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Unit 23: Saint Joan: Detailed Analysis of the Text

prone to treat The Church as a mere political convenience. [T]he soul of this village girl is of equal Notes
value with yours or your king’s before the throne of God; and my first duty is to save it.” He does
not deny, however, that he can divide Joan’s spiritual fate from her temporal one, and that, if she is
declared to be excommunicated from the Church, she could be handed over to the temporal
authorities for such punishment as those authorities deem fit. In response, Warwick suggests that
“the practical problem would seem to be how to save her soul without saving her body.” At first,
Cauchon is primarily angry about the way Joan sets herself above the Church; but Warwick argues
that Joan is equally as much a threat to “the temporal power,” the aristocracy. In short, Joan proposes
“a transaction which would wreck the whole social structure of Christendom.” Joan is a “Protestant.”
In the end, all three men agree that-alluding to John 11:50, knowingly or not-”[i]t is expedient that
one woman die for the people.”

23.5.2 Analysis

The wind has changed in more senses than the literal. With Scene IV, Shaw’s play reaches a turning
point as Joan’s campaign did with Scene III. Until this point, Shaw has focused on Joan’s supporters.
Now, her opponents take the stage. Ironically, representatives of the two great, opposing armies of
England and France find common ground, though for different reasons, in their desire to see Joan’s
cause brought to an end. Scene IV thus offers further, ample evidence of Shaw’s technique (which
he announced in his preface) of having characters speak as though they possessed the one-step-
removed, dispassionate understanding of their own time and situation that Shaw possesses.
Cauchon’s assessment of Joan as a heretic rather than a witch, for example, shows that the bishop
understands the true nature of the alleged threat that Joan represents: the threats of proto-
Protestantism that undercuts the Church’s magisterial authority, and of fledgling Nationalism that
undercuts the authority of the medieval feudal system. The historical Cauchon would not, of course,
have spoken in such terms; but Shaw enables his theatrical Cauchon to do so in order to dramatize
the interplay of these various social forces.
In keeping with the spirit of Shaw’s preface, which continually forces the modern era to justify its
(in Shaw’s eyes unjustifiable) sense of superiority to the Middle Ages, readers may choose to reflect
on Cauchon’s comment that, in a world where Joan’s individualistic “Protestantism” becomes the
spirit of the age, life will be filled with more blood, fury, and devastation. How many times have
these terms proved apt to describe the post-medieval course of human civilization, especially in the
20th century in the early years of which Shaw was writing Saint Joan, having just witnessed the
disillusioning horrors of World War I? To be sure, few, if any, in 21st century American society
would choose to live under the structures of feudal aristocracy and medieval ecclesiastical power.
Even so, we might pause to ask if our society could benefit from some arrangement in which “the
individual soul” is not the ultimate seat of authority. Readers may ask: What institutions, if any,
possess the potential of unifying society without crushing individual freedom and responsibility?
Can the two goals be mutually achieved, or must they always remain in tension and, if so, how can
the tension be a creative one?

The word “Protestant,” applied to Joan not only in this scene but also in the preface,
was an originally pejorative term (as it is in Warwick’s speech) that did not arise until the 16th
century. In its essential meaning, however—literally, one who protests—it is applicable not
only to Joan but also to Hus and Wycliffe, whom Cauchon mentions.

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