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Joan la Pucelle, whom we know today as “Joan of Arc,” is a somewhat ambiguous figure in Shakespeare’s play. When we first meet her, she claims to be a lowly shepherd’s daughter who has been graced with visions from Christ’s mother, the Virgin Mary. She initially impresses the Dauphin Charles by identifying him without having met him before, then by besting him in single combat. Charles places Joan at the head of his army, which she leads with a fierceness that quickly earns her respect among all the French, including the most skeptical lords in Charles’s entourage. Joan proves to be a canny military strategist. Her coldblooded pragmatism frequently undercuts the old-world expectations of Lord Talbot, whose commitment to the conventions of chivalry ultimately causes him to lose his edge. Her evident power over this great general is a cause for celebration among the French, just as it’s a cause of resentment among the English. The English are particularly perturbed by Joan’s troublesome gender status. As a woman, she shouldn’t be dressed in a man’s armor performing a role so closely associated with male honor. And yet, she consistently shows herself to be a match for any man on the battlefield.
Although Shakespeare depicts Joan as a worthy warrior in the first four acts of the play, she becomes increasingly problematic in the final act. The first signs of trouble appear in act 5, scene 3, where we see her conjure figures that the stage directions refer to as “fiends” (SD 5.3.7). Prior to this scene, her English enemies have frequently referred to Joan as a witch, but Shakespeare has not portrayed her as an actual sorceress. Here, however, we witness demonic figures whose apparent reality confirms her as a conjurer. That said, since the spirits she conjures don’t respond to her pleas, it’s also possible to interpret the “fiends” as figments of her imagination, in which case she isn’t a witch, but rather a madwoman. Either way, Joan’s status in the play suddenly becomes more ambiguous. This ambiguity intensifies once she’s captured and begins making contradictory claims about herself. First, she claims to be nobly born, despite having previously affirmed that she was “by birth a shepherd’s daughter” (1.3.51). She then claims to be a virgin, only to change course and say she’s actually pregnant. At this point, desperate to save herself, Joan appears willing to say anything. In a significant deviation from other accounts of Joan of Arc’s end, Shakespeare sends her to a dishonorable death.
