epilogue
(c) detailed scenes (d) seven scenes.
8. Twenty-five years later King Charles has a dream, in which Joan and good number of the
other characters show up to have
(a) a chat in the battle (b) a chat in his royal bedroom
(c) a chat in the hundred year war (d) a chat in the battlefield of Orelon.
Fill in the blanks:
9. Michael Holroyd has characterised the play as a tragedy without ...... .
10. Joan gets captured and put on trial for ...... .
State whether the following statements are true or false:
11. There are no villains in the play Saint Joan.
12. Shaw start thinking about Joan of Arc in 1923 and write the play the same year.

22.3 Summary

• George Bernard Shaw was born in Synge Street, Dublin, in 1856 to George Carr Shaw (1814–85),
an unsuccessful grain merchant and sometime civil servant, and Lucinda Elizabeth Shaw.
• Shaw briefly attended the Wesley College, Dublin, a grammar school operated by the Methodist
Church in Ireland, before moving to a private school near Dalkey and then transferring to
Dublin’s Central Model School.
• When his mother left home and followed her voice teacher, George Vandeleur Lee, to London,
Shaw was almost sixteen years old. His sisters accompanied their mother but Shaw remained
in Dublin with his father, first as a reluctant pupil, then as a clerk in an estate office.

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