Joan of Arc (post 3): On Not Reading Mark Twain’s Novel about a Woman who Heard Voices

I had planned to read Joan of Arc by Mark Twain (1), especially since Twain’s appended essay says that Joan of Arc “is easily and by far the most extraordinary person the human race has ever produced” (1, p. 452). He says that her “personality is one to be reverently studied, loved, and marveled at, but not to be wholly understood and accounted for by even the most searching analysis” (including his) (1, p. 441). So I hesitated to read a novel by an author who admitted that he didn’t understand the protagonist.

Instead, I will apply what I know as a psychiatrist about people like Joan of Arc, who hear voices.

If I think that the person and their voices sound like rational people, I inquire about the voices and try to engage them in conversation. If I am wrong, and the person and voices are actually psychotic, the person may react like I’m the crazy one for trying to relate to the voices. However, if I’m right, and these are voices of nonpsychotic alternate personalities in nonpsychotic multiple personality, then the person will often, initially, reject my inquiry, but for a different reason: that it’s an invasion of privacy. Persons with undiagnosed multiple personality usually consider their voices a very private matter. And that is how Joan of Arc reacted when people inquired about her voices.

1. Mark Twain. (Personal Recollections of) Joan of Arc [1896]. San Francisco, Ignatius Press, 1989/2007.