Joan Of Arc Character Analysis

Joan of Arc as a Woman
Joan of Arc is a historical woman in which we as students, historians, and people in general have tried to understand. Some people know her as the woman who heard voices, or was burned at the stake, or maybe as the young girl who lead the French soldiers to a win over the English. Although she may be known for all of the above, the image of Joan that I would like to analyze is she as a woman. Different stories of Joan have different depictions of her in her womanhood. For example, in Mary Gordon’s Joan of Arc, Joan is seen as a strong virgin girl who is naïve but powerful and is ultimately untouchable. In addition, in Jean Anouilh’s The Lark, Joan is seen as a flirty, desirable and sassy young girl who does what she needs to get her way. The Trial of Joan of Arc is another text in which Joan is depicted. In this text she is seen as …show more content…
These differences leave historians and students left questioning exactly what kind of personality traits Joan showed throughout her short life. The details of Joan’s womanhood are a bit different whereas; Gordon portrays her as a strong virgin girl of power, Anouilh believes she is a desirable and sassy young girl, and The Trial Of Joan of Arc explains her to be dramatic and stern. Though all these different ways Joan may have acted can shift the tone of the work, there are also the direct similarities that are most always expressed. The attributes in which are consistent throughout the three texts analyzed are Joan’s radically different acts as well as her extreme take on faith. These similarities make it so that readers can assume that Joan was in fact both radical and very intrigued with her faith. With this being said, the image of Joan of Arc’s womanhood is changed throughout different texts, which leave us wondering exactly who she was, although she is ultimately widely known for her extreme faith and radical actions as a