Would you call Saint Joan a
religious play? Argue your answer.
In a comprehensive sense, the
word “religion” can be interpreted as an ardent belief, a noble cause or a
fundamental principle to which the votary holds with great ardour and
undeviating faith. Service and worship of God or any supernatural being as well
as devout adherence to a set of ritualistic activities and ceremonial
performances are also implied in it.
Joan
Essentially Religious
Having the spark of divinity
amply present in her, the Maid is essentially a religious person and since the
play has Saint Joan as its heroine, it cannot but be called a religious play.
How far the dramatist has developed this idea of religiosity is the only thing
to be considered in the analysis of Saint Joan as a religious play. Shaw has
portrayed adequately the divine inspiration that Joan had. Her frequent hearing
of certain “Voices” which she sincerely believed to be the messages from God
has been dealt with in all scenes of the play by Shaw with sympathetic
consideration. He was of the view that the inspirations and institutions and unconsciously
reasoned conclusions of genius sometimes assume these illusions. In his
opinion, Joan must be judged a sane woman irrespective of how one interprets
her “Voices” because her policy and the details of her strategic procedure in the
implementation of the divine command were sound and result- oriented. Raising
the siege of Orleans, coronation of the Dauphin, etc., were her profound
military and political master-strokes despite the fact that she had the inspiration
for it through her “Voices” and communion with the Saints Catherine, Margaret,
Michael etc.
Life
force and the Evolutionary Appetite
When Shaw refers to God, we must
take it to mean what he himself has explained in different contexts as “Life Force”.
According to him there are some natural forces at work use individuals for
purposes that far transcend the everyday actions of eating, drinking and
enjoying life in various ways. There are many men of great genius engaged in
the pursuit of knowledge which may not be immediately beneficial to them
personally. Further that pursuit may involve them in chill penury, facing of
starvation, infamy, exile, imprisonment and other dreadful hardships. They
become ready to sacrifice much for the sake of gaining insight into the
mysteries of the Universe, enabling us to extend our power over nature. This
appetite for knowledge is different from the personal appetite. Shaw calls it
evolutionary appetite based on a super personal need. The rationalist and the
materialist historian may feel obliged to call Joan crazy or mendacious but, in
reality, though she was an illiterate village girl, she had a more vivid
imagination than many others including learned theologians and sagacious statesmen
and politically conscious Peers.
