Page 288 - DENG403_BRITISH_DRAMA

British Drama

Notes Self Assessment

Multiple Choice Questions:
1. Immediately upon meeting Baudricourt Saint Joan asks him supply her with
(a) horse, armor, and troops
(b) extra troops and foods for the soldier
(c) horse, armor and troops for a rescue operation
(d) back supply and extra troops for military expedition.
2. The scene III dramatizes the turning point of
(a) Second World War (b) battle of Orleans
(c) the battle of French with the British (d) The First World War.
Fill in the blanks:
3. Charles the Dauphin and his court are at the central French town of ...... .
4. What persuades Baudricourt to support Joan is her appeal to ...... .
State whether the following statements are true or false:
5. Shaw praises Joan as “very capable” and “a born boss,” but reminds us that she was, after
all, an adolescent girl.
6. Scene III raises the question of how much Joan is actually commanding the situation around
her, and how much others are using her to advance their own agenda.
7. The chronology of the play advances by almost two months, to Orleans on April 29, 1429,
the date on which French forces, led by Joan, entered the city.

23.5 Scene IV

23.5.1 Summary

Several battles after Joan and Dunois recaptured Orleans, Richard de Beauchamp, the Earl of
Warwick; and Chaplain Stogumber are in a tent in an English camp. Stogumber is most distressed
at seeing English forces defeated abroad. Warwick (he is referred to by his title) cannot quite
understand the priest’s self-identification as an “Englishman,” but he does understand that such
burgeoning nationalism is a threat to both Stogumber’s ecclesiastical authority and his own authority
as a feudal lord. To reassure Stogumber, however, that Joan’s campaign will not ultimately succeed,
Warwick shares with the chaplain plans to get Joan under English control: “Some of Charles’s people
will sell her to the Burgundians; the Burgundians will sell her to us.”
The chaplain and the nobleman receive a visitor: Cauchon, the Bishop of Beauvais. Warwick tells
Cauchon that Stogumber believes Joan to be a witch, and suggests that Cauchon would have to turn
Joan over to the Inquisition “and have her burnt for that offence.” While the chaplain points to
Joan’s recovery on the battlefield at Orleans from what seemed to be a mortal wound, as well as to
the very fact that her forces have bested those of the English, as evidence of her sorcery, Cauchon
has a different opinion of the Maid: “She is not a witch. She is a heretic.” He believes the Devil is
using Joan to strike, not against the English nation, but against the whole Catholic Church-indeed,
against “the souls of the entire human race.”
Warwick mistakenly believes that the bishop is already disposed to help him find a way of killing
Joan; with much indignation, Cauchon announces that he is no puppet. “You great lords are too

282 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY