Analysis of the Epilogue in George Bernard Shaw s Saint Joan Seminar: GB Modern Drama Spring 2014 Prepared by: Meriem Jerbi March 10 th, 2014
Reading George Bernard Shaw s Saint Joan requires a certain amount of attention to the Epilogue. Often referred to as a tragedy without villains, Shaw preferred to call it A Chronicle Play in Six Scenes and an Epilogue which means that the latter goes in parallel with all the other scenes put together and its presence is as important as the presence of the six scenes. Within this position, Jack Crawford argues that if [he was] to find something too obvious and interesting in the play, [he] should choose the epilogue (179). Therefore, this paper is meant to delve into the functional and dramatic features of the epilogue in Saint Joan and its contribution to the meaningfulness of the others scenes. The first part is going to cast light on a definition of an epilogue. A close account of its function in Saint Joan will be the focus of the second part. Finally, a third part aspires to deal with Shaw s mastery concerning the dramatic structure of the epilogue of his masterpiece. Before venturing into the analysis of the play s Epilogue, it is quite insightful to highlight the general meaning of an epilogue in order to set the framework of this paper. Relying on The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theories, three different meanings of an epilogue can be distinguished. For instance, the former can be a short speech to be delivered at the end of the play. It often makes some graceful and witty comment on what has happened and asks for the approval, if not the indulgence of the audience, the end of a fable, where a moral is pointed or the concluding section or paragraph of any literary work, sometimes added as a summary. What is worthy of note in relation to the epilogue in Saint Joan is that these definitions can be highly applied on the former s functionality. On the one hand, it is short compared to the other scenes since it is presented as a dream sequence that occurs at the end of the play. On the other hand, this epilogue orients the reader and asks for an afterthought.
In order to analyze the function of the epilogue in Saint Joan, a focal elaboration of some views of critics concerning the role of this projection into the future should be made. For instance, Larson and Crawford assume that one of the reasons for Shaw s setting the Epilogue in 1456 is to show that [Joan s] official national rehabilitation is a political act for the part of the king to reinforce his own prestige (92). This idea is reinforced by Nicholas Greene who assumes that Shaw s message is clear: those who rule society are never ready to accept the moral genius who would change society even though that genius is a Saint (25). More to the point, the playwright s choice of an epilogue may be read as an attempt by Shaw to foreground the idea that Without it, the play would be only a sensational tale of a girl who was burnt; leaving spectators plunged in horror, despairing of humanity (Note by the Author). As a point of fact, this projection into the future is meant to stir the reader s emotional identification with Joan and to make clear that her history did not windup with her death but began with it. One particularity of the dramatic elements of the epilogue in Saint Joan may be featured on the level of what Bernard Shaw has been known for the creator of unique dramatic matrixes. From the very onset of this epilogue, we are introduced to a very ironic stage direction that looks like a good humored joke at the expense of the foolish Charles (Nforbin 268). For instance, Charles is portrayed as an immature, self centered individual, shrewd in certain matters... with limited intellectual capacity (268). To further approximate this idea, Charles is fascinated by the immoral pictures found in Fouquet s Boccaccio. The point here is that his insensitivity to art is meant to tell us how he will respond to Joan s proposal that she wants to return to life (Tyson). Moreover, the epilogue gives the impression that Shaw felt a need for a change of mood. It is consciously intended to be humorous. For example, the soldier, who made a cross of sticks for Joan when she was on the stake, appears in the epilogue. He is
released from hell for one day annually because of this single deed but he s free until midnight. He is cheerful and he reports that hell is not after all a place of torment, he has Tip top company: emperors and popes and kings of all sorts (Shaw 152). To sum up, this dream sequence plays an important role for both characters and readers as it functions as a thematic matrix that links the whole play and it is highly significant in Shaw s reinterpretation of Joan s history. All in all, it is a scene where Shaw expressed his evolutionary creed, and it explains how The second rate dramatist always begins at the beginning of his play, the first rate begins in the middle and the genius begins at the end (Our Theatres, I: 284).
Works cited list Primary Sources: Shaw, George Bernard. Saint Joan: A Chronicle Play in Six Scenes and an Epilogue. London: Penguin Books, 1946. Secondary Sources: Crawford, Jack. Broadway Is Inspired. Cuddon, J.A. The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theories. 4 th ed. London: Penguin Books, 1998 Larson, Gale K, MaryAnn K. Crawford, ed. The annual of Bernard Shaw Studies VOL 22. Pennsylvania: UP, 2002. Nforbin, Gerald Niba. Bernard Shaw s Reconfiguration of Dramatic Genres as Force-fields in Socio-cultural and New Aesthetic Criticism. 2009 Nicholas Greene, Bernard Shaw A critical View. London; Mackmillan, 1984 Shaw, George Bernard. Our Theatres in the Nineties. London; Constable, 1931. Tyson, Brian. The story of Shaw s Saint Joan. Kingston: McGill-Queen s UP, 1982