Previous
Tables
Shaw uses Joan’s armor and male attire to emphasize how boldly and incessantly Joan subverts the misogynist norms embraced by medieval society. Joan’s armor—and, more generally, her decision to wear men’s clothing—is a frequent point of contention for Saint Joan’s male characters. During Joan’s trial, for example, the Inquisitor goes so far as to suggest that the act against nature Joan demonstrates in her decision to don male clothing is as grave a sin as heresy. Joan’s armor also symbolizes her practicality, as evidenced by the fact that her reasons for wearing it are often as pragmatic as they are rebellious Armor is practical for Joan’s military pursuits because it protects her from the violence of warfare. Further, if Joan is to live among other soldiers, it is imperative that they see her as an equal. Wearing armor and men’s clothing renders her more visibly equal to her male counterparts. Throughout the play, characters often suggest that Joan is mad and capricious but, in reality, most of her decisions are practical and highly calculated. When Shaw references Joan’s armor or male attire in Saint Joan, he reinforces Joan’s practicality and alerts the reader to the falsity of these claims.
Joan’s Armor Quotes in Saint Joan
The Saint Joan quotes below all refer to the symbol of Joan’s Armor . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Scene 1
Quotes
ROBERT. How do you mean? voices?
JOAN. I hear voices telling me what to do. They come from God.
ROBERT. They come from your imagination.
JOAN. Of course. That is how the messages of God come to us.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Scene 3
Quotes
DUNOIS. I, God forgive me, am a little in love with war myself, the ugly devil! I am like a man with two wives. Do you want to be like a woman with two husbands?
JOAN. [matter-of-fact] I will never take a husband. A man in Toul took action against me for breach of promise; but I never promised him. I am a soldier: I do not want to be thought of as a woman. I will not dress as a woman. I do not care for the things women care for. They dream of lovers, and money. I dream of leading a charge, and of placing the big guns.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Scene 6
Quotes
“But to shut me from the light of the sky and the sight of the fields and flowers; to chain my feet so that I can never again ride with the soldiers nor climb the hills; to make me breathe foul damp darkness, and keep me from everything that brings me back to the love of God when your wickedness and foolishness tempt me to hate Him: all this is worse than the furnace in the Bible that was heated seven times. I could do without my warhorse; I could drag about in a skirt; I could let the banners and the trumpets and the knights and soldiers pass me and leave me behind as they leave the other women, if only I could still hear the wind in the trees, the larks in the sunshine, the young lambs crying through the healthy frost, and the blessed blessed church bells that send my angel voices floating to me on the wind.”
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Saint Joan LitChart as a printable PDF.
Joan’s Armor Symbol Timeline in Saint Joan
The timeline below shows where the symbol Joan’s Armor appears in Saint Joan. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Scene 1
...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...
(full context)
Scene 4
...with putting Joan to death on the basis that she “rebels against Nature” by wearing men’s clothing . In the end, the three men agree that Joan must be stopped.
(full context)
Scene 5
An organ plays in the cathedral of Rheims after Charles’s coronation. Joan, dressed in men’s clothing , kneels before the stations of the cross displayed on a pillar. Dunois enters and...
(full context)
Scene 6
...courtroom and lead her to her wooden stool. She is in chains and wears a page’s suit . A long imprisonment has taken a toll on her, but she still appears vibrant...
(full context)
...that Joan’s two biggest crimes are acting on behalf of “evil spirits” and dressing in men’s clothing , which is “indecent, unnatural, and abominable.”
(full context)
...and she insists that she does. The Inquisitor asks Joan if she will remove her men’s clothing , but she refuses, as her voices tell her to dress like a soldier. Ladvenu...
(full context)
...to save her life, but imprisonment wouldn’t be life to her. She could give up men’s clothing and warfare, but she can’t bear being separated from “the wind in the trees, the...
(full context)
