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Summary
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Saint Joan, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Institutions and the Corruption of Integrity
Gender
Sanity vs. Madness
The Quest for Personal Knowledge
Summary
Analysis
It’s a spring morning in 1429 at the castle of Vaucouleurs. Captain Robert de Baudricourt, an irritable, apathetic military squire, sits at an oak table in one of the castle’s chambers and berates his steward for the hens’ refusal to lay eggs. The steward replies that the hens won’t lay eggs and the cows won’t produce milk because “there is a spell on [them] since the arrival of “The Maid” at Vaucouleurs. For the past two days, a girl from Lorraine has been sitting outside the castle waiting to speak with Baudricourt, and she refuses to leave until he sees her. Baudricourt condemns her “impudence.”
By seating Baudricourt at the table, Shaw reinforces both his position as a nobleman and his ties to French political institutions. In contrast, the hens symbolize the natural world. When the steward suggests that the hens won’t lay eggs until Baudricourt agrees to see Joan, he aligns Joan with nature, thereby setting the groundwork for her anti-institutional positions toward matters of religion and politics.
Active
Themes
Baudricourt has instructed his steward to throw the Maid out, but the steward insists that her “positive” demeanor prevents him from doing so. The steward tells Baudricourt that the Maid is in the courtyard talking to soldiers, something she does frequently when she isn’t praying. Baudricourt scoffs at this, insinuating that she is talking to the soldiers in order to proposition them.
Joan’s “positive” demeanor sets her apart from many of the other characters of Saint Joan. Because Joan answers to no one but herself—she honors no obligation to answer to the Church or the nobility—she projects this air of positivity, self-assurance, and integrity that many other characters lack. Joan’s integrity is inconceivable to characters like Baudricourt who assume that Joan must have ulterior motives. Baudricourt’s demonstrates his skepticism when he assumes Joan’s motives for engaging with the soldiers are immoral rather than practical or earnest.
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Baudricourt calls out the window to the Maid and summons her inside. The Maid—Joan of Arc—appears in the doorway. She is 17 or 18 years old, sturdily built, and has “an uncommon face” with wideset, large eyes. When she addresses Baudricourt, she speaks confidently, demanding that he give her a horse, armor, soldiers, and that he send her to the Dauphin. The Lord has given her these orders, she claims. This angers Baudricourt, who insists that Joan return to her “Lord,” for Baudricourt takes orders only from the king. Joan clarifies: “my Lord is the King of Heaven.”
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Although Baudricourt calls Joan mad, she refuses to back down. She needs Baudricourt to give her supplies and send her to the Dauphin so that she can drive the English out of Orleans and restore French control of the territory. Baudricourt balks at this ambitious project, but Joan insists that she is merely acting on God’s instruction. She doesn’t need many soldiers, anyway, and "Polly" and "Jack" have already agreed to go with her. Baudricourt is scandalized that Joan would refer to Squire Betrand de Poulengey and Monsieur John of Metz so informally. Joan doesn’t see a problem with the familiarity, though, because that’s what their friends call them.
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Themes
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Joan explains that she’s organized everything—Baudricourt need only grant her permission to be off; what’s more, if he signs off on her journey, Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret, with whom Joan speaks regularly, will assure Baudricourt a place in heaven.
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Baudricourt dismisses Joan and sends for Monsieur de Poulengey. Poulengey enters and Baudricourt warns Poulengey about Joan’s background: she’s a bourgeoise. Her father isn’t a gentleman, but he’s not a laborer, either. Though he doesn’t have any direct power, his connections could “give a lot of bother to the authorities,” therefore it’s important to Baudricourt that Polly not get Joan “into trouble.” Poulengey insists that he has no dishonorable intentions for Joan. Baudricourt is aghast and can’t imagine why else the soldiers would have offered to accompany Joan to the Dauphin. Poulengey insists that there’s just “something about her.”
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Themes
Baudricourt tells Poulengey to be practical, but Poulengey replies that it would be most practical for the French to align themselves with “the Duke of Burgundy and the English king.” The English control over half the country, including Paris and this castle, which Baudricourt is “only holding […] on parole.” The Dauphin refuses to fight back, however, and his command over the French is weak at best: nobody respects him, as his own mother has insinuated that he’s illegitimate. France’s situation is so dire, Poulengey argues, that only thing that can save it is a miracle, and he believes that Joan can work miracles. On these grounds, Poulengey insists that Baudricourt pledge allegiance to the girl.
The men call for Joan to return and they interrogate her about the voices of saints she claims to hear in her head, and which provide her with instructions for how to act and in what to believe. She tells them that she doesn’t talk to them in the way she does other people. Baudricourt suggests that they’re only her imagination, which she agrees with, but only because “that is how the messages of God come to us.” She reiterates the messages God has sent to her: to stop the siege of Orleans, to crown the Dauphin, and to drive the English out of France. She knows fighting won’t be easy, but she is confident that God is on her side. The English are only men, and because God “gave them their own country and their own language,” they must be expelled from France.
Baudricourt finds Joan’s confidence ludicrous, emphasizing the strength and determination of the English soldiers. Joan counters this, reasoning that because she has God on her side, the French will be successful in battle. Although he remains skeptical, Baudricourt agrees to send Joan and her three soldiers to Chinon to see the Dauphin. Immediately after they leave, the steward runs into Baudricourt’s chamber to announce that the hens are laying eggs again. Baudricourt sees this as evidence that Joan was truly sent from God.
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Literary Devices
