Judging Joan

Following the discussion of Twain’s literary romance in Chapter Eight, Chapter Nine begins by distinguishing Twain’s trial of Joan from the historical records of her trial and execution. Attention here is also paid to the unique structure of the trial, one that differs in important ways from the rest of the novel. Most importantly, Twain frames our reading of the trial in terms drawn from the texts of classical political philosophy, like Plato’s Republic and Apology, terms which invite us to reflect on Joan and her project from a pre-modern and pre-Christian perspective. The second section of this chapter then turns to the first prong of the Church’s prosecution of Joan which sought to prove her allegedly divine voices were in fact demonic. Given Joan’s well-established intelligence and statesmanship, her trial and execution read more as a deliberate effort to engineer her own martyrdom, one whose apparent injustice would cement her glorious reputation and advance the political project she initiated.