Joan of Arc Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Joan of Arc - Research Paper Example They again felt that they would be able to hold on to the sovereignty of their nation and have their own king on the throne. Joan of Arc lived her life according to what she felt was the dictate of God. What she did was based on the visions that she had when she was a child living in a village of France. Her rise to power in France was thus meteoric. Her death however, was equally tragic. A gruesome death at the hands of the English Church was hardly what she deserved after the pains that she took for the sake of her motherland, France. Following her death, her memory was recovered and she has now entered into public consciousness through literature and various other sources. This paper shall seek to understand her position as a woman in the fifteenth century and attempt to answer the question as to whether this position affected the different choices that Joan of Arc took. Joan of Arc’s entry into French politics is looked upon with great surprise by many who are familiar wit h the condition that women found themselves during the fifteenth century in France and for that matter, anywhere in the world. This is not a pointer to the immense clout that Joan of Arc wielded at this point, right at the beginning of her career, but to the condition that France found herself in. ... She however, looked at the situation where the Count of Dunois had led France to and sought to reverse it. The siege of Orleans had started to look like a hopeless affair as far as the French were concerned. The siege which had continued for over seven months had started to look ominous from the French point of view. This condition was changed to a large extent with the point where Joan of Arc enters the history of the Hundred Years War. Her journey to meet the Dauphin was the catalyst behind the revival of the French hopes as far as the continuance of their resistance was concerned (Pernoud 1999, 9-11)1. This journey was an uncommon one for any woman to undertake and this was the beginning of her breaking various stereotypes that are often assigned to women. This was a breaking of a barrier of customs that did not have such a precedent. Joan of Arc thus set an example for those who were to follow her, providing them with an example of initiative. In the twenty first century, there a re many women who are lauded for their political initiative and courage. One needs to remember that Joan of Arc’s actions were taken in a conservative society where women were given much less freedom than they are in today’s society. This makes her achievement all the more praiseworthy. Calling her the â€Å"Ideal Androgyne†, Marina Warner talks of Joan’s transvestism2 (1981, 140). Wearing clothes that were traditionally worn by men was something that Joan had to resort to so as to protect herself from sexual advances by male soldiers of both camps. This points to the condition that women had to face in society at the point of time when Joan was active. The importance of this lies in the fact that even a person who was powerful in the larger 1. Pernoud