Joan of Arc in French History - Research Paper Example

? Joan of Arc of Joan of Arc Joan of Arc is one of the most important figures in French history. She is one of the most hotly debated characters in history. There are several versions of the role that she played during the Hundred Years War between France and England. Today, however, historians agree that the role that she played during the war led to a significant turnaround in the tactics that were employed by the French. The focus that Joan of Arc lent to the campaign also meant that many of the battles that were considered to have been lost were retrieved and a new hope was awakened amongst the masses of France. They again felt that they would be able to hold on to the sovereignty of their nation and have their own king on the throne. Joan of Arc lived her life according to what she felt was the dictate of God. What she did was based on the visions that she had when she was a child living in a village of France. Her rise to power in France was thus meteoric. Her death however, was equally tragic. A gruesome death at the hands of the English Church was hardly what she deserved after the pains that she took for the sake of her motherland, France. Following her death, her memory was recovered and she has now entered into public consciousness through literature and various other sources. This paper shall seek to understand her position as a woman in the fifteenth century and attempt to answer the question as to whether this position affected the different choices that Joan of Arc took. Joan of Arc’s entry into French politics is looked upon with great surprise by many who are familiar with the condition that women found themselves during the fifteenth century in France and for that matter, anywhere in the world. This is not a pointer to the immense clout that Joan of Arc wielded at this point, right at the beginning of her career, but to the condition that France found herself in. in this sense, Joan’s rise was propelled to a certain extent by the conditions that she found in France at a certain point in time. Certain historians leave the story here and do not analyze the individuality of Joan that led her to fight her way from a situation that would have appeared to be equally lacking in promise. She however, looked at the situation where the Count of Dunois had led France to and sought to reverse it. The siege of Orleans had started to look like a hopeless affair as far as the French were concerned. The siege which had continued for over seven months had started to look ominous from the French point of view. This condition was changed to a large extent with the point where Joan of Arc enters the history of the Hundred Years War. Her journey to meet the Dauphin was the catalyst behind the revival of the French hopes as far as the continuance of their resistance was concerned (Pernoud 1999, 9-11)1. This journey was an uncommon one for any woman to undertake and this was the beginning of her breaking various stereotypes that are often assigned to women. This was a breaking of a barrier of customs that did not have such a precedent. Joan of Arc thus set an example for those who were to follow her, providing them with an example of initiative. In the twenty first century, there are many women who are lauded for their political initiative and courage. One needs to remember that Joan of Arc’s actions were taken in a conservative society where women were given much less freedom than they are in today’s society. This makes her achievement all the more praiseworthy. Calling her the “Ideal Androgyne”, Marina Warner talks of Joan’s transvestism2 (1981, 140). Wearing clothes that were traditionally worn by men was something that Joan had to resort to so as to protect herself from sexual advances by male soldiers of both camps. This points to the condition that women had to face in society at the point of time when Joan was active. The importance of this lies in the fact that even a person who was powerful in the larger 1. Pernoud Marie-Veronique Clin, Regine. (1999). Joan of Arc: Her Story. Tr. Jeremy duQuesnay Adams. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Print. 9-11. 2. Warner, Marina. (1981). Joan of Arc: The Image of Female Heroism. California: University of California Press. Print. 140. scheme of events could not be said to be free from the advances by men. Physical power was all that was considered important in such a setup. It was from such an environment that Joan of Arc rose to prominence, an environment where she was made to conceal even her identityas a woman. This was due to the pressures that she felt as a woman and her fears of being molested. This was not an easy choice for Joan to make as can be seen in the questions that were asked her during the trial that she faced. There are several controversies regarding whether she felt a certain kind of remorse at having attired herself as a man. This then points to religious debates around the same. The Bible, however, explicitly forbids any form of cross-dressing that violates what it considers the natural distinctions between man and woman. These distinctions, according to the Bible, need to be preserved at all costs. This is one of the laws that were broken by Joan of Arc, according to the team that was to try her. She was therefore pronounced a heretic and sentenced to the gallows. One is reminded of Simone de Beauvoir’s theories of sex and gender that made it clear that gender roles were what were used to create identities and not biological sexual roles of a person (2000, 4-8)3. This can then be tied in with Michel Foucault’s ideas of power that demonstrates how power is retained by the state and the monarch through the creation of certain normative roles of sexuality such as the marriage and the family (Foucault 2002, 3-15)4. The weight of balancing the norms of conventional society was placed upon the young shoulders of Joan. While analyzing her great achievements, one must never lose track of the fact that she was martyred at the age of nineteen. At such a young age, she had already set a standard that could then be emulated by women of the following generations. 