Sanity vs. Madness Theme Analysis

Characters throughout Saint Joan call Joan mad and question the legitimacy of her claim that she acts on God’s will as it is conveyed to her through the voices of Saint Catherine, Saint Margaret, and the archangel Michael. In the preface to Saint Joan, Shaw observes that “The test of sanity is not the normality of the method but the reasonableness of the discovery.” But how does one assess normalcy? Throughout Saint Joan, Shaw emphasizes that it was not Joan’s visions that so enraged and offended her accusers but, rather, the subversive instructions her visions contained. Had Joan’s visions upheld the Church’s ideals—or, had Joan appealed to her enemies wearing conventionally feminine clothing—it’s possible that her accusers would have been more sympathetic toward her. But the instructions her voices pass along to her—to take Orleans, to establish a new kingdom governed not by individual kings and lords but by one, divinely sanctioned King—threaten the current social and political orders. Further, the notion that Joan could be able to hear and understand God on her own contradicts core tenets of the Catholic Church. Joan’s accusers deny her voices’ validity because the philosophies they propose contradict their own views, threaten their hold on power, and upend the status quo. With this, the play emphasizes that madness isn’t an essential state but a reflection of how a society wants its citizens to behave.

Religious, political, and military figures deem Joan mad because she acts in ways that threaten the political, religious, and social institutions around which medieval society is structured; once the reader considers Joan outside of her social and spiritual context, however, it becomes clear that she is an exceptionally rational character. Joan’s decision to dress in men’s clothing is insane because it resists conventional gender roles. In addition to this, her accusers deem the voices she hears as a symptom of madness because the voices suggest that individuals hold the power to hear and understand God without the Church’s aid, which threatens the Church’s hold on power. In reality, however, Joan’s actions are often highly logical. Her military strategies might be bold and her words and actions extreme, but most everything she does is calculated and reflects her soundness of mind. One example of Joan’s rationality is the decision she makes at her trial to recant her acts of heresy after she learns that she will be immediately burned at the stake should she refuse. Joan stands behind her convictions, but not to the point of madness—she recognizes her punishment for the gruesome, tortuous thing that it is. In Saint Joan’s preface, Shaw states of Joan’s decision to recant that “Nothing could be more sane or practical.” Joan’s subsequent decision to then reject her recantation demonstrates another act of reasoning and rationality: she weighs the costs and benefits of the two unpleasant options available to her and decides that dying is preferable to spending the rest of her days rotting in jail.

Joan’s accusers and skeptics only acknowledge her goodness and their own cruel and misguided treatment of her after learning that the Catholic Church has canonized her 500 years after her execution, suggesting that Joan can only be considered sane and virtuous once she is no longer alive and able to disrupt social norms. In the Epilogue, which takes place years after the trial, in 1456, Charles VII lies in bed reading. Ladvenu, a priest who was at Joan’s trial and feels sympathetically toward her, enters Charles’s bedroom to announce that Joan’s conviction has been reversed. Shortly after, Joan’s ghost appears before King Charles. As Charles informs Joan that the Church has cleared her name, the spirits of her accusers appear before her. The final apparition to appear is that of a gentleman from the 1920s who informs them all that the Catholic Church “has finally declared [Joan] to have been endowed with heroic virtues and favored with private revelations, and calls the said Venerable and Blessed Joan to the communion of the Church Triumphant as Saint Joan.” Five hundred years later, the Church’s political and social obligations have changed, and only then can Joan’s “private revelations” be deemed saintly instead of insane and heretical. Following the gentleman’s announcement, each spirit kneels and praises Saint Joan, as her new sane, saintly status relieves them of having to live with their earlier cruelties. The Archbishop announces: “The princes of the Church praise thee, because thou hast cut the knots in which they have tied their own souls.” Each of the other apparitions then take turns lauding Joan. Because society now acknowledges her sanity, they, too, can do so without the risk of upsetting the status quo.

But when Joan suddenly asks whether she should rise from the dead and join them (she’s a saint now, so she can perform miracles), each of the apparitions makes sudden excuses and disappears. The apparitions’ acceptance of Joan’s sanity is limited to the spiritual, symbolic realm; they remain unable to accept her sanity in the temporal world, where it could have real consequences on the social order. Warwick, for example, states that “[they all] sincerely regret [their] little mistake; but political necessities, though occasionally erroneous, are still imperative.” Warwick and the others are willing to accept Joan retroactively, but for her to return from the dead would symbolically reverse society’s earlier condemnation of her madness and her heresy. To reverse this condemnation would be to question the power of institutions and the sanity of the status quo, itself.

Left alone after all of the apparitions have vanished, Joan cries out: “O God that madest this beautiful earth, when will it be ready to receive Thy saints? How long, O lord, how long?” and the play ends. Explicitly, Joan’s question remains unanswered, but the supposedly repentant apparitions’ desertion of Joan suggests that the world will never “be ready to receive [its] saints.” Saints like Joan who threaten society’s institutions can never be accepted in their lifetime, as these institutions—and the individuals who subscribe to them—will always place more value on maintaining the status quo. Joan can only be deemed sane once she is dead and her rebellious “insanity” is no longer a threat to social norms.