Conclusion

If Twain is correct to highlight the unstable ground of the moral and political categories motivating religious believers, political actors, and modern glory seekers like Joan, then his novel would also appear to call into question those categories that matter most to his readers and even to Twain himself. This concluding chapter endeavors to save the reader from the despair that such instability might inspire. It does this by highlighting the role that literary creations play in producing a stability which allows human nature to flourish in a world which seems to storm against such possibilities. Mark Twain’s best book, Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, can do this because it recovers a view of human freedom that is both pre-modern and pre-Christian in character. Twain’s engagement with the classic texts of political philosophy suggest to his readers that a truer measure of human freedom can be achieved by taking seriously the soul’s perduring concern for justice, an enterprise that must also make the study of politics its foremost preoccupation.