3. Beauvoir, Simone de. (2000). The Second Sex. New York: Vintage. Print. 4-8. 4. Foucault, Michel. (2002). The History of Sexuality: Vol. -I. New York: Penguin. Print. 3-15. Another reason as to why Joan was considered to be fit to lead the campaign was the fact that the people of France believed that she was sent by God for the purpose of leading them (Fraiou 2000, 2)5. This sanction by religion went a long way in ensuring that Joan was able to lead the French despite being a woman. This sanction was given by the theologians who were the advisers of Charles VII at this point of time. It was thus religion that helped her to survive the initial doubts that people may have had regarding her. The legacy that survives of her too is one that looks at her role as a religious warrior. This disregards her role as a person who led to a critique of certain aspects of religion that were oppressive to women. The rigid roles that were prescribed to women as a part of religion were changed to a certain extent through the efforts of Joan of Arc in the field of military advances. The importance of this lies in the fact that she was able to circumvent conventional notions of religion through religion itself. Her visions then became something which had an authority over and above the conventional frameworks of the church. What was most important in this regard is the upsurge of popular support that Joan was able to garner. This was partly due to the fact that the story of her daring journey to meet the Dauphin had become very famous. Apart from this, the story of her visions and the divine sanction that she had received from god had become very famous across France5. This along with the fact that there was no other hope that the French could look forward to at that point of time in history was another reason as to why Joan became a popular heroine in fifteenth century France. The death of Joan of Arc at the age of nineteen is one of the most tragic and cruel incidents in the history of mankind. After leading a nation to a state of near-freedom, she was burnt at the stake through the use of faulty theological logic. Her position as a powerful woman also prevented Charles VII from intervening in the process of her release. As a result, she was left 5. Fraiou, Deborah A. (2000). Joan of Arc: The Early Debate. Woodbridge: Boydell Press. Print. 2. at the mercy of people against whom she had fought battles. Here she was made to wear the clothes that were considered feminine. She was then raped by an English lord, which led to her changing her style of dressing to a more masculine one. This presents to an observer the plight that women found themselves in during the English society in the fifteenth century. One must also remember that this is the same nation that set out scarcely a century later to ‘civilize’ the rest of the world. One is able to gauge the hypocrisy that is inherent in such missions while looking at history. It can then also be said that the project of exhuming the history of Joan of Arc is not one that is to be faulted. It is a mission that can be used to build a history of the conditions that women of great merit and talent found themselves in at certain points of time in history. As far as the feminist project is concerned, figures such as Joan of Arc are extremely inspirational and to a certain extent, necessary. The legacy of Joan of Arc also needs to be examined during an analysis of her importance as far as history is concerned. Popular representations of Joan of Arc have sometimes tended to represent her in feminine terms, accentuating the feminine nature of her dresses and posture. This is a wrong representation of the woman. Such attempts represent conservative efforts at presenting her in a less radical light than what her efforts deserve. Joan of Arc was a person who challenged conventional notions of femininity and Christian notions of the same. As such, she enabled a rethinking in later ages of the roles that women are supposed to lay in the society. She played the same role that somebody like Rani Laxmibai played in India during the nineteenth century. How ahead of her times she was is thus, something that students of history need to take into consideration while preparing an analysis of her. Representations in literature such as the one that was made by George Bernard Shaw focused on the complexity of the religious discourse that Joan of Arc initiated during her trial. The image of an illiterate girl standing up to learned theologians and answering questions which had not been answered ever was a blow to conventions of patriarchy that would not even allow women to be a part of the clergy. This was a major event during a time when the Bible was not even accessible to a majority of the population in Europe or elsewhere. The arguments that were presented by Joan were even before the advent of humanism as a philosophy that revolutionized the operations of religion as a social institution. Joan of Arc shall remain for a very long time as one of the most inspirational figures for the movement of feminism. She presents a figure who had changed the way the society perceived its own institutions such as femininity and religion. She also represents a character from history who had managed to lead an army and have a profound impact upon the history of an entire continent. Joan of Arc has been accepted as one of those people who have managed to change stereotypes and also change the ways in which later movements would be affected. She can thus, be called a true revolutionary who changed the way gender is understood. References Pernoud Marie-Veronique Clin, Regine. (1999). Joan of Arc: Her Story. Tr. Jeremy duQuesnay Adams. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Print. 9-11. Warner, Marina. (1981). Joan of Arc: The Image of Female Heroism. California: University of California Press. Print. 140. Fraiou, Deborah A. (2000). Joan of Arc: The Early Debate. Woodbridge: Boydell Press. Print. 2. Foucault, Michel. (2002). The History of Sexuality: Vol. -I. New York: Penguin. Print. 3-15. Beauvoir, Simone de. (2000). The Second Sex. New York: Vintage. Print. 4-8. Read More