With Saint Joan, Shaw reached the height of his fame as a dramatist. In this play he distilled many of the ideas he had been trying to express in earlier works on the sublects of politics, religion and creative evolution. Fascinated by the story of Joan of Arc, but unhappy with the way she had traditionally been depicted, Shaw wanted to remove 'the whitewash which disfigures her beyond recognition'. He presents a realistic Joan: proud, intolerant, naive, foolhardy, always brave - a rebel who challenged the conventions and values of her day.
