nized. This need not be relayed to the audience, especially the audience of Shaw's day, given the fact that Joan achieved sainthood only four years prior to the play's first performances.Following the modern gentleman's announcement, all the characters pay homage to Joan. However, when she threatens to return to earth, they are all terrified by such an idea. Shaw's point here may be that the world is never ready to accept the truly divine. By stressing this point so overtly, Shaw is beating the audience over the head, once again undercutting the subtlety of the rest of the play.Shaw's repetition in the epilogue of the content and themes contained in Saint Joan, combined with the insertion of purely historical facts lacking in dramatic relevance, is a flaw to what is otherwise a brilliant play. Shaw's need to explain his work, as evidenced by his lengthy prefaces to many plays, most likely compelled him to includethe epilogue. However, the explicit explanations contained in the epilogue lessen the power of the action that precedes it. As a result, an audience is likely to come away from the performance easily able to conclude what Shaw's intentions were, rather than coming to the ideas that Shaw wanted to present by reflecting on the events of the play....
