Gender Theme Analysis

Although Shaw maintains that Joan of Arc’s trial was fairer and more partial than previous fictitious interpretations of it would suggest, he also illustrates how significantly Joan’s gender influenced the way her accusers and allies alike perceived of her character and actions. Joan’s trial might have been fair in the sense that she was given ample opportunity to recant and repent, but Shaw’s rhetorical choices throughout Saint Joan suggest that the accusations brought against her in the first place were worsened or exaggerated as a result of male characters’ gender bias. In a multitude of ways—such as the notable absence of women throughout the play, and through male characters’ tendency to portray Joan’s self-assuredness as disobedience and shameful pride—Shaw highlights the gender bias and sexist conventions of the Middle Ages. He thus upholds Joan as a rebel unwilling to yield to the life society handed her as a woman, even in the face of death.

Shaw first introduces the notion that gender inequality and sexism are at play in Joan’s society through Saint Joan’s notable absence of female characters. With the exception of the very brief, unremarkable appearance of the Duchess de la Trémouille in Scene II, Joan is the play’s sole female character. And though two of the three saints with whom Joan supposedly communicates are women—Saint Catharine and Saint Margaret—the reality is that these female saints exist only as voices, rendering them invisible to the male characters in the play, as well as to the reader. In addition to being invisible, Saint Catharine and Saint Margaret’s “voices” are effectively silenced, as they are only ever conveyed, secondhand, through Joan. Shaw purposely erases women from Saint Joan in order to emphasize how male-dominated Joan’s society was and, subsequently, to illustrate how extreme and unheard of her decision to rebel against gender norms would have been during this time.

Gender inequality may also be observed in the many characters who recast Joan’s self-assurance as disobedience and shameful pride. Regnault de Chartres, the Archbishop of Rheims, adamantly and repeatedly warns Joan that she is likely guilty of the deadly sin of pride. In the aftermath of the French victory at Orleans and King Charles VII’s subsequent consecration, Joan tells King Charles that she would like to continue fighting and take Paris, and that she knows it is God’s will that they do so. In response, the Archbishop condemns Joan for feeling so assured that she can know God’s will with such unceasingly certainty: “When you first came you respected [God’s will], and would not have dared to speak as you are not speaking,” he says. “You came clothed with the virtue of humility; and because God blessed your enterprises accordingly, you have stained yourself with the sin of pride. The old Greek tragedy is rising among us. It is the chastisement of hubris”  Joan’s confidence and military prowess resulted in a military victory for the French, but this matters little to the Archbishop. To him, Joan’s self-assuredness is sinful and unladylike. He regards her forwardness as inappropriate, and the problematic nature of this outweighs the military victories Joan’s confidence has made possible. The Archbishop’s disapproval of Joan is first and foremost religious, of course—it is a sin for an individual to claim they can speak on behalf of God—but it’s worth noting that he does not condemn other arrogant characters, such as the Lord Chamberlain, Monseigneur de la Trémouille, for their pride in the way he does Joan.

In response to a society bent on making her invisible and men who refuse to take her seriously, Joan rebels relentlessly, subverting gender norms through her physical appearance and rebellious actions. Joan insists on dressing in armor, despite society’s position that it is to “rebel[] against Nature by wearing man’s clothes, and fighting,” according to John de Stogumber, the English Chaplain. Her inner voices instruct her to fight, and to fight she must wear armor. In this way, her decision to don men’s gear may be seen as a metaphorical representation of her rebellion against gender norms. The male characters in Saint Joan repeatedly deride Joan and refuse to take her seriously. In turn, she responds with an opposite, equal irreverence. Joan declines to respect the formal titles of her male counterparts, referring to them colloquially, as an equal. For example, she calls the French gentleman-at-arms Bertrand de Poulengey by his nickname, “Polly,” and to the Dauphin (who will later become King Charles VII) as “Charlie.” If Joan asserts herself as an equal by speaking informally with the men she likes, she resists subjugation at the hands of her enemies by belittling and talking back to them. During her trial for heresy, for example, she calls Thomas de Courcelles, Canon of Paris “a rare noodle” when he criticizes Cauchon’s intent to thoroughly question Joan rather than “proceed[ing] on forced confessions.” In court, Joan rejects the charges brought against her with what Cauchon refers to as “pert answers” despite the very real consequence of death this presents for her. Joan defends herself unceasingly, preferring to respond to her accusers with “pert answers” rather than relinquish her beliefs in order to assume the subservient role the world has given her and secure her mortal safety. Despite the severe accusations brought against her in court, she refuses to abandon her principles or alter her actions to conform with society’s expectations of how a young woman should behave.