Joan la Pucelle: The Woman England Could Not Defeat

Joan la Pucelle is Shakespeare's version of Joan of Arc, and it is not a flattering one. She is portrayed as cunning rather than holy, a peasant girl who claims divine inspiration but whose power comes from rhetorical skill and battlefield courage. The English dismiss her as a witch.

She is also the play's most interesting character by some distance. She defeats the English repeatedly, she converts Burgundy back to the French cause with a single speech, and she argues her own case with intelligence right to the end.

Her execution scene, where she denies her father and claims pregnancy to delay death, is uncomfortable. Whether Shakespeare intends us to believe her claims or dismiss them is left open.