Stepping Stone

Samuel Clemens

Joan of Arc “is the only person, of either sex, who has ever held supreme command of the military forces of a nation at the age of seventeen,” (Alden 1).

A quote from the introduction of my favourite book, Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc represents everything I strive to be as a person. That said, I’m certainly biased in my choosing this quote to kick off the fresh start to WarriorAfterthoughts.

If you don’t know the tale behind the Patron Saint of Soldiers, I recommend you discover it as she’s a great figure for anyone to look up to, especially in this day and age. I enlisted at eighteen. While at training, thre wasn’t much in the way of a weird ‘battle of the sexes,’ that happened when I came back to college to finish my BA in English Literature. Suddenly, it was either I was too masculine or too feminine to be soldier. I generally get between a 270-300 on my PT test; I enjoy working out. However, I’m generally wearing dresses and skirts and pearls and heels anytime I’m not in uniform. On top of that, I was President of the Lutheran Student Fellowship. My congregation was behind me as were those in the club. Still, people would stop me and ask how I could be a Christian and a female soldier, because ‘of course’ you can’t be both. You know, just ignore the same Scripture that has females stabbing people in the head with tent pikes and females founding Churches and whatnot. So, Joan of Arc represented, to me, something to emulate. She was a general, a top soldier, but she also is shown enjoying feminine wiles. She isn’t vilified for ‘abandoning her sex.’

In this age where everything is sexualized, Twain’s Joan is shown as an individual and an innocent in a radically sinful world. She retains her womanhood vocally and uses her wits to navigate the world of French courts to keep her soldiers strong and motivated. She’s a strong and independent woman that uses her faith to her advantage, dying a martyr’s death, and in death, motivating her troops to victory. She presents a strong balance between the feminine and masculine, a balance today’s society seems to dislike.

Yours truly,

Estelle

P.S. – You’ll note the citation as Jean Frances Alden; this is because Samuel Clemens originally published the work under such name so the work wouldn’t be criticized as un-Twain-like. It was anyway due to its un-satirical nature and the serious manner in which the novel is written.